Is Kings of War 'Warhammer light' after all!?

[Seelenhaendler]

Kings of War is light on the wallet, light on rules (which both is a good thing), light on design (debatable) and light on tactics... really?

When I stop by here in the Mantic forum I really miss the threads about tactics and strategies. I am aware that the game is more or less still in development but why are there almost exclusively threads about new army lists and game design and on the other hand virtually no threads about tactics?

Apart from the chess clock, the rules are nothing revolutionary and their elegance lies solely in their simplicity, imho. However the fact that the rules are simple doesn't mean that the game is light on tactics, but it also doesn't automatically make it a tactically challenging game either.

The games I played so far have all been quick and interesting, mainly because there was something new to explore. But I fear that when the newness fades away that there is not much left that would make me want to play the game. This is mainly because the game feels shallow in the way that there seems to be a lack of options, i.e. there is not much you can do and the game boils down to basically move+attack. Apart from flanking and target allocation there doesn't seem to be a lot of tactical decisions to be made.

I know that KoW has a huge following with avid fans of the system. So do a bit of advertising and let me (and all the other players that are still on the fence) know what the beauty of KoW is and what your favorite tactics are. I would really love to hear what makes the game so appealing for you players out there. And if its only because other competing systems are worse or you like the simplicity, that's fine too. Although that wouldn't make me any more interested in KoW

[mattjgilbert]

The game is all about tactics. I proposed starting a tactica thread in a different post. I'd like to see one but I think the problem is that people are still getting to grips with it. If something is started I'm sure the discussion will snowball.

The game certainly is not shallow. Not being bogged down in rules and rule exceptions means you can free your mind to concentrate solely on the game and the tactics. I think when people realise that you'll start to see the discussions happening. Remember too that the army lists will get fleshed out and the number of lists will be increased – all adding to the options you may currently see as “missing”.

What you do not see on here is the endless bickering about rules and lack of FAQs and language interpretation, flaming and 100 page long threads about why X and Z mean Y cannot happen except on a Tuesday. That's a good thing

[scarletsquig]

When I stop by here in the Mantic forum I really miss the threads about tactics and strategies.

The game is massively tactical. It's just not very popular at the moment, hardly anyone plays it.

You don't see many people posting about the tactics of say, Epic Armageddon or Warmaster on here either. Doesn't mean they aren't excellent gaming systems.

I'd like to make a longer post, but... I just made a massive post over on dakka with exactly the same content so I'll refer you to that instead.

Just for once, I would like someone to start a thread in this forum that isn't openly hostile... you could have made the title "How tactical is KoW?", rather than calling it a inferior version of warhammer.

I don't mind giving advice, but it's very tiring when people come into this forum, saying that mantic sucks, then demanding that we prove them wrong.

Frankly, it makes me much less likely to want to bother with a response.

This isn't just directed at you personally (and in fact, your post is one of the more reasonable ones, since you've actually given the game a few plays first), just a general comment about the sort of threads that tend to get started on here. There's been a ton of people enraged at GW coming on here lately and then getting enraged at mantic too when they find out that the company is, in fact, *not* a cheaper GW clone.

[golembane]

While the rules are written to cut out all the fat (Like various magic and whatnot being condensed down to Zap and Heal for the most part), the tactics are amazingly deep.

The easiest to come to grips (for me anyhow) with outside the obvious flank and rear charge maneuvers, is using a sturdy unit as a tarpit that can handle itself in a charge, backed up by a breath weapon equipped war engine or two. This is one, that wasn't obvious to me at first, but became extremely useful for my Lizardmen (army list is called Reptilemen, I know, but habits die hard).

I even wrote a thread asking about breath weapon equipped war engines since at first, and because of my Warhammer mindset, I wasn't sure exactly why it would be of any use. Someone mentioned the fact you push back the attacker if they fail to rout you, and it immediately made sense. Little things like that just takes a while to really 'click', and I would have to imagine I wasn't the only one confused as to the purpose of those types of war engines.

As people become more accustomed, more and more tactics will start jumping out at folks. With my Lizardmen KoW force now done, I am going to bring my Mantic Elven force up to 1500 points, and expect them to play far differently.

[Llew]

Part of the lack of discussion is that general tactics are too amorphous. They're too based on what the current situation is, what the terrain is, opponent deployment, etc.

There aren't combos and synergies, or "killer lists" or a lot of factors that come in from WFB or Warmachine. The truth of the matter is that every game is going to play differently, and beyond some vague generalizations, there's not a lot to be gleaned from reading about it.

