First play impressions? Gencon atmosphere?

By rzarectz, in Warhammer 40,000: Conquest

Hi guys,

Like most people I'm not at Gencon!

But I'm curious as to how the release of the game is going and what people think of their first plays?

Also wondering how the overall reception/demand of the game is from attendees as a whole? Is the demand as crazy as it was for Netrunner? Hoping it is given it's a good indicator as to how much interest there is in the game in general.

Let us know!

I dont think it opens till Thursday

Ah good to know!

Well it is open I wonder how its selling

I know it would be selling a lot better if it was available at the FFG store. :P

Well it is open I wonder how its selling

Sold out by 2pm... so went well, but just for comparison. Star Wars sold out faster. Also Netrunner sold out in like a few hours.

Oh that sucks I was hoping it sold out as fast as thouse two games.

Is there a possibility that they had more product because of past sell outs?

Sold out as of 2 PM other than reserved copies.

They will likely have some tomorrow and the day after. that's my experience from previous FFG GenCons, there's a daily allotment

That's not how it was with Netrunner. They had to emergency overnight some for the tournament players.

My source says all that will go on sale tomorrow is any reserved copies not picked up by players.

copies sold out yesterday and today

today they had none at 10pm inbetween 12 and 1 a shipment came in and they sold out way before 3

I hear the buzz is rasher good, and as word of mouth spread the sales speed picked up?

A friend at GenCon bought me a copy on Thursday and overnighted it to me back here in Charlotte NC. I've played 4 games so far with the starter decks and the game is a BLAST! Maneuvering is key as making sure you have the right guys at the right planet seems to be half of the battle right there. Command struggles are also clutch because they can give you not only more resources but also the all-important card advantage. Just as I suspected, having a shield card at the right time is immeasurably good. From our initial 4 games, I won big with the Dark Eldar starter (versus Orks) and REALLY big with the Astra Militarium starter (versus Eldar.) The Glorious Intervention card for AM is an INCREDIBLE swing when you use it on Strakhen's Command Squad, especially if the Command Squad has gotten a chance to attack once already that round. This prevents the damage to your AM unit, hits the attacker back for 2 and then due to the Command Squad's interrupt effect allows you to put a Guardsman token into play who is now ready to attack next in sequence. Seriously, the Intervention card is my favorite card in the game right now.

DE are as evil as many people surmised and Pact of the Haemonculi is ridiculously efficient when you sacrifice a Khymera token with it.

Last thought for now, Flying is by far the best ability on any unit. The Black Heart Ravager is a house.

range is still better than flying I think. Flying reduces damage, but that doesn't count for much if you are shooting first and taking them out anyway. Apart from the Chaos dragon there is a few 5's and the rest are low 3 or less. Either way it is about "left over damage". A 5 health unit can often take 2 hits, a flying 5 health units will also take two hits. So the flying doesn't help in the latter game when the larger objects are out, but the ranged is always a power. Hitting a unit for 4 and then 4 for 8 over two turns and hitting it for 2,2,2 is about how it gose. Flyers seam to stay around 1 turn more than normal.

Not saying flying is bad, but I think ranged is easily the best trait so far. Also 3 factions can get the anti orc flyer cards that remove flying, and range + tap on attack completely shuts down flyers as well form another 3 factions.

About imp.. (no way am I calling it AM or any of that ****, they are Imperial Guard and Imps for short and have been for decades.. I ain't changing!) I have yet to really look at them, I was planning to do a Imp / SM deck next.. so I'll give them a look. That card dose seam pretty boss!

What I like about the game in my initial plays is that it is not nearly as headbutting as I thought. The action windows and staged planets resolutions and even the way the combat is split into ranged and stuff gives ample opportunity for sneaking about and making cool plays. I was worried at first when I read the rules that the game would be like one of those retarded computer game ccgs like Hearthstone of Duel of Champions, where it is all about placing units and them headbutting them into each other until one side has no units on it and the other has.

