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3rd Oct 2025
Dan Mapleston
4th Edition: Looking Back, and Forward
By Matt Gilbert
Wow, we’ve covered an awful lot in this blog series so far!
Looking back, while “nothing” has changed (it still looks like Kings of War) - we’ve made a lot of updates.
To recap some of the main changes together in one place, here is a handy summary table of what we’ve covered in previous articles in the series:
| What's Changed? | Why Has It Changed? Why Is It Better? |
| Standardisation of unit size progression across unit types. Large Inf/Cav now have Troops and Regiments, instead of Regiments and Hordes. | Clarity. It was always a bit of mismatch! Also, Legions have been removed as a general unit-size (they were always more of an exception), but are still available via certain Commander units when army building as upgrades to Hordes. |
| All Heroes previously on 20mm/25mm or Cavalry bases move to 40mm or 50mm bases. | Making them clearly units. Increases their battlefield presence. Standardises them. Hero/Titans still larger of course! |
| Single Nerve value | Streamlining of the Nerve system. |
| Height and US moved out of the profile | These are standard values by unit type and don’t need to be repeated across all the profiles in the lists – we only note exceptions. |
| “Keywords” on units now called Traits. Clean up of all previous (many, many, many) keywords. | A much better word for what they represent. Many previous keywords were not used. Traits will be used by special rules, Command Orders, Auras etc, but be less liberally applied! |
| Defining a unit’s centre-point as well as facing-points, instead of Leader Point. | Helps clear up exactly where units are in relation to each other and terrain. |
| Staying 1” away from enemy units. | Gone! Touching units is fine so long as its clear they are not Engaging in Combat…unless you charged of course! This stops fiddly measuring and helps keep the game flowing. |
| Additional pivots allowed on some orders. | Increase game fluidity and make battlelines more agile. |
| Ra (Ranged) now changed to Sh (Shooting) | Creates consistent name splits with the phase names (see below). |
| Melee Phase (and Melees themselves) now called Combat. | Having stat names distinct from the phase name creates clearer rules (its obvious what term you are referencing). Now we have Sp (Movement Phase), Sh (Ranged Phase) and Melee (Combat Phase). Also, Combat is a more obvious name (and a more common word!). |
| Shooting modifiers change – now +1 Aiming for standing still. | Symmetry of having +1 and -1 modifiers. Sh values on units adjusted. |
| Line of Sight and Cover. LOS is no longer from the Leader Point, but from anywhere on the base front. | Improved the way these work, with plenty of diagrams! |
| The role of Shooting has been adjusted. Can’t Rout a unit from Ranged Attacks unless it’s Devastated. | To help with units blasted off the board in a single turn. KoW is a fantasy game and that should be more about hand-to-hand combat, whereas shooting is for support. (Heavy reliance on shooting is for sci-fi!) Units failing a Nerve test from Ranged attacks are only Wavering. |
| Charges. Do not have to go the shortest route. Only two units can multi-charge per facing, but don’t block each other when they do so. | Combined with the change to LOS, this gives charges more flexibility in reaching their target. |
| Two new orders, Withdraw! and Reform! | To clean up the previous Withdraw and Combat modelling, Combats are now “sticky”, with units staying fully Engaged, unless they attempt to Withdraw! To do so, they must pass a Nerve test. Fail and they are Routed! Pass and they can move away, but NOT charge another unit. Units charged and Engaged in only one facing, can Reform! to turn the face the enemy unit(s). Units can also Reform! to move position in a future Turn, and as part of a multi-charge to help make room for friendly units joining the fight. Reforming can even help a unit “wrap-round” to another facing! |
| Splitting attacks | To further improve the modelling of Combats, Engaged units may now split their attacks between all enemy units they are Engaged with, regardless of whether they are in the front, flank or rear. So while Combats are now “sticky”, this gives units agency to defeat all their opponents at once! Attacks, special rules and artefacts are allocated before any dice are rolled. |
| Individuals | With the move to larger bases, Heroes behave more like any other unit. Individual still remains as a rule though so such unis are more flexible in their movement. |
| Special rules changes | Several have been modified to work with the updated rules and there are some new ones. For example, with more fluidity in standard orders, units with the Feint special rule can now Withdraw! from Combat without having to roll a Nerve test, and also then Change Facing! Units with Nimble get an extra pivot in a Charge! |
| Magical Missiles | A new category on spells and a simpler way of expressing the effects of cover. Generally spells hit on a 4+, but Magical Missiles hit on a 5+ if the target is in cover. |
| Arcane Library presentation | Another clean up. Everyone has access to these rare spells all the time. Any unit with the Spellcaster Trait can purchase spells from the Arcane Library, but all these are Unique [U]. In addition, as the expansion books roll out, armies will get their own faction-specific spell(s) to add to the selection from the Arcane Library. In addition, as the expansion books roll out, armies may get their own faction-specific spell to add to the selection from the Arcane Library. |
| Adjusting and repointing of Artefacts | Some artefacts were not taken, had the wrong points (generally, or reflecting rules changes) or had become auto-includes (and so a boring crutch!). With the introduction of Command Orders and faction specific spells too, having too many artefacts on top could prove to be overwhelming and cause design space, and player choice, clashes. Artefacts have had a refresh as a result and we’ve removed the split points value for unit size to simplify things. Of course, new artefacts might appear in the future as the game develops, and we added a couple of new ones already… |
