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Post by ComboSmiteNick on Oct 20, 2017 12:34:36 GMT
In short. I love it.
In Long. I have been super excited for CoI since it was announce. Really much longer than that. Since PP started releasing side-games in NQ magazine the first thing I said was "Please make a skirmish scale game for Wm models."
I think it's safe to say that my expectation have been met. The game is fun and relatively fast paced. Alternating activations work really well on the small scale. The cards provide lots of interesting choices ("Do I re-roll this attack or save the card to use asa battle plan next turn... etc"). I really, really like the the card system.
One unfortunate thing about the alternating activations is the timing of triggered abilities get more complicated. There are examples in the book that explain how things like Battle Driven trigger but I found it really hard to follow. Maybe I just have to wrap my head around it but the point is if this game is supposed to be a more casual gateway game to Warmachine, it's unfortunate that it has a more complicated triggering system due to alternating activations.
We have just played the first 2 scenarios so far.
The first is a fairly interesting Attacker/Defender scenario where the attacker just has to turn over the correct objective in order to win. It seems like it could be pretty easy for some builds to push forward and reveal a token and if they got lucky take the game really fast. It was still fun to play.
The second is basically Incursion. 3 scoring points (objectives and flags, both score similar to flags in WM) along the mid-line. Scoring only occurs once per round at the end of the round. It seems really hard to actually get many points in this scenario. It might have just been the armies we were playing but there was no-score until the very last round when one player killed the last contesting model on an objective and scored a single point for the win. The scenario itself was pretty boring but there was definitely some tactical depth to it, in knowing when to commit models to score and contest, and the right time to pass if you have fewer models.
I can't wait to get this on the table more and I am probably going to pick up some rumble mats to play it on.
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Post by Aries on Oct 20, 2017 13:01:53 GMT
Thanks for the report!
Would you post the lists you used? I'm just curious if low model count lists have any noticeable disadvantage against swarms. How many scenarios are in the book? Btw, are there any guidelines in the book about making custom scenarios?
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Post by ComboSmiteNick on Oct 20, 2017 14:54:33 GMT
Game 1 was: Elias Gade, Errant Senechal, Max Errants Vs. Rutger w/ Talon, Taryn, Thorn Gun Mages.
This game was arguably a swarm Vs. a gunline and after a few turns of bad casualty rolls for the Menoth player attrition went overwhelmingly in favour of the lower model count army. So my answer would be that the randomness of casualty rolls might mitigate this effect?
Game 2 was: Yuri, Manhunter, Marksman, Max Kossites Vs. Ancestral Guardian, Mam Immortals + CA
Both of these armies were pretty swarmy and anecdotally I would say that casualty rolls played a huge part in the Kossite force maintaining a big attrition advantage over the skorne. Skorne was still able to take the scenario in the end though.
There are 6 scenarios in the book that are a mix between Attacker/Defender and Symmetric scenarios. No guidelines for making your own but it shouldn't be that hard to do. PP has said there is going to be lots more content coming for CoI in NQ, so I'm pretty excited for that.
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Post by lordazathoth on Oct 22, 2017 2:59:28 GMT
If you have the rules, I am curious - how does Vengeance work? I made five lists out of models I have and two have Vengeance, so I was curious. Thanks!
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Post by ComboSmiteNick on Oct 26, 2017 14:52:39 GMT
I'm still trying to figure that out.
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Post by drillbossd on Oct 26, 2017 17:18:49 GMT
Does it seem to be better at 20 or 25?
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Post by paradox on Oct 26, 2017 20:44:46 GMT
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Post by ComboSmiteNick on Oct 27, 2017 12:20:37 GMT
If you have the rules, I am curious - how does Vengeance work? I made five lists out of models I have and two have Vengeance, so I was curious. Thanks! If you buy the CoI war room cards (which I did) you find out that MANY rules have been re-written and updated on the new set of cards. Vengeance is one of them. Vengeance in CoI reads: During this models's Maintenanace Phase, if one or more models in its unit and in its command range were damaged by enemy attacks since the begining of the round, this model can advance 3" and make one basic melee attack. You may recall that vengeance in Warmachine triggers when a model in your unit is damaged in the "last round". This would have been a nightmare to track in CoI since you could have a model that hadn't activated yet with a vengeance trigger from last round have something damaged nearby and now have to also remember a vengeance trigger for NEXT round. This simplifies this greatly. There are tons of rules that have been updated to work in CoI. I highly recommend picking up the new cards if you are interested in CoI. I was not impressed when I first read that we would need to pay cards again but there really is a lot of value in having the rules changes spelled out explicitly in the app.
