Kings of War Fracture Preview: Armies and Rules

New Armies, New Rules

By Matt Gilbert

In today’s blog I’m going to take a brief look at the armies and some of the rules changes in Fracture. There’s lots in the book for everyone, not just the armies covered by the story.

Consider this a first look rather than the full picture. Fracture contains a LOT more than what's mentioned here - and we hope everyone will enjoy digging into it once the book launches at the end of June!

Forces of Nature

Let’s start with the army our story focuses on, led by the Green Lady. We explored different ways of giving players options to theme the army one way or the other (Herd or Elemental), but in the end decided to leave it to player choice and playstyle, while giving interesting hero “unlock” options and interactions – which is the shape and template for all armies. We rowed back from trying anything more (or less!) clever.

The Strider command was too good to get on a 4+, so while it’s remained an option, it’s moved to be a 5+, making it trickier to issue. A nod to the original incarnation of the Herd list in 2^nd Edition comes in the form of the Stampede command, allowing a unit to overrun into another unit and fight again.

A second homage to the original Herd list is seen with the addition of the Great Totem. Once placed, the Totem remains stationary, but friendly units in the area around it benefit from Vicious, Rallying and Very Inspiring. Choose carefully where to place it!

Taking the Avatar of the Green Lady unlocks Elementals as Core choices, while The Wiltfather has a bonus when issuing commands to Elemental units, and has the Lady’s Reapers rule, allowing units of Forest Shamblers to reduce their De to gain Me 3+. Nice!

There’s a new unit called the Primal Chorus – a unique unit featuring one of each elemental type. Very easy to model! For now, we’ve also left modelling the totem above to player’s imaginations, rather than make a model for it. We’re looking forward to seeing what you come up with – be sure to share pictures of your creations!

One thing to note is that Grymbrocks take the heavy infantry slot in the army. This is where players with any existing Longhorn units should use them. We wanted to ensure the option to use existing Longhorn units was still in the list. Grymbrocks themselves are on our to-do list to be made as digital miniatures for the Vault.

Forces of the Abyss

The Abyssals have four commands but, unlike any other army so far, they get two unique spells: The Dark Pit, and Whispers of Wickedness. The latter, in keeping with other rules in the army, makes it tougher for enemy units to issue their command orders.

The Blessing of the Dark Gods command grants a unit both Elite and Vicious, but at a cost – the unit will take damage itself for each successful roll to issue the order!

Abyssal Guard can be found in the specialist section, and the plan is to make a Vault upgrade pack to turn the plastic lower Abyssal models into Abyssal Guard.

The new Warlord, Teynne the Usurper, has a suitably nasty rule called Searing Pain, preventing a unit damaged by his fireball from recovering damage in any way in its next Turn.

Mau'ti-bu-su can take the Whispers of Wickedness spell without it counting towards the army limit, and also turns Regiments of Tortured Souls into Core choices.

Basileans

As a pious and god-fearing people, the Basileans often get divine help. With a quick prayer as the order is issued, a commander can use tricks like “Borne by Angels” to reposition the battleline or grab an objective. Their unique spell is also very thematic, as you’d expect: Holy Lance fires a death-star-like beam of holy justice, but its potency reduces with range.

The Ur-Elohi moves one unit of Elohi from Support to Specialist, while Jullius has the option to move all Elohi units in this way. We’ve introduced this optional method for some units based on feedback from players – while it’s generally a positive to move units from Support to Specialist, or Specialist to Core, there were also occasions when, counterintuitively, it felt restrictive and created unnecessary competition within a certain section of the army list. Making it optional fixes this – Jullius and certain units in other armies can now choose to take the option as a free upgrade, rather than it being compulsory.

Like Teynne, both Orion and Aestelle are making their way from the pages of the Kings of War novels into the army list - we're also planning on doing STL miniatures for them which will be available via the Mantic Vault in the future.

Ogres

The Ogres had a pretty well-rounded list already, but we’ve still managed to give it some more options and “spice”. ‘That’s Our Stash’ is a command order Ogre players can use to boost the unit strength of a unit to help capture objectives, and Marching Orders grants an extra pivot when moving At the Double.

The Steppe Storm spell is a sort of “reverse-elite” curse on an enemy unit, making them re-roll natural 6s.

We explored a lot of options for Red Goblins to make them feel different to regular goblins, and settled on a very interesting unit. They bring all their weapons to the table, a bit like an elven Sea Guard unit, and so have both spears and bows. Cool!

Paymasters are the “Standard Bearers” of the army – they have and spend all the money, so who isn’t going to listen to and be inspired by them? One Paymaster in the army can be upgraded to a new character called “Doc”, who can grant a unit +2 Nerve for a Turn.

And a BIG piece of news to end on...The Big Deal is now a Mammoth Warlord!

And Yet More...

Now that we’re roughly six months into 4^th Edition, we’ve had the chance to see the results of the first major events using 4^th Edition rules, and also to gather initial feedback from players. As we said we would, we’ve incorporated these learnings into Fracture, and added a number of rules changes and balance fixes (and fun stuff!) to more than just the armies listed above. There’s something for everybody.

There are two new scenarios, and two generic commands that ANY army can use. Existing commands have been tweaked, to tone down any that were over the top, or unclear, and beef up some of the weaker ones. This process will continue in the next book, giving armies new commands to make sure the playing field is as level and balanced as players expect.

To that end, Fracture also features a multi-page “Clash-of-Kings”-style update, giving armies new options, list-building variety and some new unit upgrades. Again, this is designed to target the pain points the initial feedback has highlighted, so we can help align the armies better with player expectations, but within the new structures of the new edition.

Here are some quick examples of the types of changes you’ll see in Fracture:

• Dwarfs. Dwarf Lord. Gains the Aura (Sp+1 – Holdfast Trait only) special rule.
• Empire of Dust. Monolith. Add the following rule: Commandments: In the Movement Phase, the Monolith can attempt to issue a Command Order rolling 2D6 like a Champion. However, this unit cannot be the target of Command Orders itself, from any source.
• Nightstalkers. Scarecrows. Add the option: Up to [2] units in a Battalion may morph into Blood Worms: gaining Me 4+, De 4+ and Lifeleech(1), for +20/+40pts
• Twilight Kin. Void Captain. Change to Ne 17+, Att: 7, Crushing Strength (2) and De 5+, and cost to 185pts.
• Xirkaali. Lieh Lung. Add the rule: One Regiment of Yan Warrior Monks in this Battalion is a Core choice. Add the Inspiring special rule and change cost to 130pts.
• Undead. Lykanis. Add the rule: One unit of Werewolves in this Battalion is a Core choice.

This will continue in Arrogance, where we are building up to a much more comprehensive update for everyone and their armies, with new commands and options, points corrections (including for overpriced “hybrid” units), looking at assassins, individuals and combat heroes, the application and distribution of unit strength, spell costs and access to them, special rules that need a look like Retaliate and Wild Charge…and more things still! We have a lot of feedback and it will all help to make a great game something truly amazing.

We have a lot of ideas for new command orders and units in the armies, but in typical Mantic style, we’d love to involve you guys too. We will be opening up submissions to capture YOUR ideas for both fun commands and units, and the best ones might just find their way into the game! Expect a blog post from Alex about this next week.

I hope that gives you a nice teaser of the book contents, without giving everything away. I also hope it reassures players that we are listening, and we are fixing things and ensuring you can play with your armies – with everything as balanced and meaningful as it should be. Between them, Fracture and then Arrogance are going to be very exciting books!

Happy gaming!

-Matt