After taking a first look at Natalya who seems to be really powerful, I think every faction should get a totally unbalanced, overpowered Epic character. That would not only even the board, but you could also agree before playing to play "epic mode" (Teams may include Epic characters) or "normal mode" (without Epic characters). That way, each faction would get a new and really mighty character to fight against those other unbalanced characters.

Furthermore, I think those Epics should be powerful beings like demons, mythological creatures like Asteros or important, charismatic faction leaders - not obscure mechanics in powersuits!

MeisterH said:

Demon-driven? Undead maybe? Wow, Necromancy-Reich, sounds good to me...

I'm glad to see much of the art has been saved from the ToY site.

Thank you for your work.

I would like to make a compilation thread over at Tannbunker as a safe keep for future use.

After finally getting the Operation Hinansho set I'd say an epic hero based on the red oni would be cool for the Shogunate. He would have to be powerful of course, but with some serious drawback because he's out of control or just barely controlled. Furthermore, I think a Golden Globe agent for the Union would be great too. He (or she) should be rather weak in combat but rather powerful for accomplishing objectives, capturing flags and so on. In short, a character you don't use in deathmatch mode, but you 'll always use and try to protect in objective or story mode.

How is the expansion, what does it include? I want Yami Seimei or someone else with mental abilities for the Shogunate,it would be sad if Itami were the only one blessed with mental abilities.

The two boards look cool and the new circles (doors that can be opened or closed for example) are interesting options in gameplay. You also get 2 campaigns (one for each board), a single player scenario (fight against the red oni I mentioned, his stats are printed in the rules booklet) and a scenario on 2 boards with larger teams. Included are objective tokens, flag tokens, ... for the Shogunate and several tokens that are of use only in the scenarios. I was hoping for some new equipment or bonus tokens too, but there aren't any.

??! said:

that makes sad... but I'll buy it anyway. So how are the new maps to play on, do they feel like some of the others? do you need some new strategies?

Unfortunately I had no chance to actually play on the new maps yet. But I think that at least the abandoned research center requires some extra thinking since it includes a lot of doors that can be opened or closed. Your characters have to spend extra MP to open doors, so their movement range is reduced. Maybe a character could even be cut off from your team to be killed by several enemies.

These are possibilities I just thought of. I'd be really interested in actual playing experience too. Maybe someone who has already used the new boards could tell us about it?

With some luck I will have the opportunity thís week. I´ll post my experience as soon as I earned them

I played a game in Objective mode on the research center board yesterday and I discovered that those locked doors can really change the game. Often a character won't have the MP to move towards the door, open it and move through to actually do something. Or he opens the door, moves through, attacks an enemy but has no MP left to move into cover again. I often chose to open a door with one character coming in from behind, so the next character could move through and actually do something, while always fearing my opponent's reaction after the door had been opened.

I played Shogunate against Union with the Shogunate winning. Their choice of entry point was better (The entry points on the map aren't equally good, some of them are in reach of several objectives, some aren't.), so they got a great start. Mizu was especially powerful due to her infiltration ability. She entered through another entry point and completed objectives in a different part of the map (seperated from all others by locked doors). The Union was desperately trying to catch up by completing objectives, stopping the main bulk of Shogunate characters from completing objectives and sending someone after Mizu to stop her. I short, they failed. But I discovered that Hoax is really good in openeng locked doors: One invisible Hoax spends MP to open the door, the other moves through to attack someone. The Union troopers with "Go!Go!Go!" are nice too because they can use the extra MP to open a door and then throw a grenade through it or move in to accomplish an objective.

??! said:

That's called two-by-two cover formation, a real standard military tactic.

You're probably right, but it's a new situation in Tannhäuser gameplay since the locked doors are new. It's just something I thought up during my first game with locked doors to cope with the new sitation. On top of it, I have to admit I don't know anything about real military strategy because I did civil service instead of military service.

I did military service, and I never learned anything like that. german grunts do not learn neither tactic nor strategy in military service. Just basics like shoot, throwing grenades, some low level first aid training, and that´s it for us

Of topic, sorry...

Continuing the off topic for one last post, while I said it was "standard" it usually isn't used by the low level grunts, just more specialized units, or teams doing house clearing.

In the open field "5 second rushes" are a more common tactic, that's where you take cover wait a bit and then advance for about 5 seconds and then take cover, leap frogging until your unit has reached it's objective.

My cosin was in the Heer, but was killed in a motorcycle crash.

Well let's get back to topic.

I'd like to see one of the "Roswell" Aliens, some Reich Demons, and another ranged attack character for Shogunate.

