See, I told you I'd do a review for this Ok, so here goes...

Let's start this off right by saying that "King Arthur: The Role-Playing War Game" is loads of fun if you're a fan of war games and fantasy role playing games. For a long time now a lot of people (including me and Frogboy too it seems) have been screaming for a Fantasy Total War type game. There have been a few attempts, like Elven Prophecy, but they didn't capture the battle engine well IMO. King Arthur comes close.

The games re-tells the mythical legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. The storyline dives deep in to English legends and myths and even some Scottish and Irish myths as well. If you're a student of mythology as I am you'll really enjoy this telling of the legend. You don't actually control King Arthur himself, at least I haven't gotten to yet, but you do control his Knights. They act as your Heroes and generals on the campaign map. Only Knights/Generals can lead armies so they are very important because without them your armies can't march. The first part of the game is the tutorial that teaches you how to play and shows you the various aspects of how to do things both in campaign map mode and in battle mode.

Campaign Map: On the Campaign Map you have structures such as Druid Groves, famous English landmarks such as Stone Henge, and even cities which you may recognize today such as London. Going through the tutorial slowly gives you access to various parts of the UI as you go along. You don't start out being able to tax your lands and draft armies but those options come pretty quick. If you don't take your time however and actually Read The Information Shown to You, you won't know how to draft armies because there is no obvious button for it on the visible UI. Personally I think that's a design flaw in the UI but maybe that's just me. If you pay attention and read though you'll know that right clicking on a village you control will bring up a radial menu that gives you the options to do a few things including draft armies. If you've played a "Total War" game then the basics of the campaign map should come naturally to you.

Battle Map: The Battle Map will also be familiar to you if you've ever played a Total War game. At the beginning of each battle you are given the chance to arrange your units on the field of battle to prepare for the attack. You have three basic unit types. Infantry, Archers, and Calvary. There are various versions of these types of units but all your regular/mundane units fall into one of those three categories. Your Knights lead individual units that you assign them. Your Knights also have various abilities in the game which can greatly affect battles. These abilities can range from fighting moves such as "Cleave" or spells like "Fog of Avalon" which adds buffs to your units while debuffing enemy units. On the Battle Map you will also find structures which if you control add abilities and victory points that help you win the battle. You don't always need to have the better or bigger army to win the day. In-fact early in the game you will face armies that if you fought Man to Man you'd have almost no way to win. Without getting these control points you're going to loose a lot of battles. It's also important to try to lure the enemy army close to a point you control because it's affects are usually centered in a small radius around the structure or control point. I have a list of "Cons" concerning the way this battle engine works, but I'll save that for the end of the review.

Quests: Quests in this game are handled a lot like I expect them to in Elemental, though I'm hoping Elemental will improve on this system and have a system that's not solely text based as King Arthur's is. You will have to do battle in some Quests though so be prepared. Only your Knights (Aka..Heroes) can go on Quests. They do so in the Kings name and they gain loot and reputation for you. You Knights have abilities and stats, one of these stats is called "Adventuring". The better Adventuring skill your Knight has, the more options you will have in dialog during the Quest, the more ways you will have to complete a Quest. If you take a Knight with a low adventuring skill on a Quest you may end up having to do battle with a powerful enemy you can't defeat, while if you would have used a Knight with a High Adventuring skill you could have talked your way out of a battle with a monster. It pays to think in advanced and send the right Knight for the job. Also make sure the Knight has a army with him as some Quests often end in batttle with one kind of monster or another.

RPG Aspects: This game does a fantastic job of mixing in classic RPG elements into campaign warfare. Your Knights all have basic stats/skills and they gain experience by winning battles and completing Quests. Your armies gain experience too though they gain it as a unit and not as a individual like your Knights do. As your Knights gain experience they level up every winter during the year. Be aware that during winter you receive taxes and any armies you may have on the map will Not be able to march during the winter. Winter is also the Only time you can spend the experience you've earned. If you forget to level up a unit who's gained experience that winter you'll have to wait until next winter before you'll be able to spend it, so pay attention.