It's much easier for someone to post a battle report and then discuss what happened in it than to discuss broad tactica like you frequently see for WFB. Most of the tactics that show up in a game of KoW are organic -- they arise directly out of the situation and are intuitive. They are the kinds of things that would show up on a battlefield. Most of the tactics that you'd see in WFB are based entirely on the interaction of the game rules, and they frequently would be opaque to anyone who didn't game the rules. They're not "battlefield tactics" but "WFB tactics". For example, the famous "charge redirection" of parking throwaway units at angles so that a successful charge could still result in your opponent's unit being out of combat for a couple rounds.

There aren't discussions of tactics because, by and large there is no need for discussion of tactics. You just play the game and the tactics change and develop through experience.

[rodmillard]

Another reason the Mantic Tactica threads are thin on the ground is that, unlike most GW offerings, the army lists are very well balanced - both internally and against each other.

There is no need for a 30 page thread debating which out of Skeletons and Ghouls are the better choice in KoW - they are both equally valid choices, and synergise well with each other: the balance in your army between the two comes down to personal choice as much as anything else (whereas that very question rears its ugly head about once a month in the VC tactics thread over on the WFB forums).

Equally, there is no unit or special character so broken that it spawns millions of posts asking "how do I kill Morgoth The Faceless?" Any unit can be beaten by any army (you may have to commit a quarter of your forces to the job, but it can be done). EDIT - just saw Neldoreth's thread: the exception to this is the elf army, which is widely agreed to be undercosted compared to the others and therefore hard to beat; however the "fat" list for the elves including their new units should be out later this year, which will hopefully fix the problem

Don't look at the fact that there are more tactica threads for warhamster as a good thing - the fact that we don't NEED tactica threads for KoW speaks volumes about the simplicity of the game design and the quality of the army lists.

[Seelenhaendler]

...snip
Just for once, I would like someone to start a thread in this forum that isn't openly hostile... you could have made the title "How tactical is KoW?", rather than calling it a inferior version of warhammer.

I don't mind giving advice, but it's very tiring when people come into this forum, saying that mantic sucks, then demanding that we prove them wrong.
...snip

I didn't intend to offend anyone. The title was chosen just to get your attention
Also, calling Kings of War 'Warhammer light' isn't an offence by definition. If the 'light' means that all the fat and unnecessary stuff is trimmed of, you actually get to a lean and definitive ruleset, which in my book is a compliment
But I know where you're coming from and some of the poster around here can be really annoying. So no offence taken!

Thanks for all the comments so far.
Just playing along like Llew proposes, doesn't sound like a tactical game to me. Although I do understand that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy (or how the saying goes) there have to be some basic concepts that occur repeatedly and can be tackled in a specific way.

Golembanes thoughts about the use of breath weapons is such a concept, that really helps to play better or rather use those pieces to their full effect. While this tactic can be very powerful, I would be more interested in ways to counter it. Ranged attacks could be a solution to this problem but if the opponent knows how to shield them, it could get tricky.

Keep those post coming and let me know why you think KoW is such a great game!

[Llew]

Well, one really basic tactic is never take a one-on-one fight when you can get a two-on-one. Get your wins fast and make your opponent start reacting to you. But that's not really terribly enlightening. That's because the challenging -- the tactical part -- comes in how your opponent tries to make you not want to do that.

Similarly, the traditional WFB line stretching across the board isn't always useful. You want to concentrate force and start getting your kills in quickly. Every chance you give your opponent to strike back is a chance to lose. Again, this isn't terribly hard to come up with.

The tactical challenge depends entirely on your opponent and his maneuvers. It doesn't depend on combos and gotcha gimmicks. It doesn't depend on minutiae for "variety". Screening tactics, weighted attacks, wave attacks are all useful tactics. But there really is no "sure fire" tactic. It's just not that kind of a game.

The game could benefit from some scenario-driven play which would dramatically alter what you did, how you did it and where. And that may come more later on. After all, the game is less than a year old.

[scarletsquig]

Think of KoW as more like boxing than WHFB, which is more like wrestling.

In other words, whereas in warhammer it's all about locking units into place and grinding them down, in KoW there is no locking a unit in place, you have to throw your punches in your turn then wait and receive punches in the enemy turn. This often means that picking your targets carefully and ganging up on them to put as much damage on them as possible is often the best course of action.

[lord marcus]

Think of KoW as more like boxing than WHFB, which is more like wrestling.

