Wrath of Kings: Rising Conflicts
Today I’m going to talk about the first and latest expansion for Wrath of Kings, and what it means for the game.
Rising Conflicts brings new Units, Leaders, and Specialists for all five factions. The rules have also been updated and reprinted in this new book. There aren’t too many changes with these, the most overhaul having been done to the scenarios. There is also a great short story to enjoy that picks up a bit after the narrative from the previous book left off. There are also great descriptive entries to explain the hows and whys of all the new models. Finally they’ve given us something that the last book was sorely missing – some world history for the current era as well as some descriptions of each faction and what makes them tick.
Every faction received two new units. For whatever reason they chose to make all of them rank 2, meaning the game has just trended a bit towards smaller model counts. Previously Rank 2 infantry was represented as universally bigger and beefier than rank 1, but that’s not the case any more. A lot of these new Rank 2s are human sized on 30mm bases. Most of these new smaller Rank 2s are just as resilient as their 40mm counterparts, but there is an exception worth mentioning. Goritsi’s new Zeti unit have only one Resilience and Wound, but trade off this squishiness for a strong ranged Willpower attack.
Speaking of unit types, almost all the Rising Conflict units share a keyword with one of the previous unit types. The only exception is one of the new Shael Han units: Celestials. These guys actually come in three types, making them the first unit with three profiles.
There is a little more variation in the leader department. Obviously every new unit got a corresponding Rank 1 leader to go with. But three lucky factions, Shael Han, Goritisi, and Teknes also got a new rank 2. Shael Han’s new character leader is a great looking tiger man who will lead the new Celestial models. While this is cool, I personally think Goritsi and Teknes got something a little more interesting. The new rules update clarifies that leaders can activate as part of a Combined Activation from another leader while gaining the benefits of their own training and the training of the leader who activated them. Two new Rank 2 leaders for existing unit types mean even more variety and combos.
Finally there are specialists to talk about. Each faction got a different mix of characters and generics. Goritsi, Hadross, and Teknes got big 80mm based Rank 2 generic monsters for specialists while Nasier got an equally massive character. Shael Han got no new Rank 2 Specialist at all, presumably to balance out their weird new multi-type infantry. Every faction also got at least one Rank 1 character specialist. Previously Rank 1 Specialists were all generics. Making a few Rank 1 characters allows for some interesting design space. Characters are limited by design, so they can be a bit more powerful without the fear of seeing them spammed. A great example of this is the new Shael Han archer. He would probably be far too powerful to fill up all the specialist slots in a game, but he works just fine when he’s the only one like him.
So there’s my run down. If you want to check out everything yourself, you can download all the cards for free at Wrath of Kings Website. Just mouse over the downloads tab at the top of the page. You can find the new rules there as well. But you’ll have to buy this book to get all the fiction, art, and the gorgeous gallery section at the back of the book. Jen Haley is the studio painter for Wrath of Kings and she’s done an amazing job on the pieces in this book. It’s easily one of the nicest looking gallery sections I’ve ever seen. I don’t think you’ll regret picking this book up when it comes out. It will have a price of $30 when it is released.
~Hope you enjoyed the article. This new book and the models coming out for it have definitely gotten me excited about playing some Wrath of Kings. I’ve finally started painting the Goritisi army I picked up from the Kickstarter.
