In an entirely uncontroversial turn of events, Mantic Games have introduced Command Dice into their flagship fantasy wargame, Kings of War. This mechanic, used in the company’s other games, is an optional rule in the latest Clash of Kings – we’ve talked about that update separately, but we wanted to give this special attention.
How They Work
You start with a red, white, and blue Command Dice in your pool, and roll them at the start of every turn except 7 (the pool for which carries over from turn 6’s leftovers). Red’s the worst dice, white is middling, blue is best. You count the swords on the facings you roll, and that’s your Command Point total for that turn. If you want more dice, your Heroes can buy them with a paid upgrade (which gets more expensive for the better quality colours).
To spend these, you have a menu of nine generic Command Orders, ranging from simple ones that give rerolls or damage removal, to maneuverability boosters that let you move full speed to the sides or rear, and big ones like getting to start your attack sequence from scratch after rolling damage. You can’t use a given Order more than once a turn, or multiple Orders on one target a turn, and they mostly go on one target.
The idea seems to be to represent a wide variety of things, like tactical acumen or weird magic. Access is universal, but the rule is optional, so will only be used competitively by tournament organiser fiat. This is understandable, given the nature of sudden change and previous splits over the Withdraw rule, but maybe it should be quietly made mandatory later down the line, so the burden is off the individual events.
What They Do for You
Universal Command Orders
Of the nine generic Orders, there are bargain basement Blade of Slashing/Mace of Crushing equivalents, to maybe swing a combat with a big piece. Of note is that they work in the Ranged Phase too. There’s also a slightly more expensive pick to remove a point of damage, which probably displaces the Healing Brew in most lists, and can help out healing-focused builds.
Moving into the middling-price options, you’ve got the aforementioned maneuverability boosters, allowing you to do stuff that halves your Speed, like sideways or backward movement, at full Speed. This opens up army maneuverability (Cytoplasm: and might help those that get their own army blocked up by bad deployment, whoever those people might be).
There are a couple of nifty boosts for spells too, for the same middling cost. You can throw in an extra dice on a non-Unique Spell, or you can bump up the range. The former is nice for stuff like a two-dice Bane Chant, but we have mixed feelings on the latter, which has varying usefulness depending on what you’re using.
Then, we finish on two big cost ones, but they can absolutely be invaluable when needed. The first, cancelling the Wavered status, looks incredible until you see the conditions – no Charge, no Countercharge, and stays Disordered, so all you can really do is keep moving. That said, sometimes an early Wavered can be crippling to your advance, so having an option to prevent that is welcome. The other is a full redo of the attack sequence if you don’t like your damage rolls, as seen on Twitch Keenear. This one is the most costly, but if you want some insulation against bad dice on a key charge, you’ll appreciate it if you have the Command Points for it.
Just like Magical Artefacts, there are good picks, niche picks, and not so good picks. But, because you’ve got the full menu all of the time, you can just use the relevant ones, without being stuck facing the consequences of a poor list-building choice for a whole game like with a rubbish artefact. Even something that seems useless or overcosted might come up clutch once in a while.
Faction Command Orders
Every faction also gets two Faction Orders of their own – one offensive, one defensive. Rather than introduce fifty plus new rules, there are duplicates across factions, such as removing Shambling for a turn or adding Brutal (+1). That said, some are entirely bespoke, adding a bit of flavour and fluff to things. Rather than go through every single one, which would make for an extremely long article with a lot of repetition, let’s instead look at the ones we’re most excited about!
Stephanie: I’m personally pretty excited for the abilities added to Varangur, my current faction. Brutal (+1) on command (no pun intended) will swing combats, and I adore healing effects, so Regeneration (5+) is nice to have. While I don’t know what the UK take-up on Command Dice will be, as the community generally doesn’t use Optional Rules in competitive play in my experience, I’d happily pay the 30 points for an extra blue dice just to make sure I have consistent access to those abilities. It’s about the same cost of a good item, but gives me some versatility across the board, so I don’t begrudge it at all. I do hope some events decide to try it, as it doesn’t seem like a bad change.