In other words, whereas in warhammer it's all about locking units into place and grinding them down, in KoW there is no locking a unit in place, you have to throw your punches in your turn then wait and receive punches in the enemy turn. This often means that picking your targets carefully and ganging up on them to put as much damage on them as possible is often the best course of action.

That actually made a lot of sense. good point SS.

[InsideReticle]

I understand the point OP is trying to make, but when I read Warhammer tactics threads, 90% of it is list building and combos.

[Hellebore]

Unfortunately this is due more to the common misconception in the community of what 'tactics' are due to GW's rules relying on the aforementioned list building and combos.

Then they conflate lots of posts about this stuff and think - lots of tactics, which isn't the case at all.

Hellebore

[mattjgilbert]

Agreed - too much about WHFB is about finding killer combos and one-upmanship when list building rather than actually thinking about real tactics during the game.

As mentioned above, KoW lists are more balanced and while you still need to think about you combinations of units (rather than combinations of items and gear within units) which will support each other on the field, the real thinking is shifted to the game itself.

KoW frees you to think about tactics during the game and not get bogged down with FAQs and too many rules (which while I don't want to continue bashing WHFB because I've really enjoyed playing it down the years became a chore more than fun when playing WHFB recently for us). Games are also a LOT faster: about twice as fast in our experience for similar sized armies.

KoW is fluid so making errors in the deployment of units in your force is not so game defining as in WHFB. The way you set up and move your army as a whole supporting machine is going to be important and you will be able to react faster in KoW. The placement of individual units is less of an issue if you need to quickly move them elsewhere. One of the things about WHFB often mentioned is that "the game is won with deployment". Sure deployment is important but it shouldn't pre-determine the outcome before turn 1!

[orlanth1000]

I read some where that either Alessio or Ronnie saying there maybe expansions for KoW, such as magic for example.

I interrupted this as they may make an Advanced for KoW for people who like thinks a little more in depth.

[Korraz]

Think of KoW as more like boxing than WHFB, which is more like wrestling.

In other words, whereas in warhammer it's all about locking units into place and grinding them down, in KoW there is no locking a unit in place, you have to throw your punches in your turn then wait and receive punches in the enemy turn. This often means that picking your targets carefully and ganging up on them to put as much damage on them as possible is often the best course of action.

The similarities go even deeper.
WHFB is mostly flashes, show, gimmicks and fake.

[lord marcus]

I read some where that either Alessio or Ronnie saying there maybe expansions for KoW, such as magic for example.

I interrupted this as they may make an Advanced for KoW for people who like thinks a little more in depth.

There is depth to KoW. Most people don't see it because of its 12 page rulebook and simplified magic.

Its not about the depth of the magic rules, its how you apply them and when that can win you the game.

[golembane]

As Marcus said.

You can heal units through druid chants, ritual blood rites, raising fresh recruits of the newly dead, ect... don't care how exactly its done, as long as Heal lets you know what is happening. How exactly you go about doing the healing doesn't add anything to the overall game, just the fact you ARE healing something. Same thing with the Zap spell, what exactly is hurting the enemy is up to you, the important thing is the fact you are hurting the enemy.

[Marlow]

I prefer KoW to WHFB. The main issue is getting other people to give it a try. I think the game needs a few more official army lists so players can use their warhammer figures to proxy with. I use my Mantic mini's to proxy for warhammer!

[mattjgilbert]

You shouldn't need to wait for official lists to start playing the game. There are plenty of unofficial ones available for exactly this reason :-)

[the_corvus]

The reason you don't see many discussion threads about actual tactics, as opposed to combos and list building, is that GW wargamers in general don't know any tactics except Refused Flank™ (seriously this must be in every single "Tactics for army X" that GW have ever done, and makes up most of the tactical content). This is especially true due to the latest editions which have tried to remove terrain as a factor so that you can get to pushing your battle lines together quicker.

Without ridiculous special rules, overpowered combos, and heavy terrain rules* line of battle games are just basic Sun Tzu stuff. Send your strong units against his weak units, turn a flank, profit.

And that is realistic because prior to the modern microchip battlefield any plan more complex then that was doomed to failure. Successful generals of LOB wars mainly let the army run itself and waited until they saw a chance to send in their reserves and break the enemy battle line.

* The tactical complexity that LOB generals faced had to do with uncertain terrain, easily broken troops (the bog standard Empire soldier is a Space Marine compared to the RL equivalent), and fog-of-war. Unless your rules simulate those details the tactics are pretty simple. Which is why I am playing Warmaster derived games as that system doesn't treat your soldiers as automata that carry out your orders perfectly.