KoW So guys, why should I play Kow?

I'll still call that a step in the right direction!

Is KoW so much more simplistic than 8th or 9th Age?

 

Yes, it is, or to use less negative terms a lot more streamlined, elegant, and practical, which for me is its big advantage over them as a game. A lot of 8th editions problems came from being a lot more complicated than it needed to be, which was one of the factors which slowed the game down so much, while also making it unnecessarily hard to keep the rules straight, and very often interfering with the game balance. Put simply, it had far too many rules, many of which were either redundant, unbalanced, impractical, badly explained, and in some cases several of the above.
Kings of War, by contrast, has as much complexity as the game needs, and no more, which leads to a much more playable game overall.

 

Actually Crowsfoot, I reckon it's a great way your engulfing your spawning within the game(s), like you describe. It's quite fascinating how the different mechanics can be a steppingstone for each other, to new and or younger players, there's almost some didactic reasoning behind those thoughts
Perhaps having multiple systems have more than just a handful of advantages. I'm at least getting very optimistic about the development within the fantasy game scene

 

My big concern with KoW is that I've heard that the magic phase is very limited. The magic phase of 8th edition is one of the things I like most about the game.

 

The current core spells are :

Ligthning bolt (N), medium/long range targeted attack spell
Fireball(N) : short range area attack spell (usually with lot of dice)
Heal(N) : heal your units
Wind blast(N) : control spell (no damage), move your opponent units, take some finesse to use but can change a game
Surge (N) : move your own (shambling) units during the shooting phase, allow things like charging someone that was outside your charge arc at the start of the turn, very powerful when used well
Bene chant(N) : offensive buff spell, give or increase Crushing Strenght and Piercing on the target for the turn

Each spell has a level (the "N" above) that is the number of dice that you throw, and means that not all wizard using the same spell are the same.

An elven wizard with Lightning Bolt(5) (and the elite rule to reroll 1s to hit) is and feel more powerful than a human wizard with lighting bolt(3) and without elite.
Not all wizards can buy all the spells, and most have a default spell that they start with and can buy more spells at an additionnal cost. As you cannot cast more than one spell per turn (with one exception once per game with a specific magic item), you usually don't want to have more than 2 spells on any one wizard so save points, so the default spell is often important as another way to differentiate different wizards even when they have access in theory to the same spells.

Note that the Salamander mage priest has fireball(10) and elite by default, making in as powerful as any elven mage at short range, but those elven mages have heal(3) as their default spell, they do have access to fireball(10) but it cost more points (and salamanders mage priest can buy heal(3) too)

The spells might seem simple but they work, they are balanced, and you know what you get when you buy a wizard.

You won't win a game with just one big spell against a complete army, but the appropriate spell at the right moment can and will win you more than a few games.

 

Its simpler in that there are a lot less oddball rules to remember. The movement phase tactics are easy to learn but hard to master. Giving up flanks and rears is a big deal. Thinking 2-3 turns ahead is what will win you games. Also the added dimension of freindly units being able to move through one another but not charge through one another is really cool. The tactics are just as deep if not deeper than 8th ed IMO. The movement phase reminds me of 7th ed (my favorite warhammer ruleset).

 

The funny thing is that I hated 7th edition, where the game was often lost during the deployment or even the army list creation (My first game was with my Tomb kings against an untouchable wood elve army, I didn't kill even one of his units), while I like 8th edition and its more balanced starting point, but I love Kings of War.

For me, KoW feels like a redo of 7th edition, not unlike a spiritual cousin of 8th edition, that would have tried to solve the same problems, but with a different philosophy.

For exemple on the problem of IGOUGO, Warhammer added more things for your opponent to do during your turn.so he didn't get bored while waiting for his own turn, while KoW simply made the turns fast enough that you didn't have time to get bored, provided of course that you at least take the time to think about your own next turn and that your opponent is not that guiy(tm) who takes 30 minutes to chose a target for his catapult turn 1.

 

Yes, but that's only possible because KoW has no direct intervention of your opponent during your turn.

 

Myself, I think the best thing about the KoW rules in managing the problems of a strict turn based system is that it sets very good limits on how much a unit can do before the opponent gets to react.
Part of this is that the movement rules have good limits on excessive manouvering, with only one pivot and none during an 'at the double' move. Nimble units, including flyers, gain some extra freedom through their extra pivot, but they retain important restrictions on how much they can get away with. Additionally, spells count as shooting, and even nimble units aren't able to shoot during an 'at the double' move. A flying unit can go 20" ignoring obstacles, but it doesn't get to do anything else in the same turn.
However, it's equally important that these units aren't getting any extra actions during your opponent's turn. If I move my flyers their whole movement allowance of 20", I have to take into consideration that if I leave them vulnerable to attack, they're vulnerable to attack. I don't get what was in effect a free extra move if they get charged, which took place before my opponent got to move any units in response.
Similarly, units can't get round the limits on actions through excessive pursuit moves, or gaining extra combat reforms during their opponent's turn.
Quite simply, I get to move so far, and attack in melee or shooting once, and then my opponent gets to react, and the lack of ways to avoid that reaction go a long way to limiting the problems with a strictly turn based game structure.

 

AAAAAAAARRRGGGGHHHH!
I stop following this one thread and it turns out to be really popular. That is exactly how my luck has been for the last... Um.... a while.

Kow is pretty good - I played a game against my brother and I narrowly won. It really is just as good as 8th age - maybe even better.
Definitely better than Aos, though I will still play it.

 

Oh no you didn't!