Mantic Games Launch New Fantasy Game, Kings Of War Champions!
March 24, 2025 by brennon
Over the weekend, Mantic Games launched their new rank-and-flank Fantasy 28mm miniatures game, Kings Of War Champions! Set in the world of Pannithor, Champions has been designed as a quick and easy entry point into this style of miniature wargame!
Faith And Fury // Kings Of War Champions
To kick things off, what is Kings Of War Champions? Well, it's a rank-and-flank miniature wargame that can be played in an hour. The games are hero-led with mighty new characters that you'll see leading the armies down below! There is a strong focus on the game being fun and accessible with each box presenting you with a Company, a pre-built army list, which means you don't have to worry about what's best to take. This is especially good when you're just starting out in wargaming.
The entry point for folks wanting to dive into Champions will be through Faith And Fury, the new Two-Player Starter Set which features two armies and everything else that you need to play.
The Bloody Cardinal Company // Kings Of War Champions
Inside this set, you'll get two forces. One is led by the Bloody Cardinal who takes charge of the flame-wreathed demons looking to run rampant over the world of Pannithor. Fighting against the Bloody Cardinal is Alanis Sallustis, who is looking to banish evil with her brave Basileans.
Alanis Sallustis Company// Kings Of War Champions
There are forty-one miniatures between the two armies alongside a guide as to how to build them. You'll also note that both armies come with a set of statistics cards so you can quickly reference everything during gameplay without having to flip through a rulebook.
The set also comes with the rulebook for Kings Of War Champions alongside sheets of tokens and 2D terrain for you to set up on the included gaming mat.
Rules Terrain & Tokens // Kings Of War Champions
You just need to dive in and choose which army you're going to play and then get stuck into the action. At a rather stupidly reasonable price of £87.50, this seems rather good for someone wanting to get into the realm of rank-and-flank wargaming without much hassle!
Additional Company Boxes
As well as the two Companies that you can get as part of Faith And Fury, there are a couple of additional boxes that you can pre-order to vary up your games. Perhaps you'd like to side with Northern Alliance under the leadership of Jorden Talensen?
Jorden Talenson Company // Kings Of War Champions
I think this could end up being the one that I am going to pick up. I do like that beardy fellow leading the way with his mechanical bird friend! If you'd prefer to throw your lot in with the Twilight Kin then you can also pick up the Company of La'theal Voidheart.
La'theal Voidheart Company // Kings Of War Champions
This gives you another villainous Company for you to choose from! The Company boxes are a mixture of new plastic miniatures and some older ones plus you get the Champions themselves who are excellent focal points for your collection and nice painting projects.
There are also two more Company boxes coming out in May and June which bring the number of Champions armies to six. You can unleash your mischievous Goblin side with the company of Grunk Blackclaw.
Grunk Backclaw Company // Kings Of War Champions
Who wouldn't want to kick ass with a bunch of sneaky Goblins and that fellow in a mawpup-firing warsuit?! I take it back. I think this could end up being my Company of choice for playing Champions.
Last but not least, we have The Void Talon which introduces a spooky side to Champions!
The Void Talons Company // Kings Of War Champions
Champions gives the folks at Mantic a good way to get people introduced to the world of Kings Of War. I'm sure that some of you will be thinking "What about Kings Of War Ambush?" and the folks at Mantic did chime in on that.
Ambush will remain a low-point version of Kings Of War where you make your own lists and can mix and match as you see fit. By contrast, Champions gives you more of a focus as a standalone product which acts as an entry point that you could then graduate from into Ambush and then Kings Of War proper.
As they mentioned in their article on Champions, it has been designed to be played on pretty much any table, streamlined for accessibility and with all of your armies predetermined. You also have the challenge of mastering a particular Champion and their Company against the others your friends are bringing to the tabletop. Much like with games like Spearhead by Games Workshop, this aims to be a solid game to play in its own right rather than an afterthought like Combat Patrol.
More Kings Of War Champions Releases
As well as the different Company boxes and the main Starter Set, you can also get your hands on a few extras including the Deluxe 3D Terrain Pack.
Deluxe 3D Terrain // Kings Of War Champions
This gives you some terrain to help upgrade your Starter Set and set the scene for some epic battles. You can also buy the double-sided Gaming Mat and the Rulebook & Token Pack separately so if you snap up one of the other Company boxes, you won't be missing out.