| Basic vs Advanced presentation | So that new players don’t feel they have to learn everything all at once, the core rules are presented first, along with the standard game scenario (that most people will probably play more than anything else). Timed Games, Command Orders, expanded scenarios and a review of some more complex in-game scenarios are covered in the “Advanced” section, which players should use once they are ready. These aren’t optional as such, just not something to worry about when learning the game to start with. Of course, we know vets will probably jump straight in anyway! |
| Command Orders added | Command Dice are used successfully in other Mantic games to give army flavour through orders. We dabbled with these in a previous Clash of Kings update but they didn't quite work for Kings of War. Therefore Command Dice are not used in v4*, and orders are issued by your Champions and Warlords use normal D6s in the Movement Phase. All orders are army-specific. |
| Army Building has changed | This has been aligned much more with how armies are built in other Mantic games. It makes army building simpler and more thematic. Units are now categorised as one of: Core, Auxiliary, Specialists, Support or Commanders. Commanders are either Champions, or Warlords. You build armies as Battalions, and each Battalion has a minimum and maximum arrangement of units it can have. Of course, the Company heroes from our Champions game, are in the Champions category in Kings of War. It’s like we planned it! |
| Allies and Alignments are gone | Alignments did very little in the game, save for when adding allies. Typically players pick one army and play with that, and tournaments rarely allowed allies. Therefore, armies are no longer given an alignment (imagine your own if you wish!) and the use of allies (what and how) is entirely up to the players for friendly narrative games. We aren’t imposing any rules here! |
| New points formula | Adjusted for years of game experience and games played, and for improved internal development of new units and unit changes. |
*Don’t worry if you have some Command Dice now, er, rolling around. We’ve create three mini-games you can use them to play with!
Something to play before or post-battle maybe, or between Rounds at an event. You can download these new dice games for free below:
ONE: Battle Deck - click HERE
TWO: Dual Blades - click HERE
THREE: Dice Duel - click HERE
Looking Forwards
Army Lists & Updates
Alongside the core rules, the lists in the rulebook are the kick-off point for most 4th Edition armies.
The first expansion book, Invasion, is available from launch alongside the rulebook. These expansion books allow us to provide a deep-dive into multiple factions at once, supporting new world-building with updated miniatures, art, lore, stories, and of course their revised or updated list in print.
The first factions to get a special focus this way (with their lists in the Invasion book) are Salamanders, Halflings, Trident Realm, and of course the [REDACTED].
Of course, you'll also find their lists in the Mantic Companion - more on that in a moment.
Faction Variety & Future Ranges
There are a LOT of armies and factions in KoW!
V4 gave us the opportunity to consolidate a few of these, and we can now evolve armies and bring out new (or old!) units as the expansion books roll out. It also helps us think ahead and have a well-managed and exciting plan for the miniatures range.
We fully intend to bring out models and armies (physical or digital) for things in the lore like the Varangur in the future, and have grand plans for everything – so have no fear! No lore is being retconned. Armies could get revamps of their model ranges too.
Consider this point in time to be an army and range reset, with exciting things to come!
The Companion is Now the Master Source
Up to eight armies could be featured each year across the expansion books. We are fully aware books are out of date very quickly though. The Companion is the living master source for the rules and the unit profiles and points, at all times, and will include any balance changes and repointing required for armies outside a book release, if required.
Whether you love books, prefer digital, or both – you'll always find the updated profiles and points in the Companion.
Fresh Options, Fresh Challenges
We’ve spent a lot of time going over the lists and making sure players have a lot of choice in what to pick, trying to have as much variety between units in a list as possible. Again, a huge thank you to all our playtesters, and especially Jon, Si and Mike for all their help on this.
This is a refresh for all armies – so everyone can rediscover their favourite factions, and learn to play with them in an exciting new way!
In Conclusion
To existing players, please read all of the new rulebook! While we’ve covered many key changes in these blogs, there are lots of subtle ones you’ll miss if you don’t start at the beginning.
The most important thing is that we're very confident you'll enjoy this new and updated edition of Kings of War. We think everyone involved has done a terrific and amazing job - thank you to all those who've contributed throughout a long development process!
The future is very bright and incredibly exciting for the game. We can’t wait to get stuck into the armies as the books come out, for you to see how the world develops and evolves, what favourites make dramatic re-appearances and what shiny new things are introduced...
To battle!
New blogs, videos and stories will be dropping regularly between now and the launch of 4th Edition in December 2025.
Make sure to bookmark the launch hub, HERE , and check back regularly.