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Post by W0lfBane on Oct 27, 2017 13:29:18 GMT
If you have the rules, I am curious - how does Vengeance work? I made five lists out of models I have and two have Vengeance, so I was curious. Thanks! If you buy the CoI war room cards (which I did) you find out that MANY rules have been re-written and updated on the new set of cards. Vengeance is one of them. Vengeance in CoI reads: During this models's Maintenanace Phase, if one or more models in its unit and in its command range were damaged by enemy attacks since the begining of the round, this model can advance 3" and make one basic melee attack. You may recall that vengeance in Warmachine triggers when a model in your unit is damaged in the "last round". This would have been a nightmare to track in CoI since you could have a model that hadn't activated yet with a vengeance trigger from last round have something damaged nearby and now have to also remember a vengeance trigger for NEXT round. This simplifies this greatly. There are tons of rules that have been updated to work in CoI. I highly recommend picking up the new cards if you are interested in CoI. I was not impressed when I first read that we would need to pay cards again but there really is a lot of value in having the rules changes spelled out explicitly in the app. The basic rulebook covers all that though. It says things that care about last round track from beginning of the round. Things that require somethong in the unit happening have to happen in that models command. And that maintenance phase effects happen at the maintenance phase of that particular model. Its all in different sections of the rule book but its there.
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Post by Azahul on Oct 27, 2017 13:52:40 GMT
I played my first games of it tonight. Had a blast. The first game was a force mostly based on Farrow Commandos squaring off against Kayazy, the second game was Cephalyx vs Kossites. I definitely felt a lot more comfortable in attrition the more numbers I had. So long as you have a decent-sized hand the cards can let any model drop just about any other model, so numbers felt extremely effective. Troops feel pretty durable as well, even models Warmachine has conditioned me to assume will die like chumps.
That said, those are only initial impressions. I'm looking forward to refining those thoughts further with a whole lot more games in the format.
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Post by ComboSmiteNick on Oct 27, 2017 15:27:34 GMT
If you buy the CoI war room cards (which I did) you find out that MANY rules have been re-written and updated on the new set of cards. Vengeance is one of them. Vengeance in CoI reads: During this models's Maintenanace Phase, if one or more models in its unit and in its command range were damaged by enemy attacks since the begining of the round, this model can advance 3" and make one basic melee attack. You may recall that vengeance in Warmachine triggers when a model in your unit is damaged in the "last round". This would have been a nightmare to track in CoI since you could have a model that hadn't activated yet with a vengeance trigger from last round have something damaged nearby and now have to also remember a vengeance trigger for NEXT round. This simplifies this greatly. There are tons of rules that have been updated to work in CoI. I highly recommend picking up the new cards if you are interested in CoI. I was not impressed when I first read that we would need to pay cards again but there really is a lot of value in having the rules changes spelled out explicitly in the app. The basic rulebook covers all that though. It says things that care about last round track from beginning of the round. Things that require somethong in the unit happening have to happen in that models command. And that maintenance phase effects happen at the maintenance phase of that particular model. Its all in different sections of the rule book but its there. The basic rule absolutely did NOT cover how Vengeance works in CoI. The ability was completely re-worded to make it function properly. They have also reworded the timing on pretty much every mini-feat in the game. RAW they didn't work. Intention was clear enough in that case though. For vengeance the timing was fundamentally changed.
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Post by paradox on Oct 27, 2017 15:35:43 GMT
The Core and Advanced rules covered it by implication.
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Post by ComboSmiteNick on Oct 27, 2017 15:50:44 GMT
The Core and Advanced rules covered it by implication. Ok. I can see what you guys are saying and you are not wrong. It's still super nice to have it explicitly stated on the card with wording specific to CoI that doesn't need a "translation" My point is that the cards are worth the money because they make it easier which is even more relevant for a light narrative game. Narrative games should have fewer rules arguments not more, right?
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Post by paradox on Oct 27, 2017 16:17:30 GMT
I for one wont be dropping $20 on the cards. I dont see the value. But it does make it easier, sure.
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Post by W0lfBane on Oct 27, 2017 17:24:00 GMT
Actually there is one ability that got reworked fundamentally and isn't covered in the rules. Exemplar errant minifeat
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