I think it would be safe to say that we've all known it would happen sooner or later.  Mantic Games which has been producing some fantastic miniatures (for collectors, modellers and gaming) has announced that they will be releasing an actual game system for Kings of War come October 2010. Ronnie Renton from Mantic Games sat down with Warren of Beasts of War to announce this fantastic news.

Alessio Cavatore, who wrote the rules for Games Workshop's Warhammer 40k 5th Edition, will be writting the rules for Kings of War. This is good news considering Calvatore is hailed as having been able to take the beast of rules that was 4th edition and streamline it into a more gamer friendly version. According to the video, Mantic Games is also considering doing a public beta of the game in order to get feedback from the community.  This is practically unheard of in the tabletop gaming industry but should make for a better and more fun set of rules.

Upon launch Mantic will have a few new box sets available.  These would be considered starter boxes as they will contain the rules, dice, and models.  There will be an undead vs dwarf box which will contain models for both armies called Morgoth's Revenge (at least for now) as well as dedicated boxes for undead or dwarfs which sounds as though they'd either be cheaper than the combined box OR the same price but with more models specific to that army.

Keep in mind that dates, and specifics about the game, box sets, etc. could change as things are just getting started over at Mantic Games with regards to this project. I was surprised that there was no mention about the elves which would be the third army currently available in the Kings of War range. Though it wasn't mentioned in the interview, don't be surprised if there is also a start box for the elves.

For more information on Mantic Games visit their website.  Beasts of War, which started out on youtube, have recently launched a beta version of their website so go check them out as well. You can view the actual interview here and/or here.