Kings of War

Edition History

In 2010 Alessio Cavatore and Ronnie Renton wanted to make a mass combat system. From this collaberation in September 2010 Kings of War was born in the form of Mhorgoth Rising two-player set that included Dwarfs and Undead.

By December 2010 the game expanded to include rules for Dwarfs, Elves, and Undead

Following on, was a drip feed of further armies including Abyssal Dwarf and Orc armies.

In May 2012 they launched their first Kickstater campaign, seeking to release a full first edition of the game. Kings of War version 1 was fully born.

In September 2012 they updated the main rule book to include army lists for Abyssal Dwarfs, Dwarfs, Elves, Kingdoms of Men, Orcs, Twilight Kin, and Undead.

First page of version 1 of the Kings of War rulebook

Three supplements were released for first edition.

Kings and Legends added the Ogre and Goblins army lists, along with new living legend units for all existing armies.
Basilean Legacy which added Basilea, Forces of Nature, and Forces of the Abyss to the game, as well as adding more spells and magic artefacts for use by any army.
Hellfire & Stone that added a new campaign, a handful of units, and a tie-in scenario for Dwarf King's Hold, the Dungeon crawler game set in the same universe.

In November 2014 the 2nd Edition Kickstarter campaign was launched, with it released August 2015. Twilght Kin were dropped from the 2nd Edition.

Unchartered Empires was released in November 2015. This added Brotherhood, Empire of Dust, League of Rhordia, Nightstalkers, Ratkin, Salamanders, the Herd, Trident Realms of Neritica, and Varangur to the game, but not Twilight Kin.

In December 2015 Destiny of Kings was released. This supplement adds twelve new missions split between two campaigns to the game. It also contains new living legend units for existing armies and a tie-in scenario for Dungeon Saga, the replacement for Dwarf King's Hold.

In September 2016 Historical Armies was released. This book used the Kings of War rules to create lists for 30 historical armies, allowing players to use their historical miniatures to wage time travelling wars between the Spartains and the Barbarians or the Chinese Middle Kingdom. The armies were all completely compatible with regular 2nd Edition Kings of War, and have some optional mythical units you can use to keep up with fantasy monsters.

October/November 2016 Clash of Kings 2017: Organised Play Supplement was released, adding a series of balance rules aimed at tournament play, along with new spells and magic artefacts, and guides to running your own tournament, and creating homebrew rules.

In summer 2017 Edge of the Abyss was released. This book accompanied the global campaign of the same name, and added 14 new living legends, a handful of formations, and some new scenarios.

November/December 2017 Clash of Kings 2018 superseded the 2017 version and added further balancing, but also added over 20 new units and living legends to 11 armies, along with long overdue rules for the Blaine and Ronaldo mercenaries.

November/December 2018 Clash of Kings 2019 superseded the 2018 version and added further balancing, new units and living legends.

November/December 2019 Clash of Kings 2020 superseded the 2019 version adding siege game mechanics to the game.

In October 2019, Mantic released Kings of War 3rd edition. Amongst general balancing and an expansion of the lore, the biggest notable changes are the addition of Titan class units - extra large monsters that go on 75x75mm bases - the swapping of some armies so that all the ones with Mantic mini support are in the main rule book, and all the others are in Uncharted Empires, and the master list/thematic list method of creating interesting new expansion armies. Also the world is now known as Pannithor, Mantica being relegated to a less often used continent name.

In October 2020, Mantic released Halpi’s Rift. A campaign centering on the sways of magic and how it can affect the battlefield, it also included a mini Clash of Kings for 2021.

The Factions

Kings of War has 26 factions in the 3rd Edition, 14 in the core rule book, 12 in Uncharted Empires Factions in Pannithor

The Game System

The Kings of War game was orginally written by Alessio Cavatore, then later by Matt Gilbert and balanced by large scale play testing funneled through a Rules Committee.

The rules are gloriously straight-forward and streamlined.

The basic turn order is:

Move: You move your guys.

Shoot: Bows, crossbows and rifles shoot up to 24", pistols up to 12", some odd weapons shoot 18", and war machines up to 48". Also Magic happens during the Shoot phase, and has ranges of 12", 18", 24" or 36", depending on the spell.

Melee: Close Combat

Whenever a unit takes hits (melee or ranged) they accumulate 'damage' (there is no model removal as damage represents a mix of morale loss, injuries and casualties). If you inflict damage on one of your enemies' units with shooting or melee you can attempt to rout it at the end of the phase. This is done by rolling 2D6, adding the result to the total damage accumulated so far and comparing the total to the unit's Nerve value. Two values are listed for Nerve (a 20-strong regiment of Elf spearmen has a nerve of 14/16, for example). If the total equals or beats the first value the unit 'wavers' (misses the next turn), and if it equals or beats the second value the unit is routed and removed from the table.

Gameplay tools

The Lore

Well that is what this Wiki is for, to fill out the Lore salient points into a single source.

The lore is explained in the Kings of War rulebooks and the sourcebooks, Dungeon Saga rulebooks and the sourcebooks, Vanguard rulebooks and the sourcebooks, Armada rulebooks and the sourcebooks, League of Infamy rulebooks and the sourcebooks, but also expanded on in the Kings of War novels released by Winged Hussar Publishing, and the RPG by Red Scar games.