Reading through the forums and trying to wrap my mind around the current rulebook available online, I have a few questions.

What is the normal space required to play Anima: Tactics? I'm used to 6'x4' gaming areas for Warhammer 40K and WFB, thus the reason why I'm asking. It seems that with only eight, give or take a few, miniatures on the table at once, you would only be playing on possibly a 2'x2' board region, maybe 4'x4'.

The terrain rules seem pretty.... vague in terms of how do builds effect movement, attacks, ect. Has there been anything to clarify this?

When using a boards, does a Descent:JitD board work well? It doesn't seem to have many elevations, but alof potential for LOS and short range and melee combat.

Also, from what I've gathered, alot of the newer minis do no have rules, so how exactly do you play with those? Do you have to homegrow rules for those particular minis?

Thanks for any responses.

The necessary rules to use all the current characters are already out.

For all the rules check out : Anima Tactics Oracle

http://atoracle.wikidot.com/

Go to the rulebook section and download the 3 PDFs with rules. The rules for Throw, Summons, infiltration, etc are all in those PDFs.

Also, you can use Oracle to check out pictures of all the painted minatures that are out and you can check out each characters cards for their stats as well as check any Errata that are out for that character.

The rulebook should come out latter this year so you don't have long to wait. If you want a more active forum then the dead FFG forums then join us at the offical internation forum here: http://www.edgeent.com/animaforum/index.php

The average game is 300 points which is about 6 minis each player. That makes this a very cheap game to get into.

This means you can play the game on a small table since there are not a lot of minis involved.

The rules are simple for the game but the game is still quite complex. There are currently 6 Organization out that give their own advantages if you build such a team or you can ignore them and play with whatever combo of characters you want as long as you don't mix Light and Dark characters. Each character has their own strengths and weakness and building an effective team is part of the challange of the game.

Note, there are no powergaming characters. The most powerful characters are Leaders who have a limit on how many of them you can take and the more powerful the character the more expensive they are. There are 70+ characters in the game which are very powerful but they take up nearly 1/4 of a 300 point team so it balances out. Still, even the powerful characters have their weakness which range from slow speed to vunerablity to certain attacks, etc that keeps them balanced.

A very good overview of each Organizations playstyle is avalable here:

http://www.edgeent.com/animaforum/index.php?topic=2118.msg28234#msg28234

Thank you for the responses.

In terms of the rule book, I was looking at some other forums, and the folks there was making it sound as though no word has been given on any rulebook since it was announced last year sometime. Some thinking this hurt the hobby, others thinking you didn't really need anything more then the start rules anyhow.

And the points thing I understand completely. I have a 22yr vet of Warhammer and Warhammer 40K, so used to point values being higher or lower depending on the usefulness of the miniature. Is nice though that it is fairly small, much smaller then even Mordheim so that is a big plus for me.

Thank you again. I'll have to look into the other forums you mentioned. I don't respond very quickly on my work days, so please forgive me being so late getting back to you.

We have been given more than one sneek peek at the rulebook so its coming out. So plenty of words have been givinen on the rulebook as well as apoligies for the delay. People are just being panicky, OMG delay = doom.

I would guess its coming in august just in time for origins. It would make sense from a marketing prespective.

For the record, Anima tactics works quite well with only 3 or 4 minis per side on a roughly 2 1/2 square area as well. That's how a lot of my games have been played

I have not tried Descent boards, but I have used D&D miniatures and Mage Knight dungeons boards with good effects.

Ok, after that last post I started wondering about how Descent boards would work and gave it a try. 3 vs 3 game on a small Descent board (which was, incidentally, a pain to put together - those **** Descent pieces never line up!). Worked ok; lots of hit and run with corners. It was hard to run or charge. I should have added some terrain as well.

The minis fit nicely in the squares, though I decided it was best to have Samiel take up 4 spaces. I think it could work, but I think I prefer a tabletop and measured movement. Which is odd for me, since with most games I prefer boards.

So my wife and I went through and got 250 points worth of models

I went with a Church/Empire mix, and she went a Dark/Asian theme.

