It's finally here , i thought i share it before i'm off watching it.

Thank you to the guys at Team Covenant

I can't wait to get home and watch it!

And there was much rejoicing.

Yaaayyy

Darn... want... *drool*

The game looks super fun and super sleek, but I am now seriously worried about the price point.

Pretty much all attacks are INCREDIBLY destructive in this game. You'll almost spend as much time removing casulties as you will planning your moves (which in itself is a gameplay problem, but let's leave that alone for now). The skellie-axey dude was taking off whole swathes of those spearmen and they didn't even count his damage multiplier ability. If they did, he'd have cleared out that entire unit of sixteen in two swings. Even a lousy two-tray unit can easily do 2-3 damage times 2 (again they forgot to count the multiplier at various points of the game). That's 4-6 dead infantry dudes or 2-3 cavalry, 1-1,5 tray. And that's not counting Panic effects that might pull even more. You will need absolutely HUGE armies of dozens of figures per unit to have the game be more interesting than "swing three times and GG, the one who engaged first wins". The core set is 6 unit and 2 hero/monster trays per side. It's 100$ bucks, so 50$ per side. And historically core sets are a significant discount to buying units separately. I shudder to think how fat the sacks of money will have to be to give you enough figures for a meaningful, strategic game.

My Cons:

Agreed Don Silvarro -- mass battle games are never cheap, but this looks to be the equivalent of only 500 points in similar systems such as Kings of War. That is, essentially, 1/4 a standard army. No word from FFG on how much the reality differs, but regardless, we can do the math with how fast these figures were falling.

It is a pity they did not go 15mm with this -- smaller pieces may have yielded more units, offering more of an epic feel they seem to be going for in this introduction to Rank & File for transitioning gamers.

Odd units in melee are essentially locked up, unless the activating unit wants to face very unpleasant consequences. KoW solved this issue without negating realistic strategy and hard choices. "Tar pits," as they were called in WFB produced one of the worst aspects of the game system. Odd they would not attempt to circumvent what can be a buzz-kill during demos and first experiences.

My Pros:

It is refreshing to see a FFG demo team member who knows the rules inside and out, and is quite articulate and enthused. Makes for a great video -- cheers to him.

I love the actions, the Runes, and the Morale deck. Seems they are incorporating what they do best --- using decks, orders and unique game components to express concepts. Very nice.

Expansion options are almost limitless -- this could become a niche favorite among FFG customers if it succeeds. With a company that produces quality product at a very impressive rate of output, new armies and expansion boxes could keep things fresh for years.

FFG holds a high level of trust with customers, and excellent market saturation. While I may stick with other games, i've been rolling dice for rank and file battles for 15 years. If I was new to the concept and perusing this website or my local store, I would have an absolute wargasm over this release. I hope many do, and it takes off in a manner affordable enough for people to commit.

The game looks super fun and super sleek, but I am now seriously worried about the price point.

Pretty much all attacks are INCREDIBLY destructive in this game. You'll almost spend as much time removing casulties as you will planning your moves (which in itself is a gameplay problem, but let's leave that alone for now). The skellie-axey dude was taking off whole swathes of those spearmen and they didn't even count his damage multiplier ability. If they did, he'd have cleared out that entire unit of sixteen in two swings. Even a lousy two-tray unit can easily do 2-3 damage times 2 (again they forgot to count the multiplier at various points of the game). That's 4-6 dead infantry dudes or 2-3 cavalry, 1-1,5 tray. And that's not counting Panic effects that might pull even more. You will need absolutely HUGE armies of dozens of figures per unit to have the game be more interesting than "swing three times and GG, the one who engaged first wins". The core set is 6 unit and 2 hero/monster trays per side. It's 100$ bucks, so 50$ per side. And historically core sets are a significant discount to buying units separately. I shudder to think how fat the sacks of money will have to be to give you enough figures for a meaningful, strategic game.

Yes damage at least to basic troops seems really high, they also forgot to double the archers damage on their first attack so those spearmen would really be dead, but yet we haven't really seen more elite units, the knights have 2 shields which they can up to 3 so they would take lot less damage but of course they are less in unit size.

