The Emperor's New Clothes

So Tuesday night at the club I got in my first game of of Mantic Games' Kings of War. Very much a learning game with Shaun's placcy-grey horde of Dwarves against Stuart's somewhat less grey Undead.

My pre-game impression / belief / assumption was that the, admittedly free, rules were likely to be little more than window dressing to Mantic's apparent "play Warhammer at half the price" business model.

Having played through a single game my impression / belief / assumption seems to have been vindicated.

Don't get me wrong it was enjoyable enough and did a job but just left me feeling like there should have been MORE. It felt like playing a re-worked version of Warhammer but super stripped down.

I liked a lot of the mechanisms and apparent ethos of the game. Even the unit removal, rather than figure removal, casualty system didn't freak me too massively.

The whole game just seemed too limited and a couple of days later I think its just a shame as with a bit more put into it it could be so much better / rewarding to play.

But it is what it is and shouldn't have to apologise for being so. It was just the way that the post game chat turned so quickly to how certain tweaks could give so much more.

It felt, to me, that I was playing a higher level game, Mantic themselves suggest that its a big battles game, but as such it should be played at 15 or 10 mil?

The idea of playing fantasy Impetus was discussed. Basic Impetus is another free rule-set but with a lot more completeness to it!

Elsewhere, I have raised and clad my barn, sans roof, and it's become quite a chunky beast.

I tried Spray Mount to apply the pre-planked balsa to good effect at a rate of knots, definitely worth the relative expensive. All the wall sections were then glue-gunned together at which point I noticed just how thick the walls were! As a bonus I don't think I necessarily need to base it.

Just doors, a bit of strip detailing and a removable roof to go which is all quite pleasing.

Pretty happy to build the Church in the same way when the time comes, just adding a built in floor with maybe a little stage / lectern, cross etc. Need to think a bit about windows with that one. A google image search should do the job.

Illuminating?? :)