One thing that is often said about KoW is the classic phrase "simple to learn, hard to master".
While it might seem simple at first glance, and is indeed less complex (bloated ?) that Warhammer, I find that it keeps perfectly the core feeling of the games while at the same time removing all that WTF moments from Warhammer, no big spell removing half your army, no death stars, no unit where the first rank is all characters, no duelling abuse prevening some models to fight, and so on.
I sometimes hear people talk about a supposed lack of customisation, because you cannot take a hero and equip him with several magic items or chose the mark of his shorts, or the fact that units comes in predefined sizes, but in reality I find that I have more choices with KoW that I ever did with Warhammer.
Why ? First because all choices are made to be viable. When you pay for a horde of 40 models, you don't pay exactly twice the cost of a 20 model regiment, because the unit come as whole the cost take into account the effect of diminishing returns and is based on the unit global potential, not the individual soldier.
In warhammer, you will find that most often ther is only one or two optimal size and formation for most units where the ratio of cost by model is the best. Who here would play in a tournament a halberdier unit smaller than a horde of 40 for exemple ? In KoW all sizes have their uses, and they are costed in proportion.
Also, KoW armies have been heavily playtested, includind open play tests by the community (some additionnal armies are even being currently beta tested now), so you should not find any unit that is clearly under or over costed, or that you feel is useless or a brainless choice. You can take almost any model in your collection and find that the unit is viable provided that you don't mismanage its potential. in short, where in Warhammer you might want to put on the shelf some of your units because their current incarnation is too weak compared to other choices, in KoW you will find that you can take any unit that you like. Of course, some units will be better depending on your planned strategy and style of gameplay, but it will be your choice.
Imagine that you have perfectly balanced for their cost helberdiers and spearmen so that choosing one over the other is purely a matter of personnal preference. If you then add a new option for swordmen that are stricly superior to the two other options because they are massively undercosted, then you didn't get 3 real choices with the new unit, you reduced your effective choices to only one outside of feel good casual games.
Now back to the customization topic : one huge thing that is ofte overlooked with KoW is the fact that while you cannot equipe more that one artefact on the same unit, you can however give artefacts to almost any unit in the game (non hero monsters and war engines as well as special characters cannot get artefacts).
This mean that you can customise each individual unit to make it different from its base profile.
You have three different swordmen units, two of them made from the basic kit while the third one is made with beautiful Forge World models ? Just give some artefact to the forge world one and explain that it is a veteran unit.
Possible artefacts : Blessing of the gods (give the Elite rule to the unit, reroll all 1s to hit), or another one that give them increased nerve value (think "better Ld").
Also, note that by default we are supposed to play open lists, so having something to represent physicaly the artefacts make it easier for both you and your opponent to remember them.
Want to give the diadem of fire kin (give a breath attack to the unit) to your spearmen horde ? Just put a fire wizard in the unit to represent the upgrade (or in a Ogre army a Firebelly in an Ogre unit)
The flying hammer (a 5 points magic item giving a short rane one die ranged attack) on a militia because you plan to play defensively and force your opponent to come at you ? Put a witch hunter with a pistol model and say that the flying hammer attack is him sniping your ennemies.
In a similar way, I have a kitbashed engineer model with the hand grenade launcher from the outider kit that I use in my units to represent the holy grenades artefact (similar to the flying hammer, but explode like a small war engine on a hit)
Give the jar of the four winds in an arquebus unit (increase range of normal ranged attacks) and represent it with one or more models with a long rifle.
Also for use with existing Empire armies, we are spoiled for army choices, as there are several human armies that can be used depending on what aspect of the Empire you want to focus on.
Have an Altdorf army with mainly state troops, vanilla war engine like canon and mortar, and maybe a few heroes on pegasus and/or griffon ? Kindoms of Man will be your army
Have a Sigmarite army with flaggellants and other units animated with religious fervor ? A basilean army will probably be the best fit.
Have a nuln army with a Steam tank and exotic warmachines, or an army themed around a Knightly order with demigriffon knights and a luminark ? The League of Rhordia will be your army.
And of course with the ally rules you can take up to 25% of your army from another list should you want to mix options from two of those armies.
For those that don't know, the League of Rhordia is a new army list that will be published in a supplement later this year, and this is one of the armies that is currently being in open beta test (see Mantic official forums, there is a beta section), you can see the list there :
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XgQY5vVHs_V19N_2lsrpk59SIF9hi6_KDBqkmyitRro/edit#gid=644257362The army represent a few city states of humans allied with Halfling, with the halfling providing competent engineers (their iron beast (steam tank equivalent) is a lesser copy of the dwarven steel behemot), and the humans have also access to Aralez, a king of mythological giant dogs that they ride in battle, some of them Winged.
Aralez riders => demigriffon knights
Hero on winged aralez => Pegasus hero
Hero on ancien winged aralez => Hero on griffon