We will se if we need massive armies or if this will just be a short game which would be fine with me.

And the morale system is purely luck based so i wouldn't really count it to the killpower, we don't know how many damage and kill cards are in there.

But in general the rules and the game seem nice and i can't wait to get to see the full rules for terrain, range modifiers and army building.

I'm still left with my original first impression (although I am even more impressed now). This game really needed more factions out ofthe gate. I don't want to show up to a shop with everyone playing humans and undead. I want to see more variety than that.

Still, I love what they're doing with the game. As mentioned above, the runes are a great touch. One of the criticisms of Runewars (boardgame) is that the runes are just a victory condition. It's a bit of a let-down after the exposition in the beginning of the rulebook about how powerful the dragon runes are. It's nice to see these runes have powerful effects (even if these aren't actual dragon runes).

The game does seem awfully fiddly, though. Not that BattleLore doesn't suffer from that, too.

I'm very excited to see how this plays out on a 6x3 battlefield.

Those movement trays look very 'fiddly'. That large unit of skeletons that lost a tray moved around A LOT as the tray was removed. Not sure how much that will matter but in other miniature games I've played the position of a unit is a critical element of the game.

I'm interested but whether I play or not will depend on the quality of the miniatures and if the community seems large enough to survive the initial excitement.

J--

The damage output will be lessened a bit I think when you're not deployed 6" deep on a 2' demo table. A 4x3/6x3 will allow much more spacing for movement and tactics before blood is shed in the middle.

I think this game looks fantastic, and it looks like they did a mass battle game completely right down to the really awesome morale system. My Battlelore 2nd ed will be on EBay before years end.

Block formation games typically have position matter less than other minis games. You do some early maneuvering but once you lock into combat you're probably parked there a while. But it's certainly not all that dynamic. I'm almost inclined to say that the movement templates are irrelevant for the amount of actual moving you'll do but it would be good to see a full sized game by players that know how to play before making that conclusion. Their main function seems to be that they do lock you into what direction you'll turn in, but not anything to do with measuring being easier or more precise.

A bit fiddly, but not bad for a block formation game, you're not going to escape that fully - let's say it's about as good as it's going to be in that aspect. I don't have a problem with it. It feels a bit light to me for a tabletop game, being used to stuff like Warmachine. Units seem light on abilities and it feels like there's a huge gaping hole where some sort of spell system ought to be - it would add so much to the game if you could buff troops, cast offensive spells at enemies, and do other magical stuff.

But the demo is noticeably lacking any upgrade cards at all, so undoubtable there will be some more interesting things happening when we can see a more in depth game with these elements. Maybe there will even be a leader card with a global ability like in Armada, and that might include some sort of spell-like powers.

It's got potential, but we just need to know a *lot* more about the game. Show us more about upgrades. Show us more units. Show us some objectives and those deployment cards. How will upgrade cards be packaged and sold - do you need to buy all factions to get cards, because if you do that's a huge negative.

And what about those other factions? Only two is pretty lame and will kill interest for most minis gamers if you're hoping to attract those guys. One of the most important parts of playing a minis game is faction identity, picking who YOUR guys are going to be, having more diversity in opponents playing different stuff, and having individualized communities online for each faction as well.

It is refreshing to see a FFG demo team member who knows the rules inside and out, and is quite articulate and enthused. Makes for a great video -- cheers to him.

Thank you sir. I was actually a bit nervous to be on video and of the three times I was taped that day, TC was the most well known group so I'll admit it was a little intimidating. I just hope I got some good information in past all of the "uh"s and "um"s.

The game looks super fun and super sleek, but I am now seriously worried about the price point.

Pretty much all attacks are INCREDIBLY destructive in this game. You'll almost spend as much time removing casulties as you will planning your moves (which in itself is a gameplay problem, but let's leave that alone for now). The skellie-axey dude was taking off whole swathes of those spearmen and they didn't even count his damage multiplier ability. If they did, he'd have cleared out that entire unit of sixteen in two swings. Even a lousy two-tray unit can easily do 2-3 damage times 2 (again they forgot to count the multiplier at various points of the game). That's 4-6 dead infantry dudes or 2-3 cavalry, 1-1,5 tray. And that's not counting Panic effects that might pull even more. You will need absolutely HUGE armies of dozens of figures per unit to have the game be more interesting than "swing three times and GG, the one who engaged first wins". The core set is 6 unit and 2 hero/monster trays per side. It's 100$ bucks, so 50$ per side. And historically core sets are a significant discount to buying units separately. I shudder to think how fat the sacks of money will have to be to give you enough figures for a meaningful, strategic game.