Edited by booored

From our initial 4 games, I won big with the Dark Eldar starter (versus Orks) and REALLY big with the Astra Militarium starter (versus Eldar.) The Glorious Intervention card for AM is an INCREDIBLE swing when you use it on Strakhen's Command Squad, especially if the Command Squad has gotten a chance to attack once already that round. This prevents the damage to your AM unit, hits the attacker back for 2 and then due to the Command Squad's interrupt effect allows you to put a Guardsman token into play who is now ready to attack next in sequence. Seriously, the Intervention card is my favorite card in the game right now.

AM is seriously grown on me in the last few days. So much so, that I'm considering playing an AM/SM deck first. For a Chaos fanatic, this is a shock. I'm not surprised about Glorious Intervention, it seemed like a great card. Even though there are less soldier/warrior types for Straken's ability than I would have liked, you can still fix this with units like Blood Angels Veterans, Daring Assault Squad or Iron Hands Techmarine. Techmarine can certainly help because of his command struggle ability. Question is whether these slightly more expensive units can be played as readily.

A couple of questions: how did Straken's Cunning play for you? Better as a shield or actually played? I have an inkling to put it on a weaker unit(with ranged it would be great) then once it goes, collect the card draw bonus. And how did they handle command struggles?

This has been a great game. I know as soon as I get back to Portland I will be demoing my copies so customers can get some Preorders in. Great game. I wish I didn't need 3 core sets. but when you think of how many factions there are it makes sense.

From our initial 4 games, I won big with the Dark Eldar starter (versus Orks) and REALLY big with the Astra Militarium starter (versus Eldar.) The Glorious Intervention card for AM is an INCREDIBLE swing when you use it on Strakhen's Command Squad, especially if the Command Squad has gotten a chance to attack once already that round. This prevents the damage to your AM unit, hits the attacker back for 2 and then due to the Command Squad's interrupt effect allows you to put a Guardsman token into play who is now ready to attack next in sequence. Seriously, the Intervention card is my favorite card in the game right now.

AM is seriously grown on me in the last few days. So much so, that I'm considering playing an AM/SM deck first. For a Chaos fanatic, this is a shock. I'm not surprised about Glorious Intervention, it seemed like a great card. Even though there are less soldier/warrior types for Straken's ability than I would have liked, you can still fix this with units like Blood Angels Veterans, Daring Assault Squad or Iron Hands Techmarine. Techmarine can certainly help because of his command struggle ability. Question is whether these slightly more expensive units can be played as readily.

A couple of questions: how did Straken's Cunning play for you? Better as a shield or actually played? I have an inkling to put it on a weaker unit(with ranged it would be great) then once it goes, collect the card draw bonus. And how did they handle command struggles?

I would much rather have had Strakhen's Cunning in hand to shield my 4/5 Infantry Conscripts on turn 2 than having it on my Cadian Mortar Squad as an attachment. I thought being able to ready the mortar squad AND having a 2 Atk Ranged unit would be clutch. It was not. As my opponent was Eldar he used Starbane's Reaction to exhaust the mortar squad before it ever got to shoot. I was able to ready it once thanks to Glorious Intervention on my Straken's Command Squad, but later he killed the Conscripts and I was wishing I had it to use for shield tokens. I didn't even draw into any shield cards when I drew the three cards off of Straken's Cunning's Interrupt ability!

I only won Command Struggles as AM when Straken was there, essentially. The lack of command icons really hurt. I did make use of a Rogue Trader to win a couple command struggles, but I was hurting for resources and cards most of the game. The Imperial Bunker helped as did a turn 1 Promethium Mine, but - especially against Eldar and their "Superiority" - I didn't win nearly as many command struggles as I did as other factions like Tau or Dark Eldar.

