I've just got the starters at the moment, and now I'm looking to get 4 more figures to start building up my forces. However, info here on FFG is rather skimpy. I found one site that has some stat cards, but it only covers a few of the characters.

At the moment, I'm planning on getting one light, one dark and two neutral characters. That will give some variety.

Since my main (and possibly only) opponent is my girlfriend, I'm trying to get models she'll think are cool.

For the Dark Side, I was going to get Samiel, the Black Lion. Awesome model! Well, assuming it actually has those two shadow lions on the base - are those really part of the mini, or are they just extras added to the sculpt? Its hard to tell - I assume a lot of the bases have material that's not included.

For the Light side, I was planning on Alis Testerossa. She worked very well when we proxied her in the last game, and gave some real offensive punch and mobility. However, I'm curious about High Saint Elienai, or possibly Fallen Angel Dinah; what kind of role do either of them fill? Its clear the Light side needs some strong offense!

That leaves me with two neutrals. I'm up in the air here. I'd like to get one character with good ranged attacks, and one stealthy character - but I'm really not sure who meets those criteria!

Advice? Suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Samiel does indeed come with the lions emerging from the 40mm base.

I can advise best on the neutral choices. The ranged character you are looking for is Kirsten. Ranged attacks are her forte, and she comes with some interesting options for those ranged attacks, plus all of them cause Poison (Effect 14).

The stealth character you want is Takanosuke. I don't think you'll be disappointed - the model is excellent. The character can form a team with Kujaku Hime (a figher for the Light faction for you!) to grant both models significant advantages, or, without her, Takanosuke can convert to Dark faction and pick up the ability to Doom enemies. He's also got a ranged attack option when he's hidden, and a good melee attack that is also an option when hidden.

That's just my advice, but I can't think of any other characters that satisfy your requirements for neutral characters as well as these two.

Good luck!

StormKnight said:

Elienai and Dinah are both expensive costing support characters. I would not recommend using both at the same time. If it's pure power your looking for I would suggest Lorenzo Cortez or Nero.

As for finding the stats of the character, someone made a nice online army builder program for Anima tactics with all the stats that are available. You can find it at www.totengraber.net/anima/

Thanks for the advice. I'd gotten some recommendations from the official Anima site, and had settled on Alis for the Light Side, Samiel for the Dark side, and Kirsten and Takanosuke as neutrals. Sounds like decent choices.

I really appreciate the link to that army builder, since its great to be able to see the stats and levels!

However, I've now got some real worries...

Samiel looks, well, to put it gently...completely broken. His stats seem darn good to begin with, and he can stay alive after losing all his life points? That's just insane!

I also keep seeing a lot of entries that don't mean anything to me. Gnosis points? Impact attacks? Team cards? What the heck are any of these things? Am I missing something here? Is there a bigger online rulebook somewhere?

StormKnight said:

If you compare Samiel's stats to other chars of similar level ( 45 to 50) they are all pretty much the same. Also his resurrection ablity only becomes a huge advantage if he can get more power counters on him.

At the moment the only official rulebook is the little pamphlet in the starters, although there are presently two offical web addendums there were released. The second came out about 3 days ago... First One , Second One . I'm not really sure what you mean by impact hits though and team cards are simply another kind of advantage cards that adds abilites to a certain group of characters. There were talk about releasing a more complete and detailed rulebook like other minis games have, but its only talk at the moment...

well, which minis do i get

Lillay said:

Depends what you want to focus on i suppose?
One specific faction? Mixing what you like?

Lillay said:

I suggest you start buy getting whichever ones you think look cool.

Then check out the character cards in the top left corner it will tell you what alignment they are, so if you choose ones of the same alignment they can all team up or you can add a neutral to either a light or dark team. Worry about organisations after you start getting into the game and playing regularly against larger teams.

- Raith
Free Agent 005

Me and my brother just ordered a series of mini's of the factions most appealing to us, based on what's in the starters.

I went with an organization because I play games for fluffy reasons. I chose Empire and so I picked up Janus Faith, Yuri Olson, Danielle, Lillian Virgil, Claire to go with the models I first bought. I started with a light starter and Kujaku Hime because she is a really cool model. I managed to pick a few others from an event, Alis Testarrosa and Fallen Angel Dinah. My best advice to start is to pick a faction(light, dark, unaligned) and buy what you like.

StormKnight said:

That's funny because I'm in the same boat! I asked which faction (she wants Dark), and then asked if there's anything else she's looking in to. She said "Anything cute!" Unfortunately, the store I go to has 30 blister packs. Which would be fine if they weren't 10 copies of 3 different characters! lol