Miah999 said:

That´s something I know

Miah999 said:

Sorry about that ...

And finally back to topic: One more trooper for Reich, Shogunat and the Union. Maybe some kind of medic?

That gives me an idea, they could do a pack with one trooper each for each faction.

Union- Medic, or a more advance D.O.G.

Matriarchy- close combat, or I don't know...

Reich- Blutstrum female trooper

Shogunate- ranged combat trooper, ninja, minor oni, a kappa?, ???

How's that sound, mayde it shoud be two packs one UNTOMA, one Nippon Accords, to lower cost.

I´d certainly buy this one. My fav troop pack would be:

Union: medic trooper, or some kind of sniper?

Reich: Blutsturm trooper with agent (assassin) like abilities. Or... some kind of monster-like blood (hell) hound from the underworld! Fighting dogs could also come as weaker pairs, same as voivods. Additionally, there could be bonus tokens included for other Reich charakters (acting as their keepers) to strenghten the hounds.

Shogunate: Some kind of japanese warrior monk (sôhei) would be grand. In sengoku period, sôhei were quite famous for the use of rifles in their uprisings and battles (ikki).

I would honestly prefer Kappa to be some hero-like charakter. Kappa is quite unique, so it should be no standard soldier.

Matriarchy already has three kinds of troopers, and I have not really good ideas for new troopers at the moment... Maybe some new kind of voivod-like automaton?

I would love to see some British/Indian troops for the Union. Maybe a commando unit or Gurkha rifles perhaps?

Also a pack for Sir John Edwards (the archaeologist who uncovered the labyrinth of Crete) would be brilliant. A mix of the arcane and the scientific!

The Matriarchy could get a bigger Voivode that counts a complete trooper. I read in the fluff text for Natalya's power suit that it was originally designed to house a big Voivode, but the project was canceled in favour of the smaller designs. Maybe the New Guard revived it?

In summary, we could get:

UMTOMA pack: Union field medic, Matriarchy mechanical soldier

Nippon pack: Reich Sneaky Blutsturm agent, Shogunate Warrior monk with rifle

Very cool!

??! said:

Nice ideas but I have a concern that maybe a medic trooper could be overpowered, it all depends on how it's handled. I for one would rather prefer a Hero with medic abilities since it wouldn't be as over powered if only a hero had it, but that's just my opinion.

Maybe it's just me but I've the feeling that only heroes should be Blutsturm agents, since they are in fact the Kaisers personal guard. But as with my other statment, it's just an opinion.

Anything Tannhäuser is good news to me.

You may be right about the medic, most Tannhauser characters are pretty survivable already, but the is alway the close combat Commando Omega.

As for the Blutstrum, they are a full millitary division, they'd have grunts just like any other unit. Like the Shin does.

Both Union and Reich have their standard troops, and then the troops package with alternate "colors".

Do you think we will see alternates for the other factions too? Do you think it would be too redundant? Also, do you think the ones we have already (Union and Reich), now that we have so many options around, are reduntant?

Mestre dos Magos said:

I do hope we get some alternates for other factions, and I do not think they are redundant, not for future packs and not for current ones. I like the option to use two shock truppen or two stoss truppen whenever I want to. Always using the same "1-1"- combination is not flexible enough for me. Besides, alternates allow players with different playing styles a nice way to customise his/hers tactics.

I already sent a question regarding this matter to FFG, but did not get any answer, neither positive nor negative nor undecided.

Yeah,

Well, I would definitelly buy the alternate colors for the other factions!

Actually, so far I buy everything related to Tannhauser anyway hehe

Do we really need the Shogunate and Matriarchy troopers with alternate colors? You could buy the same pack twice if you want to use two Shin agents for example. You could just put a little sticker on one of the troopers, repaint the helmet or whatever to distinguish them. I think there were 2 important reasons to buy the Reich and Union trooper packs: First, the only other access to the troopers was the expensive base game. Second, the troopers had no command pack before the trooper packs were released. For the Shogunate and Matriarchy troopers, we can get everything by just buying the same pack twice - a thing at least I seriously consider for the Shogunate pack. When new packs are released, I'd rather like to see someting really new!

And although I know it's off topic: I have played three games in Objective mode on the new Abandoned Research Base map and had very little interaction between the two teams. They usually are seperated by several rooms and locked doors at the start of the game, so when one team rushes towards the nearest objectives, the other team has big problems to intercept them and complete their own objectives at the same time, so they are likely to loose. So both teams have to race towards objectives to have a chance to win.