1st quarter 2017 is a ways off so things may change, but as of the rule set that was current the day of the demo the squad point limit of a full size game is 200 points. The human army in the demo was 99 with no upgrades and the undead was about 94. The regulation play size is 3'x6' with is twice as wide and a few inches deeper than the demo table. The scoring system is very similar to Armada in that kills get you points, but you will need to rock the objectives also to pull out a win. It's limited to 8 rounds.

So, with upgrades, you're probably looking at half more than what was on the table? Which seems pretty manageable. 6-8 units/heroes/creatures

The game looks super fun and super sleek, but I am now seriously worried about the price point.

Pretty much all attacks are INCREDIBLY destructive in this game. You'll almost spend as much time removing casulties as you will planning your moves (which in itself is a gameplay problem, but let's leave that alone for now). The skellie-axey dude was taking off whole swathes of those spearmen and they didn't even count his damage multiplier ability. If they did, he'd have cleared out that entire unit of sixteen in two swings. Even a lousy two-tray unit can easily do 2-3 damage times 2 (again they forgot to count the multiplier at various points of the game). That's 4-6 dead infantry dudes or 2-3 cavalry, 1-1,5 tray. And that's not counting Panic effects that might pull even more. You will need absolutely HUGE armies of dozens of figures per unit to have the game be more interesting than "swing three times and GG, the one who engaged first wins". The core set is 6 unit and 2 hero/monster trays per side. It's 100$ bucks, so 50$ per side. And historically core sets are a significant discount to buying units separately. I shudder to think how fat the sacks of money will have to be to give you enough figures for a meaningful, strategic game.

1st quarter 2017 is a ways off so things may change, but as of the rule set that was current the day of the demo the squad point limit of a full size game is 200 points. The human army in the demo was 99 with no upgrades and the undead was about 94. The regulation play size is 3'x6' with is twice as wide and a few inches deeper than the demo table. The scoring system is very similar to Armada in that kills get you points, but you will need to rock the objectives also to pull out a win. It's limited to 8 rounds.

Thanks for the additional information! I was wondering about "suggested" points levels, this gives me a lot to mull over.

It is refreshing to see a FFG demo team member who knows the rules inside and out, and is quite articulate and enthused. Makes for a great video -- cheers to him.

Thank you sir. I was actually a bit nervous to be on video and of the three times I was taped that day, TC was the most well known group so I'll admit it was a little intimidating. I just hope I got some good information in past all of the "uh"s and "um"s.

You did great, and I say that as someone who has also done miniature game demoes at conventions myself :-)

Not just you, but the girl who ran the TC demo for Arkham Horror did a great job too. I've had some badly run demos at Gencon before where it felt like the person running it just learned the game themselves so just let me say we all appreciate getting someone knowledgable about the game.

Thanks as well for the info on game sizes. My initial reaction is that 200 with upgrades doesn't seem that big, so I suspect some groups may like playing bigger than that, which is super-common in minis games anyway and a lot of them have multiple common point sizes.

First Quarter 2017 *is* a ways off. But hopefully we'll see some more articles addressing more of the open questions before too long.

love every minute

Not just you, but the girl who ran the TC demo for Arkham Horror did a great job too. I've had some badly run demos at Gencon before where it felt like the person running it just learned the game themselves

TBF, that's exactly how it shakes out in the industry, especially with unreleased stuff that's meant to be kept on the hush-hush. I can't comment on how FFG specifically does things, but, for better or worse, it's a fairly common procedure to get a volunteer, give him/her a (if you're lucky, a legible and fairly complete) rulebook the evening before and tell him/her to show up at the table to do demoes.