That's a LOT for you to dive into for Kings Of War Champions right from the off!
What do you think of Kings Of War Champions?
"That's a LOT for you to dive into for Kings Of War Champions right from the off! "
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I have literally no opinion on this. Not sure this is a thing that’s needed or wanted or if it even could work. I’m all for for companies trying new stuff so we’ll see how and where this goes.
I toyed with the buying Kings Of War in the past, but never found a starter box where I like both armies. Maybe one day they will do a two player starter that I can split with a friend and we’ll both be satisfied with what we get.
The Ambush sets are nice introduction to the game, but they lack a bit of character.
This looks like it solves that bit, while still keeping Ambush as a legit variant of KoW.
Part of me wonders if this is a solution looking for a problem. I’m not sure there are a lot of people out there wanting to get into “rank and flank” games and being put off by the starting commitment required. Sure there are a lot of people wanting to get into the wargaming hobby as a whole, put off by the painting, cost, size etc., but those being put off by the sheer volume of a KoW army are probably happy enough playing AoS or any one of a bazillion independent skirmish games such as the multi-award-winning Moonstone. I… Read more »
It does feel like Mantic attempting to get even more mileage out of their existing models, but without a real clear plan on what people would like to do with them. I don’t know that the world needs Kings Of War, Kings of War: Ambush, Kings of War: Vanguard (which is probably dead, as they no longer promote it), and this new Kings of War: Champions. It starts to look a little try-hard.
Yeah, Vanguard is dead as it didn’t sell well. Mantic have confirmed this on various podcasts. Shame because I liked the game and really enjoyed it. But it was marketed wrongly (IMHO) and failed because the KOW crowd to whom it was marketed didn’t like the lack of balance between factions and the complexity of the ruleset. Had they marketed it as a skirmish game that wasn’t linked to KoW, then it may have done better as the perceived lack of balance and complexity are less important to those not focussed around the needs of the tournament I think. However,… Read more »
I’d be interested in learning more about how the game works but confess my initial reaction was this is trying to hop on the coat tails of Para Bellum’s “Conquest – Last Argument of Kings.”
And TBH, I don’t see a lot of ‘Rank-n-Flank’ games lately.
Hope it works out for them though.
doesn’t bear any resemblance to CLAOK, it’s probably closer to spearhead from GW in concept if not in mechanics
This looks interesting but as others have said I’m not sure if it really has a market, best of luck to them. The whole appeal of the rank and file is sort of tied up in the spectacle of the big game with lots of units. Midgard and Kings of War deal with this with units bases rather than numbers letting people be flexible with the number of figures they need. These are old school types of games, lots of figures is basically assumed as something you’re willing to do. My advice for someone wanting to do these big battles… Read more »
It seems they are making new Basileans, the cavalry look nice. As far as the game? I don’t really have an opinion. Kings of War is great, and this is a new entry point, but as many have opined in the comments above, I don’t know how far it will go in terms of success. I’d rather they focus there energy and resources on updating several old and outdated army models like those Elves, Dwarves, Basileans and undead.
I like the concept, but not sold on the 2-player starter set. I may be tempted to get more Gobbo’s for that launcher insanity.
The sort of release that bootcamps would be made for!
I quite like the concept here – a wargame with fixed list armies so your game result is partly down to your skill using this combination of faction troops. Feels a bit boardgamey which is no bad thing in my book. With small scale like this luck can have a more significant impact on outcome unless the rules take that into account.
It’ll be interesting to see how (or if) this is doing something different than Vanguard did; that was a game that died pretty quickly. Given the competition in the small footprint kitchen table sphere the offering looks a little lacklustre but good on them for trying again. Mantic rules are usually their best selling point so this could be really fun.
massively different from Vanguard, which I really hope gets a new edition as it’s a great game. In Vanguard’s case it was mis-marketed as an entry point into KoW, this time around they’re very keen on pointing out that this could be an entry to KoW but it’s not being pushed that way. They’re focusing on it being it’s own thing that never has to expand into the other game.
Good to hear! Vanguard was great fun but everyone seemed to lose interest in it so quickly. Champions being its own thing makes much more sense; let Ambush be the KOW entry point
Sounds like nice introduction to rank & flank gaming. Need to see some „how to play“ video or battle report to make my mind about it though.
A rank-and-flank wargaming with only 2 rank and flank unit? Seams a bit light on units. But like the idea of a character hero with input to the units.