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I recently brought my Arena Rex stuff up to my LGS to give some of my gaming buddies a look at the game. We got in a 3v3 with me using my beloved Ludus Magnus while my friend played the Blood Brothers. (Like most gamers in my area, he's in love with Vikings... I on the other hand am obsessed with Rome) All in all, he seemed to enjoy the game, and will probably be downloading the rules and doing some testing on his own as well. Maybe if my buddy sees this after signing up on the forums he can chime in with his view of things. Anyways, here's some of my observations:
Magnus Cohort (just trying random/new models)
- Infelix
- Viatrix
- Iason
vs
Blood Brothers
- Frigge
- Bjarrhvit
- Hroka
We used a 36" x 36" table, with 5 large pillars placed just like the pips of a dice, and 2 pits on either side of the board edge on the centerline.
General Gameplay:
- explaining the game to him felt a bit awkward, but it could have just been due to my still relative inexperience. He grasped the game as just as well as I did, so I must have explained it okay. That said, see below..
- I realized part way through that I had been botching the tactics rules all along. I didn't realize they could only be used during a clear turn, and after that realization I don't think we really used any tactics aside from passives after that. In general, I've got some mixed feelings on tactics in general, so I'll probably have to start up a thread about tactics to dive deeper into them and see how other people feel about them. After all, it could just be an issue on my end and that I'm not utilizing them properly...
- I like Ludus magnus' passive tactics, and the Blood Brother's passive tactic seems solid as well.
- One of the pits claimed 4 out of 6 gladiators, and almost claimed a 5th.
- From my end, Disengage was extremely powerful. I would almost say too powerful against some lists, given that in most cases, after receiving 3 damage they could utilize disengage and back out of combat, and take no further damage. Basically, if I rolled anything decent, he backed out after suffering only minimal damage. Honestly, if it wasn't for the pit, I may not have scored a single kill at all. Just like with tactics, I may start up a disengage thread to see how other people view the ability and discuss it further. It could also mean that I start using models with the Entangle ability as a sort of soft counter to disengage...
- There was a bit more movement in this one, due to all the disengaging and multiple pushes, but the fight still centered exclusively around one of the pits. as with other games, once we were stuck in, we weren't going any aside from pushes. I'm wondering if the game board should be maxed at 24", with smaller sizes also remaining perfectly viable, as in all the games I've played so far, we always ended fighting in a single section of the board, leaving a ton of space completely untouched. (Fights seem to take place either center of the board, or around a pit) Tighter confines may mean getting pushed into a pillar would be far more likely without the need to litter the board with them. Personally, I just prefer the looks of a more symmetrical board, with fewer columns littered about.
Model Specific:
Infelix - He's got a ton of damage output, along with swift, but DEF 1 and ARM 0 make him a huge glass cannon. Only issue is, disengage takes away the cannon and leave only the glass part! I rushed him up, and he almost 1-shot Bjarrhvit because my opponent (being new) forgot about disengage. As this was his 1st game, and in general I'm just a nice guy, I let him take back how he did his damage allocation so he could utilize disengage. In other words, instead of doing 12 damage, I only did 3 before she backed out of his melee range. Shortly after this, he was singled out and pushed into a pit.
Viatrix - I brought her to test her taunt ability. The plan was to team her up with Infelix, to try and keep him alive by making it so the enemy could only attacker her, but she arrived a turn too late to do so. Aside from taunt, and DEF 3, she's pretty average. During our game, she did manage to push Hroka into the pit before getting pushed into it herself.
Iason - I liked his art, and wanted to give him a try. I expected his intervene to make him annoying, but it really wasn't all that useful in this particular game. Support really wasn't all that helpful this game, as I never really got the opportunity to use it, he always seemed to have a fatigue on him so i couldn't react or I was low on favor and didn't want to use it on his support ability. He felt pretty average to me, although his DEF3 was nice. Tireless + Intervene would definitely add to some movement shenanigans and make him really interesting imo...
Frigge - My opponent went from saying "she's not as good as I thought she'd be" to "omg, she's awesome!" He didn't seemed too impressed at first with intervene, but he started to see its uses, but it was retaliate that sealed the deal for him. especially once he started working in Intervene + retaliate. I had a few flubbed rolls where retaliate went off, but the real strength of retaliate is when she performs a successful counterattack. Her damage tree comes with a decent mix, and she's got DEF 3, and disengage. She's pretty solid imo...
Bjarrvhit - My opponent never really had the chance to use her spirit guide ability at all, but I found her pretty annoying regardless. I spoke briefly about my thoughts on disengage, which meant I could really only truly do damage in 3's regardless of how I rolled. Her damage tree seems interesting. It has plenty of pushes and a reposition, as well as a couple of 3's. In general, I think my opponent utilized her multitude of pushes more than anything to send 1, if not 2 of my gladiators into the nearby pit.
Hroka - We really didn't see a whole lot from her. She managed to finish someone off to get her killer effect, as well as her War Cry ability, although I'm not sure how my opponent used it, maybe to angle himself better towards a pit. Shortly after he War Cry, she ended up in the pit herself!
In the end, the Blood Brothers (or should I say Sisters) ended up with the win. I couldn't put any high numbers on the BB Gladiators without getting disengaged, and with a lot of pushes at their disposal along with a nearby pit, the BB Gladiators didn't really have to worry a whole lot about getting numbers on my Magnus Gladiators. In hindsight, maybe I could have utilized the maneuver tactic on clear turns as well as just given up Opportunity Attacks to dance around into an ideal position relative to the pits in order to force them to go for damage and perhaps then I could have had an easier time pushing them into the pit instead.
All in all, my friend seemed to enjoy the game, plus I got the chance to try out some new models, and gain a better insight into the game. I think I may try BB vs Morituri in a 3v3, then after that move up to playing 5v5's...
**edit: I've also noticed that I tend to rush in to try and get 3v1 on a target, which I could probably stop doing. I could probably also better utilize the react move much more than I have been in these last few games, which could feasibly get me out of trouble situations and make for some more dynamic games in the movement department...
_________________ "He vows to endure, to be burned, to be bound, to be beaten, and to be killed by the sword." -The gladiator's oathhttp://www.nerdsvsninjas.blogspot.com - a humble blog about gaming and other nerdy stuff...
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