One of the biggest cliches doing the rounds at the moment is "it feels just like a game of Warhammer". Well on the weekend I had my first game of 9th Age and......you guessed it.
The game was between Skaven and Tomb Kings (or more properly Ratmen of Underblight and the Entombed Dynasties). A Ravening Hordes style compendium is available that seeks to balance and re-point for the 9th Age and both armies were drawn from that - 2400 points.
One of the nice new changes made in the rules - that needs the benefit of some play testing - allows you to multiple drop at each stage of the alternating deployment. This allows you to drop your whole army immediately and guarantee first turn (more work needed guys). It is an interesting mechanic and I think it can be refined, perhaps with a +2 cap.
The first pic shows my first turn and the rats scurry forth. There has been some nice changes to the rats - slaves are now a more reasonable WS1 which means they never hurt anything, plague monks are core, both the Doomwheel and HPA have been toned down with a little bit more certainty re outcome. The big change is too magic where the rats have been hit by the beatstick and that they have little or no toys (less magic items than any other army). It will take awhile to see how things compare to other armies but that will be part of the fun.
In the game I managed to get the Furnace and monks into archers with both TK Magic users. That was never going to end well for the bone-ies.
Slaves clogged up the flanks but versus even the Skellies they were hitting on 6s. You can see the Tomb Guard blocked by a diverter - though now this costs a minimum of 65 points. He eventually fled and the TG overran into the Slaves....poor positioning by me.
With the death of the Hierophant there was a crumble test and both catapults crumbled.
In the end the Skellies were charged by Stormvermin and Slaves and were surviving until the intervention of the HPA (who had weathered the charge of 4 chariots).
All in all it was a fun game and I'll certainly be pursuing it over coming months.
Posted with Blogsy
What made the game fun Pete?
ReplyDeletethe pictures don't do the manoeuvres justice but it seems like you took your big unit and shoved it at the skellies. Where there flanking manoeuvres?
what were the scenario victory conditions? Was it just VPs and if so how different is it to 8th?
We were trying out the new rules John. So the fun was seeing how it all pieced together. There was a new magic mechanic to get our heads around as well as seeing how units had changed.
DeleteSo fun learning.