During Quests your Knights will receive items and loot. These range from weapons and armors to gold and food and even women. Yes, for completing one quest I got a Lady of the Court as part of the reward. You gotta love a game that gives you women as a reward for a job well done...hehe.

King Arthur himself, though he's not a unit on the map, does gain attributes when your Knights make decisions during Quests. You have two meters in the game with two opposite ends to each spectrum. These being "Righteous" or a "Tyrant" and a religious aspect that is either "Christian" or of the "Old Faith". You get different abilities and magic spells depending on what decisions you make during Quests. Some spells are Faith Specific and some abilities are specific to whether you're Righteous or are a Tyrant.

There are various magical beasts you will encounter both in warfare and during Quests. So far I've encountered Giants, Worgs, and the Sidhe. The "Sidhe" are more traditional Irish Faeries. Faeries in Irish Legend though were Not "Tinkerbell" type little faeries. These Faeries are bad ass beings of death and destruction and if I ever saw one I'd be the last person to call him a "Faerie" to his face. If you did you'd probably be lacking a face of your own in short time because he'd melt it off with his uber gaze of death. You've been warned.....fear the Sidhe.

Technical Aspects: The game runs pretty smooth for me though I have had a few CTD's. Three so far in two days time. All three have been when the game was loading a battle or going back to the campaign map after a battle. Not sure why, I know all my drivers and tech are up to date so I'm assuming it's the game. Hopefully they'll address this in a patch. I haven't looked on the official forums to see if anyone else is having this minor problem but so long as you save often the most that'll happen is you may have to replay a battle. As I said in almost 3 days it's only happened to me three times.

CONS: The battle engine, in looks, is very much a copy of Total War. In functionality however it lacks a few key components. If you take your time to line up your units into a formation you like before battle you might as well wait for the enemy to come to you. Why? Because if you highlight your units and try to move your army as a whole they line up in their own formations throwing all your work right out the window. When your army moves it also has a real bad habit of lining up with the archers out front. I prefer to keep my archers Behind my front lines so every time I move my whole army on the battle map I have to pull my archers back. Also turn OFF "Fire at Will" or when your units engage in mêlée your archers WILL decimate your own army.

*Archer 1 talking to Archer 2 *..."Hey, isn't that new sergeant Sir Kay brought in named Will?" ...*Archer 2 says* "Yeah, but don't worry, I got him in my sights."

They seriously take "Fire at Will" seriously...no pun intended.

Also when your units engage in mêlée they all bunch up and don't retain their lines like in Total War. Units will literally stand on top of each other so multiple units can engage the same enemy at once. The unit in front will stop other units from being able to attack because it will be standing in the way. The only way to pull your units back so you can come at them from a different angle while one unit is fighting them is to hit the "Withdraw" button, then manually moving the unit to the side or behind of the enemy so you can attack with it as well and not be blocked by your other units. In the Total War games your individual men will move around on their own to a much better extent then in this game. With just a little more work though this engine could be Total War's equal. It just needs a few more minor touches to really shine. It still does a pretty good job though and it's far superior to any other fantasy war game out so far.

Overall on the Raven-O-Meter I give the game a 8 out of 10. If you like Fantasy War Games, this is perfect to hold you over until Elemental comes out and knocks every other fantasy war game out of the water. Definitely try this one out.

P.S. Stardock Dev's, you really, Really, need to try this one out. You can see here in implementation how a lot of the systems planned for Elemental may work. There's a marriage system in this game as well and you can reward your Knights by giving them a beautiful wife from the court. Mainly though you guys need to see this battle engine and see where you can Improve upon it. Also the Quests system this game has may bare some resemblance to what you have planned for Elemental though I'm hoping you can Improve upon this system as well. Still, I think these guys saw your game plan for Elemental, put a King Arthur storyline to it, and ripped you guys off. This game can be used as a good template though so you can see where you can do a better job then they did.

Hope you all enjoyed another "Raven Review".