I don't recall exactly what miniatures my wife got but I

• Romeo Exxet
• Alis Testarossa
• Kronnen Roxxon
• Lilian Virgil
• Lady Evangeline

I haven't had a chance to actually play with the set up yet though, I might swap out either the Empire or the Church members as I go through and get a better feel for everyone. I got everything put together, so now its a matter of painting, tonight though should be my first real game, so will see how everything pans out.

Thats a pretty awesome Light team, you'll have some serious fun with it.

- Raith

Haven't had to fight a full game yet. Only did a small 85 point battle on a 2ftx2ft battle field.

My side included Kronen and Lilian

My wife took Takanosuke and Jaing Pao

Kronen and Jaing got locked into melee combat on turn two and remained there all the way until the end. Kronen just couldn't hit Jaing, and Jaing just could not get enough damage to get past Kronen's armor.

Taka tried to stab Lilian in the back, but failed his attack. Those two sat in combat for a good few turns while Lilian slowly wore down the ninja. My wife didn't notice the skill allowing him to get out of combat, but his abilities were all sealed for the first couple turns anyhow.

Once Taka was dead Lilian joined Kronen and began healing his wounds. After a few turns of this, my wife had enough and had Jaing more or less oneshot poor Lilian since I didn't have any tokens left over for dodges. Kronen began to go more defensive. Dodge one turn, Scarlet heart the next, and repeat. It was that that eventually lt Kronen get the upper hand on Jaing and beat him down.

Overall fun game. Lilian really stole the show though, as she just refused to go down Jaing smacked into her, and her Seal ability messed up Taka's plans pretty badly. Kronen wasn't horrible once I got into the role of defending with him, but could really tell he was hugely offensive.

I have to say, it was pretty fun and look forward to the next, much larger battle.

Dodge one turn, Scarlet heart the next, and repeat. Thats how you play Kronen.

Honestly, that was a poorly balanced match. One side cannot hit and the other cannot do enough damage. Most likely Kronen especally w/ healing will when in the end considering how much damage he can take.

As you can see, what characters you take on your team can make a big difference since they all have their own abilites, and different strengths and weakness). Also, make sure to read all the abilites a character has. If Takanosukeused Kage Shuriken and managed to Paralyze Kronen then your wife might have won the game. Paralyze would prevent Kronen from dodging, and as you now know you will take a lot of damage when you cannot dodge.

And Kage should be used to escape combat so he can move out of enemy Zone of Controls and get re-hide.

Yeah, both my wife and I knew going into the game that it wasn't going to be the idle match-up, but we both picked a 40 and 45 point model to bring to battle.

I believe that was also the first time my wife actually looked at her force in depth and had to try to wrap her mind around various aspects. The whole 'hiding in plain sight' thing kinda annoyed her, and she didn't notice the upkeep icon associated with that, but since it was the first game, we just moved on.

I have no doubts things would have been much more interesting if she remembered each ability. The first few turns though it didn't really matter much as Lilian managed to get Seal to stick on Taka, and that more or less doomed him for those two turns where Lilian just to wail on him. In fact neither of us fully grasped just how powerful Dodge and Counter are in Anima until the end when I began rolling with Kronen. Up until that point we were just full force mauling each other. Once Lilian joined Kronen in fighting Jaing was when my wife decided to start Dodging and we got the idea.

The next game will be a bit more balanced as our lists are 250, and we're both a bit more familiar with the rules so shouldn't slip up as much. I want to see what Romeo is capable of on the battle field.

I think my first game was my Cheshire against oh I would like to say it was Kronen or Lilian but It might even been Shingami. In any case It was quick to learn you really had to micro manage and remeber to leave power over for countering and dodge on your opposing players turn. I too madehte mistake of going all out. I have yet to play another game but my team consists of Cheshire, Shingami, Justina, and Hel. More or less since I liked hte look of the models and I bought the opposite that my girlfriend bought last year.

We were eagerly awaiting a rule book but hte old webpage was so craptastic. That and my other hobbies (plus closing of the only game shope nearby carrying these fine figs) really cut into my intrest. Come to think of it, i think half my team is sitting in a basement in Des Moines Iowa because my friend accidentlay took a box of my things when he moved out.