You could choose 3 different configurations. 1. 2B, 1N, 1M (man at arms). The M would fill a N starting position. OR 1A(arch bishop - could move one square onto the other colour, but not take to get there), 2N, 1M OR The original setup.(no M)
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I've seen a lot of games where the board is starting to be fairly clear of pieces and there are some open files, and putting your King on the proper 2nd-rank square can prevent your opponent from being able to cross their Rooks or Queen over to your side of the board. That's an important defensive role for the King, which frees up your other pieces to work on something else.
And not just with the board fairly clear. I remember one of my games where my opponent had doubled rooks on a completely open e file, my (black) king was on f8, pawn on f7 and I had bishops on d7 and d6. E8, e7, and e6 were therefore each covered twice, e5 by one bishop, e4 and e3 by other pieces. With every square on the file except for the ones the rooks stood on were covered at least once my opponent could make no progress at all.
A King can also effectively defend a diagonal. A common example is a King on g1 behind a fianchetto hole after both light square bishops have been traded off. If the King did not guard those two main-diagonal squares, the enemy queen could infiltrate without assistance. With those two squares defended, the only ways to attack the King without first disrupting the pawns are either to get a pawn to f/h3 or attack along the back rank.