More free stuff. I almost wrote “more free shit” but speaking from my own personal gaming experience, Kings of War is anything but shit.
Kings of War 3rd Edition
Kings of War is a block-unit-based, mass battle fantasy game – similar to Warhammer Fantasy Battles (or 9th Age), though I actually prefer KoW vastly over WHFB.
They had the sampler up the other day, but these are the new, full rules. They come with 2 army lists, but more are available via other books and EasyArmy.
Warpath
Warpath is broadly similar to 40k. I haven’t played it personally, though it appears to have good reviews and feedback.
Enjoy! 🙂
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
I have to admit that I didn’t enjoy KoW when I played it…too bland…but then again I only really like 4th/5th ed WHFB so gaming left me behind 20 odd years ago. 🙂
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It can depend on the style of game you prefer – I like it because the troops are the core part of armies, with heroes and monsters being supplemental and flavourful. I founf WHFB4+ to devole into Herohammer, which was something I personally didn’t enjoy.
KoA also uses a lot of USRs rather then bespoke special rules that often repeat from one another as in the Warhammers.
For me, at least, the “flavour” comes from the models and the background rather than the rules (the USRs combine nicely for close-enough for most Warhammer-things), so it should be no surprise that my KoW armies are made from (mostly) GW figures and use things like The Old World and Middle Earth as their background, rather than Mantica or Pannithor or whatever they’re calling it now.
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Yeah, I do agree that 5th ed can be very frustrating because units of 20+ models you’ve spent hours painting have no effect whatsoever on the game and die at the hands of some tooled up hero without even scratching his armour…you have to be in the right mood for it, though if you and your friends agree there’s no reason you have to take any powerful characters…. I think all subsequent editions tried to take this choice away from players (some of whom no doubt egregiously abused the choices) but still retain the fun side, and ultimately failed to achieve the right balance. I agree KoW should allow you to create some fun narrative scenarios if you ignore the Mantic supplied background!
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Yeah, I also copied/set up a ton of WHFB scenarios to use in KoW as well – since most scenarios are usually a description, a terrain layout and then a rough points value, they’re quite easy to C&P across. “Herohammer” has its place for those who enjoy it of course, it’s just that I’m not someone who does, and when I returned to trying to play WHFB in 4th (or 5th?) after a long break since 3rd, it was a very different game with a very different focus that I didn’t enjoy, as much as I still loved the fantasy models – so for me KoW was a welcome return to being able to use them in games.
Funny, by contrast, I did quite enjoy both 2nd and 3rd editions of 40k, despite them being very different games that just use (mostly) the same models.
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I prefer games where the focus in on the troops rather than “heroes” as well. I don’t mind the powerful, single characters so much in games with a small model count, but they annoy me in games that are supposed to be company level or above-sized forces. If KoW focuses more on the troops, then it sounds like a game I’d probably enjoy.
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Kings of War is one of those games I’d like to try playing if someone else provided all of the stuff for a game. I did consider getting into it some years ago, and was going to starting painting some undead block infantry guys, but no one else wanted to play it so I let the idea drop and went back to painting 40K stuff.
I’ve heard people say of it what Warburton said, that it was “bland,” but I also heard it was fairly simple to play compared to WHFB, which to my thinking (especially these days) is a good thing.
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I just use my round-based Warhammer/Fantasy/LotR models, along with some on square and rectangular bases, and plonk them down using blu-tac (poster tack) on approriate movement trays. Other than that, it’s rules, terrain and dice. Then, away I go!
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I’d certainly be willing to do something like that but alas, everyone who I know that is into Fantasy either wants to play AoS or some version of WHFB.
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Thanks for sharing these links! Mantic does a lot of nice things for their customers so as a company, they have my respect. I probably won’t take them up on either of these free rule sets as I don’t think they appeal to me as much as other licensed ones do (if you know what I mean) but I appreciate it all the same.
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Bah! Free rules that you can use your LotR minis with one day if the fancy takes you – may as well download them!
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That army is bigger than my entire MESBG collection! That is incredible, mate! You should grab some of the newer Gondor sculpts from Forge World and take that army to an even higher level of awesomeness 🙂
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Thanks mate! I’ll keep my eye out for them from various sources, but I’m a little off the old FW stuff right now due to the Aussie dollar tanking because of COVID-19 and GW jacking up the FW prices semi-recently. I also have a ton more Gondor still to paint once I can get motivated for them again. Lots of cavalry, more rangers, more elite guards, and then there’s the little clumps of feifdom troops I’ve accumulated and set up…
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