Couldn't see a topic on this so thought I'd start one. This weekend, Mantic released a beta of the Lizardmen list, known as 'Salamanders,' for their KoW V2 ruleset. You can find it here. Discuss! I haven't had the opportunity to play KoW yet, but personally, I'm excited to finally get the Saurus monstrous cav that I wanted. Might be tricky to come up with some suitable models, but some Bastiladons with the howdahs taken off and Saurus put on might work.
At a glance, this looks pretty neat, seems like a lot of our current models will be usable in KoW. Some of the names though... Rhinosaurs, Komodons really? I also could not help but notice that they have a unit called a mage-priest. Manic have always been ballsy, but damn. I am not nearly proficient enough with the rules to say whether this looks good or bad however. Also interesting to note is that this definitely confirms that they are going with a "fire" theme, as they have units such as Fire Elementals. I do find some aspects a bit disappointing though, chiefly the apparent lack of monsters. I get that KoW is more about infantry blocks, but Lizardmen are all about the monsters, and while Manic will obviously claim that they are trying to make their own distinct thing, we all know what the Salamanders are based on, and removing the monsters does not just make them distinct, it makes them boring.
I've read the rules for KoW and am definitely interested in trying it out. Since it has both ogres and now lizards, I am a happy camper. Once I've had a chance to play around with it, I definitely foresee giving them some of my money. Obviously, they won't have a 1 for 1 unit translation, but it looks like it will be close enough for me.
I think there is a pretty good spread of dino’s in the KoW list: Skyrraiders – medium, flying, light melee and short ranged attacks Rhinosaurs – medium, melee Lekelidon – medium sized, medium ranged shooting Fire drake – large, close ranged shooting, can be upgraded to fly Komodon – small, long ranged shooting Ankylodon – large, melee Clan lord on fire drake – large, good melee, good short ranged shooting. With magic items some pretty interesting things can be done with this beastie! Compared to GW lizards: Terradons Ripperdactyles Salamander Razordon Bastiladon Steg Carno Trog (does this even count, are they real, has anyone ever actually seen one on the table?) So that gives GW 8 dino’s, and Mantic 7. Then when you consider all the options with the clan lord on fire drake (e.g. a carno is a carno no matter what upgrades you give it. Depending on the magic items given the fire drake could be built to do quite wildly different things), and how miserably over coasted the Trog is I’d say KoW has more viable diono’s that you are actually likely to see on the table. Then if you are willing to use the fire elementals you end up with another couple of monstrous unit types. The salamander mage priest looks more like a saurus wizard than a slaan. Its infantry sized, has the same armor and melee capabilities as a salamander, and can be mounted on a regular cavalry steed. The thing that I find most exciting about this list though……saurus that are actually a competitive combat threat!
i am seeing a lack of salamanders and razordons. Other than that it looks pretty complete. Thinking of using razordons for rhinosaurs
I started a topic here awhile ago when I was told by a Mantic representative that an "all scaly" KoW army was coming soon. Just fun background. I heard Mantic was developing new KoW armies to pick up GW customers dissatisfied with Age of Sigmar. I wrote an e-mail asking if Lizardmen would be included, and I got a detailed personal response within days. Note that had just released their new edition and were probably swamped. How many hundreds of people wrote GW asking about PF attacks and got nothing over months and months. And now to discuss... I read the online rules and ordered the deluxe mainbook from Mantic. I haven't played an actual game yet. I have a small group of people willing to try it but we've all been pretty busy. I am probably going to play my Empire Army (aka Kingdoms of Man) a few times before I try out the Salamanders. I need some grounding in an official army before I can rate whether the beta army is good or not. I don't know enough from that stats alone to know whether we Salamanders will be lower, middle, or top tier compared to everyone else. I did read they are planning to release the official (non-beta) versions of most/all of their new armies including Salamanders late this year or early next year. At which point I am going to push my fellow moderators to create a "Salamander Forum" or several forums (tactics, rules, discussion, etc). A little early to set up KoW forums now though.
It's looking like the ex-WFB players at my gaming club are leaning towards KoW as well so I'm definitely going to give it a bash. I'm not 100% sold on some of the mechanics yet tbh, but am happy to play a few games to see how it goes. As for Lizards, I think I'll be using the Forces of Nature list (based on the released Beta for 'porting' my Lizardmen army over (Naiads = Skinks; Salamanders = Saurus/TG; options for Large Infantry and Monsters). Sure some things are missing (like Sallies/Razors and a Slann) but then my (evolved bird-themed) Lizardmen wasn't all that 'Lizardy' anyway and a Winged Unicorn makes a great stand in for the Coatl that led my army anyway!
They have changed quite a few things, so let us take a look: - Gekkotah Darters and Hunters have been added. - Ember Sprites have been added. - A monster called a Firedrake has been added, but seems to be a renamed version of the "Slasher", as the character who was previously said to ride on one now rides a Firedrake. - The Ankylodon Battle Platform is now a Monster. - The Komodon Artillery is now a war engine(was it always like this?) - A Clan Lord with wings has been added. - A hero called a Gekkotah Clutch Warden has been added. All in all, these are some interesting changes. I am happy that the Ankylodon is now a monster, and I suspect that it will be similar to the Bastilodon. The Komodon sounds like a beast, but I suspect it will be a war machine pulled by said beasts. The new units are nice, as the army list seemed a bit small before. The Clan Lord with wings is very odd, but goes with the whole fire/dragon theme. On a similar note; The Fire Drake. All I really have to say is that I very much hope it is a carnosaur/theropod sort of arrangement, and not actually some sort of dragon.
No, that was promised when they release the new book late this year or early next year. Note the new book will have several armies in it, not just Salamanders, but art was mentioned.
I'll let you know how the book and art is when I get it. I'm expecting it any day now, probably. Generally the consensus is that GW models are slightly better in terms of quality but there is a huge price difference for only a tiny quality difference. Also, it's subjective not every model they do is worse than GW. Mantic makes better looking undead than GW does. For ages, Vampire Counts players have been fielding Mantic models for their ghouls, zombies, skeletons, and grave guard. I am relying on conversions as much as possible for my undead army but I am going to bulk the back ranks with Mantic models. If Mantic has a fault it's that their promised releases come late, especially with Kick Starters. Not crazy late, but later than they initially say. I'm still waiting on my deluxe 2nd ed book though some of that might be a delay on my local store's part. This pattern is why I'm guessing we'll see the new supplement early 2016 instead of late 2015 which is what they are saying. Hopefully the late issue will go away as Mantic grows. Their main problem is that the demand for their product frequently exceeds expectations and they get a lot more orders than originally projected (that's the Kickstarter problem). I'm sure it's not a coincidence they planned their Second Edition release to follow WHF 9th edition. I'm guessing they thought there would be some disgruntled fans jumping to Kings of War because no change makes everyone happy, but Age of Sigmar caused a much larger flood of ex-WHF players than they expected.
This has been posted before, but I thought I would add it to this thread. These are some early renders of some Salamander units:
I quite like the look of the first one, and the options in the bits look good enough.....the combination that makes up the second one is a bit of a fail though. On the flip side, its not like they will be any more static than our existing saurus. There were some very blurry pics of them from Gencon somewhere and they were looking pretty good in a rank. The shield arms seemed to add a fair bit to them. Couldn’t make out the heads in that picture.