Other times the demo person genuinely knows the game inside out, might have even worked on it or playtested it, and still makes mistakes out of sheer material fatigue, even if they do their best not to show how tired they are. Until you try it yourself, it's hard to appreciate of how easy it is to mess up even stuff you know inside-out when you are spending upwards of 9-10 hours on your feet, likely with no lunch break, in an impossibly crowded and noisy environment, explaining the stuff to complete strangers, over and over and over and over and over again and then some more.

I agree. And I have worked doing demos all day at Gencon myself. I even saw a negative comment posted by someone afterward who expected to get in a full game and wasn't happy that after time was up I had to close out the game and referred everyone in the group to our booth if they wanted to buy a copy, claimed they were being rushed or pushed or something like that (this was like 5 years ago). It's because of experiences like that that I always try to let people know when they do a great job giving demos.

The game looks super fun and super sleek, but I am now seriously worried about the price point.

Pretty much all attacks are INCREDIBLY destructive in this game. You'll almost spend as much time removing casulties as you will planning your moves (which in itself is a gameplay problem, but let's leave that alone for now). The skellie-axey dude was taking off whole swathes of those spearmen and they didn't even count his damage multiplier ability. If they did, he'd have cleared out that entire unit of sixteen in two swings. Even a lousy two-tray unit can easily do 2-3 damage times 2 (again they forgot to count the multiplier at various points of the game). That's 4-6 dead infantry dudes or 2-3 cavalry, 1-1,5 tray. And that's not counting Panic effects that might pull even more. You will need absolutely HUGE armies of dozens of figures per unit to have the game be more interesting than "swing three times and GG, the one who engaged first wins". The core set is 6 unit and 2 hero/monster trays per side. It's 100$ bucks, so 50$ per side. And historically core sets are a significant discount to buying units separately. I shudder to think how fat the sacks of money will have to be to give you enough figures for a meaningful, strategic game.

Yes damage at least to basic troops seems really high, they also forgot to double the archers damage on their first attack so those spearmen would really be dead, but yet we haven't really seen more elite units, the knights have 2 shields which they can up to 3 so they would take lot less damage but of course they are less in unit size.

We will se if we need massive armies or if this will just be a short game which would be fine with me.

And the morale system is purely luck based so i wouldn't really count it to the killpower, we don't know how many damage and kill cards are in there.

But in general the rules and the game seem nice and i can't wait to get to see the full rules for terrain, range modifiers and army building.

Human player failed to take any action modifier with spearmen. It is makes sense to take +1 defence whenever you can.

So I'm a bit confused - the demo armies were around 100~ points without upgrades and standard/full army size is 200 points including upgrade cards - so we're not looking at much bigger armies than those in the Core Set for standard sized games.

That seems odd to me - it's a rank and file system, which suggests huge armies, but we will in fact have 8-12 units - which makes it feel a bit more like a skirmish.

Why not go the whole hog and up the scale a bit?

200pts is apparently what they're kinda sorta thinking about right now, it might still change before the release.

There's also the Armada Precedent. The core set rules had a 180pts format written into the book, but as new waves came out, tournament rules upped the "suggested" format to 300pts and then to 400pts.

I think you have a bit different definition of skirmish as well. Normally a "skirmish" game in tabletop minis terms is a small number of individual models. Small is a vague term, but tends to be less than ten. Also, once you put them into units it's automatically not skirmish - that term implies single minis with a high degree of flexibility in their movement and actions. Block formations are not individual and are not highly flexible in their movement and actions.

So like Infinity is a good example of a skirmish game. Guildball. Malifaux. X-Wing could be considered one, although most people would assume skirmish to mean "ground based". I'd allow it, but call it something like "dogfighting skirmish" to make things clear.

Tabletop guys like big games, so I expect that there may be more than one "standard" size. Maybe one small standard game for tournaments and one bigger standard or unofficial standard for people that want a big game experience.

In other videos they stated that it can scale up or down very easily. I think they are starting small to let people play 'full' games instead of 'starter' games. Eventually this new target audience will see that, in tabletop war games, there is no 'full' or 'starter', you just play at any agreed upon point range.

With the round, individual bases I can see the ability to run small skirmish games as well so scaling down is a very real possibility.