Mantic have recently released their first starter set for their new title Kings of War: Champions, a spinoff game from their main rank and flank fantasy game franchise Kings of War. It is focused on smaller conflicts, intended to be playable in a shorter time and on a smaller table, something super appealing to both beginners and the many of us for whom a giant 120+ model rank and flank army can be slightly intimidating a project to take on.
The core differentiating factor of this offering compared to their previous Kings of War Ambush line is that each force is a preconfigured list, consisting of a champion and 3 units from their respective forces, similar to the likes of Games Workshop’s Warhammer Age of Sigmar Spearhead. This means no force building customization but provides the opportunity for simpler, tighter balancing and an easy escape from decision paralysis.
Mantic were kind enough to send along the box for us to have a look at, allowing us to see how well it fulfills those promising concepts and if this box is going to fill that niche as the perfect introductory product for the genre as well as a route onwards into the larger full game of Kings of War proper.
The Box
This Faith and Fury starter box includes the Basilean and Abyssal forces along with the rules and accessories you’ll need to start playing. Seemingly this is a perfect introductory product requiring very little else before you can start playing.
When the box is first opened you’re greeted by a poorly organised pile of mismatched sprues, loose mdf bases and scattered other elements. This is obviously perfectly fine for an adult who’s already an experienced wargamer who knows exactly what they’re getting into but I could see this first experience being less welcoming to a newer or younger gamer who’s dipped their toes into the likes of Games Workshop boxes which tend to have more organised experiences, with a neat stack of uniformly sized sprues in an appropriately sized box section, with a separator keeping the other elements such as books and accessories safe and neatly packed.
One odd element is the fact some of the sprues are bagged, specifically the older feeling infantry kits but not the newer kits produced by Archon, this makes for a strange first impression that left me questioning if these are filled from old leftover stock or the likes, this doesn’t impact the value or anything but starts to build the feeling of being a bit of a slap dash product.
The Book
The included rulebook is a 64 page softcover, keeping it nice and light without feeling like a flimsy little pamphlet. The book is pretty great all together, the rules section clocks in at just 35 pages including scenarios, making it pretty quick to read through and not too much to hunt around for when needing to double check how something works. The rules are well organised and laid out, simple to follow with plenty of diagrams for explaining anything that could benefit from that extra visual aid. It also includes a nice large section at the back introducing the world and factions of the Kings of War universe, useful for anyone coming in with awareness of the general fantasy tropes but not with the specifics of this setting.
The only thing I feel would be an improvement is perhaps a small quick reference page for just some of the terrain specific rules and break down of different move action’s specific restrictions as these were things we had to flick back and forth to a few times, although even then it’s so simple to flick between the pages to check those things.
Accessories
The accessory inclusions are mostly great, a pair of large thick die cut card sheets provide nice solid double sided 2d terrain pieces along with plenty of tokens for tracking damage and victory points along with tools for checking facing arcs and measuring
. They’ve also included 12 nice square-edged dice and a double sided folded paper battlemat.
Two issues do however spring forth quiet quickly, firstly that the included range ruler is only 6 inches, in a game where both 12 inch shooting and movements must be measured, this isn’t the end of the world, it’s easy enough to measure two sets of 6 or to use a tape measure if you have one at home but it definitely feels like a less optimal choice for a box that’s meant to be a fairly all in one introduction. Secondly the game includes 12 dice but the rulebook specifically suggests bringing 30 dice, with a number of situations resulting in you potentially rolling up to 24 attacks, which can be done in 2 batches; again this isn’t a huge issue but seems to continue to speak to a slight disconnect between game’s design and the reality of the production box.
The included battlemat is a really nice thick paper that definitely feels like it will hold up well, with a well printed and high resolution image of a wintery battlefield on one side and a highland battlefield on the other, however it does have the slight downside from being such a thick heavy paper stock, the folds were pretty hard to get to lay flat, although it can be fixed by ironing it under a thick towel, this again isn’t a huge deal but continues the trend of slight friction points.
Models
The models are for me probably the biggest stain upon this box and the first element that would risk me considering fully not recommending people purchase. The beautifully sculpted and cast resin champions, the Basilean cavalry and Abyssal monstrous units are all crisp, finely detailed and easy to build, these sprues are also marked as having been produced by Archon in Poland. The issue comes when you reach the infantry models on both sides, which feel awful in comparison; softly detailed, fiddly to assemble and with unlabeled paired components, like arms meant to be used specifically together. This strange delta just leaves a super incongruous feeling that took a lot of steam out of my excitement when I got to them.
There are a few issues for assembly that might give some real pause to any newer gamers coming into this as a first box project; the instructions are vague, showing simply one exploded diagram of a model for each kit. This isn’t an issue for the aforementioned good kits, as these had numbers on the sprues which paired up the elements and made assembly a cinch — however the infantry kits frequently had elements such as paired arms that relied on some trial and error or lining up and seeing which arm looked the most right.
Secondly, the models come with just their multibases, which necessitated me providing painting bases to stick them too while I painted before transferring them to their final home, none of this is really hinted at in any way which may lead to a newer player simply gluing their models straight to the multibase and making the idea of ever painting them far far harder for themselves. This is slightly just a consequence of the basing structure the game uses but again just feels like it assumes a pre-existing familiarity with how to work with wargaming miniatures. The number of models supplied is also more than you actually need which can lead to some frustration if you simply assume that you are meant to use everything and try to fit everything onto the provided bases, for instance I struggled to fit more than seven or eight of the 10 basic abyssal demon infantry onto their base due to their running poses, large weapons and spread weapons.
The Game
The first thing to know about the gameplay is that it’s fast, even our first games were maybe 45 minute affairs, with ample amounts of that time spent consulting the rulebook to clarify terrain interactions, movement restrictions and the likes.