But, the most exciting abilities for me are probably the Halfling ones. Stealthy on tap in a faction with hammers notoriously allergic to guns is very welcome, and if there’s one thing Aeronauts needed, it’s to be able to hit even harder with Thunderous Charge (+1). Halflings, as with the Clash 2025 changes overall, continue to get better under the radar, and I expect we’ll see them continue to nip at the heels of the most prominent competitive lists.
Jess: To save you all from a detailed analysis I’m going to go over my Top 3. I’ll be honest this is largely because I haven’t bothered to read outside the factions I play. Also because I’m trying not to be tempted by some awesome ability. That way lies using it as a hook for a new faction I won’t have time to paint an army for.
In third place is the Trident Realm’s Hardened Shell. This delightful little ability allows you to add Barkskin tokens to a unit. For Naiad Ensnarers, any bit of ablative armour is very welcome. Not a game changer but prevention is better than cure. Especially as you have a lot of units with Regeneration. Prevention AND Cure!
Second place is the Northern Alliance, who gain the Northern Winds Command Order. As you have probably guessed, this supports the current Frozen synergy the list has. Kick off the Command and suddenly a unit of your choice is boasting Chilling Presence. I mean sure it’s lazy and I should put the effort in to do it the usual way. Then again it’s lazy and means I don’t have to put effort in.
Finally my number one favourite faction command ability (flippin’ heck that’s a sentence you can’t say drunk): Hellfire! Yup, I made the mistake of reading other faction command abilities and got hooked. This absurd command for Salamanders gives a unit the ability to cast Fireball until the end of the turn. Imagine that, casually watching the enemy bait your Ceremonial Guard from outside charge range. Suddenly a huge ball of flame launches out their midst and unleashes flaming justice!
Cytoplasm: For some reason I really like Unholy Puppets for the Undead, which gives a unit Drain Life(5) for a turn. Drain Life is an inherently difficult spell to pull off in most armies. At only 6” range, its usefulness is usually only seen late game, and then being 6” from a damaged friendly unit is sometimes down to luck rather than planning (at least for myself). Having the agency to inject Drain Life into the perfect situation when it appears suits my slapdash approach to gaming. I just need to remember it!
Another very spicy Faction Order comes straight from the Abyss itself; Abyssal Mutations re-rolls all failed Regeneration rolls for a unit. Not bad. But what if that unit is being buffed to Regeneration(4+) by Abyssal Nagarri? Suddenly my Molochs are much safer and my Lower Abyssal anvils are being a real nuisance. It also matches the feel of the army, and just makes me even more excited to get my Abyssals on the table again.
The last of note is Hidden Paths, which is available to a number of armies including the Trident Realms. Pathfinder to a single unit – instantly applicable and useful and only 3 Command Points. In context of the Trident Realms I will find much use in my favourite units, Thuul and Gigas, and it is a kind of consolation to Trident Realms players for losing the old Thuul formation that came with Pathfinder.
Urr: There’s a whole bunch of cool stuff available, and I feel Kings is at its best in the tactical decisions made during movement. Personally, I would have liked to see more emphasis on movement abilities over the pure additional damage abilities, so my top three are all around movement.
Precise Thrust for a few of the factions is the sort of order I like. Ordered March is a powerful rule (look at how well Dwarfs are doing these days), and the restrictions limiting it to Cavalry, Infantry and Heavy Infantry bring some more power to various lists that is not concentrated in that Large Infantry/Large Cavalry space. Drakons and Beast Cavalry, I’m looking at you.
Hidden Paths is up next for me too. I agree with all the good stuff Cytoplasm said above in regards to his Trident Realms. Orcs too, get a flat power boost from it; massive bases and no access to terrain mitigation do not a happy couple make, so any help here is appreciated, as they’re languishing, competitively speaking.
Finally, it’s the humble Universal Orders of Reposition and Tactical Retreat. These are the orders I think have the most potential for skill expression at a high level. They are also quite cheap as far as orders go, so they’ll probably be available each turn. Using these orders to open up a gap for an unexpected charge, or late game repositioning of a scoring unit are the uses that immediately jump to mind, but I’m sure the community can come up with some juicy plays.
Feeling hype or at least better about Command Dice, and want to see what else has changed? You can read our Clash of Kings 2025 Roundtable here!
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