Edited by Darik

I played in the gen con tourney on Saturday and I was top 16. I regularly play netrunner and I'm perplexed because I don't know how I'm going to find time for both games. I somehow managed to get top 16 out of 110 people at the tourney. The game is well balanced, well thought out, and hast great flavor. I'm so excited for all of you that weren't at gencon to get the core set and get a chance to play. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer if I can.

I would much rather have had Strakhen's Cunning in hand to shield my 4/5 Infantry Conscripts on turn 2 than having it on my Cadian Mortar Squad as an attachment. I thought being able to ready the mortar squad AND having a 2 Atk Ranged unit would be clutch. It was not. As my opponent was Eldar he used Starbane's Reaction to exhaust the mortar squad before it ever got to shoot. I was able to ready it once thanks to Glorious Intervention on my Straken's Command Squad, but later he killed the Conscripts and I was wishing I had it to use for shield tokens. I didn't even draw into any shield cards when I drew the three cards off of Straken's Cunning's Interrupt ability!

I only won Command Struggles as AM when Straken was there, essentially. The lack of command icons really hurt. I did make use of a Rogue Trader to win a couple command struggles, but I was hurting for resources and cards most of the game. The Imperial Bunker helped as did a turn 1 Promethium Mine, but - especially against Eldar and their "Superiority" - I didn't win nearly as many command struggles as I did as other factions like Tau or Dark Eldar.

Many thanks for the insight! And to shipwreck as well for sharing his experience. Clearly, command struggles are shaping up to be enormous.

Two more games under our belts after last night and we saw our first Warlord Death! I was playing Orcs and drew terrible hands as far as actually having units. It's hard to make De Boyz big when De Boyz don't show up! But the Tellyporta Pad for Orcs is HUGE! I used it to move Nazdreg himself into a battle once for the clean-up attack. Sadly, having your Warlord do most of the heavy lifting against a Chaos opponent means you're going to take a beating early. Nazdreg died in the third turn after my opponent had used some Cultist tokens to help him summon a Possessed demon. Also, Zarathur's Flamers are REALLY strong. Second game I won with planets as the Tau. Commander Shadowsun's ability is great at recurring those attachments you use as shields. My Dark Eldar opponent had an army of Khymera's when we came to the crucial battle, but they were all on the adjacent planet. And I had souped up a Crisis Team to have both a +2/+2 boost from an attached Shadowsun's Stealth Cadre and a Repulsor Impact Field on it at the adjacent planet. In this game, though I had come very close to losing Shadowsun's ability as she was 1 hp away from becoming bloodied after the First Planet Battle on turn 1! I secured the planet but just barely. During the command phase of Turn 2, I set my dial to planet 4 and committed her to Iridial all by herself.

My opponent sent his Warlord to the first planet so I knew Shadowsun would win the battle at Iridial with no opposition. Why? Well, even though I was not able to secure Iridial as it was not currently the first planet, I could activate it's battle ability to "Remove all damage from a target unit" and heal my warlord for 6! I'm liking the Tau very much so far.

are you just using the starter decks?

Yes, we only have 1 core set so far and are only playing with the 35 card "starter" decks for each faction. I'm sure the game will change dramatically when we get to build our own decks.

Yes, we only have 1 core set so far and are only playing with the 35 card "starter" decks for each faction. I'm sure the game will change dramatically when we get to build our own decks.

Yes, we only have 1 core set so far and are only playing with the 35 card "starter" decks for each faction. I'm sure the game will change dramatically when we get to build our own decks.

for the gencon tourney we could have a minimum of 50 cards utilizing only one core set and combining 2 factions using the loyalty wheel thing. U can only use 1 warlord and his or her loyal and signature cards.

Yep. We were trying to stick to only the 35 card demo decks (mentioned in the rulebook) to start and now that we have each played one game at least with each of the 7 starters we plan to make some standard constructed decks.

I got totally stomped as Space Marines last night - AM are no JOKE! So, I'll report some more after we try out constructed decks. I'm looking to do Eldar/Dark Eldar for my first attempt.