One of the reasons for this great speed is that similar to the larger Kings of War game, each player only has actions on their own turn, this means there’s very little reason to stop other than to ask an opponent what the stat of a unit is. As a consequence of this design the game would also work fairly well in a tournament setting where chess clocks can be easily used as there’s no waiting for responses or dice rolls.
After a few games if felt like we could blitz through a game in around 30 minutes without much issue, that’s not to say that it didn’t have depth however, there were still plenty of turns where we were weighing up multiple options, trying to predict how our opponent would react and what that would mean for our future turns. The only downside of this speed is that at points the game is perhaps a little too deadly, with a lucky nerve roll meaning a unit can just be removed from the table in just one single attack action with no interaction on your part as you’re not involved in even the nerve morale roll. That can hurt quite a lot when you only have 4 moving pieces in your force.
The game uses a system of “Orders”, applying each of three buffs specific to your faction to your non-champion units at the start of each turn, any of the order tokens can be instead reserved to use as a single die nerve reroll, essentially allowing you to give up any number of the buffs in order to massively increase your ability to cause an enemy unit to be removed from the table. The buffs felt fairly good for the most part although both sides felt like they had a correct option to swap out for a reroll each turn and the use of a set of rune style tokens that have to be translated is a bit fiddly, leading to constant questions of “Which buff is the B one?” in a way that felt bad to me.
Balance seemed mostly decent although the combination of slightly more useful faction orders and the very deadly shooting of the Basilean crossbow unit ended up making us both feel that the Basilean were probably the stronger of the two forces.
If you’re bringing another player in, I’d probably suggest giving that newer player the Basilean half of the box to play for that slight advantage along with having a more cleanly defined list of units with a simple set of a melee one, a ranged one and a cavalry one.
Moving Forward
After our four test Games we were both left with a feeling of wanting to expand into the larger game, filling that role better than our experience with spearhead which gave us more of a desire to grow wide, collecting more spearheads rather than specifically growing into larger Age of Sigmar games. Mantic facilitate a decent path with the Ambush starter boxes seeming to pair up well with what we have, pairing up with the units from this starter box to provide a pretty large core of a force at a really affordable price, we’ll have an article coming shortly with more knowledgeable players’ opinions on how best to grow from here, so keep your eyes open if you did buy in.
The paper mat is a fine place to start however when it comes to upgrading, It does have a slightly awkward size; being 42” by 24” or 3.5 feet by 2 feet, so once you’ve played a few times and maybe want to upgrade, you’re not going to be left with almost any options of the correct size with anything except the specific mat sold by mantic or having to mark out the play area on a larger mat. Due to games workshop standardising on their 22” by 30” cardstock game boards, a large number of companies do produce mats in 44” by 30”, which will fill in well, simply increasing deployment ranges by 3” on each side to compensate, however this is a point where it might have been smarter to simply follow the market leader and making it simple to capitalise on already available products.
Brin’s Thoughts
The box all together feels somewhat divided between brilliant choices and design, yet hampered by repeated instances of slight frictions and compromised choices.
I’m left feeling that this would be more great as a product to have a copy at a club or in the collection of a long time gamer, with the addition of two or three additional champions boxes it would provide a really great way to introduce players to the gameplay of rank and flank titles but doesn’t quite hit the mark I was hoping for in terms of making it super welcoming for a much newer or younger hobbyist.
However even with all this considered I’d definitely recommend the box specifically for anyone who’s decently experienced in the hobby and wants a nice small rank and flank experience with the opportunity to grow. The box offers a pretty great value from the price giving you most of what you’d need if you’re already confident enough to deal with the slight hiccups along the way, although I’m definitely excited for the future, as with just a few improvements, a little bit better presentation and a slightly better curated set of models, a Second box in the future could be a truly fantastic product.
Sero’s Thoughts
I’ve always been Kings of War Curious; I think I bought second edition and had a demo game but it wasn’t the right time and place, and other new shinies obviously distracted my beautiful, butterfly mind, so having the chance to try Champions was something I seized upon readily. Arriving at Brin’s to see the board and models all laid out ready to go was quite an exciting experience, everything had a high quality feel, and while Brin was able to explain her difficulties with some of the models and on close inspection I could definitely see the difference between the newer sculpts and the older, on the tabletop, all ranked up on the bases, they looked great. The resin characters were obviously the stand out and I was particularly taken with the chunky demonic boss (the Bloody Cardinal) on his lovely scenic base. I won’t repeat what Brin has said about the play experience because I completely agree with her. It was easy to understand and fast to play with just enough tactical decisions every turn to make it exciting and engaging. We powered through a few games, quickly correcting any mistakes and misconceptions about the rules with the nicely laid out book. A good time was had by all.
After playing, I am left with some thoughts and the possibly unhelpful need to compare it to the other big ‘gateway game’ on the market, Age of Sigmar Spearhead. I’ve played a lot of AOS in the past and have recently played a lot of Spearhead, so much so in fact that I’ve largely given up on the latest edition of AOS main ruleset, as have my entire gaming group. Now whether that’s a bad thing from Games Workshop’s perspective is another debate, players abandoning its core product for the stripped down starter, but it did make me think of how Kings of War Champions left me feeling.
Now I’m a very experienced grognard of a greybeard gamer, been pushing these silly toys around for about 40 years now, so maybe I’m not exactly the target audience for a set like this, as this is clearly aimed towards newer wargamers or people who are playing rank and flank for the first time. Did Kings of War Champions leave me, like Spearhead does, only with eyes for it and not being bothered about making the step up to the full version? Short answer, no. In fact I went home and immediately bought the Kings of War rule book and started doing the usual wargamer thing of devouring the Mantic website and list building, so clearly Mantic can sit back and think ‘job done’ with this gamer.
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