Hi all,

I recently dug out my old Tannhauser game und bought the revised rules and a few of the new characters.

At first i thought the revised rules changed the game for the better. The overpowered guns are gone etc.

But i find i very problematic how hard it is to kill some of the characters. We played a game were my opponent played Asteros with matriarchy and i played a combination of reich and shogunate. It was simply impossible to even damage the minotaur. I mean, you dont even need to be lucky when rolling the dice. The chance to fail Asteros shock roll against a standard attack with four die is very low. Even if you throw everything you have at him, each individual attack is not powerful enough to even damage him.

Is he simply too overpowered or is there a way to kill this beast?

There are ways to kill him, but often the best stratagy is to avoid him, but this is impossiable in deathmatch.

There is a thread here on the forums with a lot about bringing Asteros down, try searching for it. It had some unique ideas like this from ??!

Everybody: How does this sound for an anti-asteros Reich squad?

Heizinger w/ combat pack *obscura korps band (replace pistol)

Yula w/ command pack *shame of minos (replace silencer?)

Horbinger w/ command pack

x2 Shocktruppen w/ command

Play the team right, seems like Shocktruppen get 6 dice w/ very high CV and free overwatch. Yula can easily destroy all of Asteros' stuff. Asteros can only hit Hass by bull-rush or throwing the axe. Wait til Shocktruppen rolls 6 successes and use Reichdoktor, Asteros just basically took 3 automatic wounds from a trooper. With CP and band Heizinger has 8 or 9 MV, I forget, and can basically do whatever he wants with that

Here is a link to the thread: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=48&efcid=1&efidt=542067&efpag=2#551561

I would not judge the revised rules by Asteros. The mere fact that you need a special setup to try to kill him is a sign. As miah says this is even more unbalanced if playing deathmatch.

I just dont plan to use Asteros in my games and I didnt buy it, but if I was to use him I would limit him by houserule, not eligible for deathmatch games and stamina pack is not eligible. With the other paks he is still really hard to beat but he tends to be more level with zorka.

Having a character that just walks into overwatches without fear (or is not affected by fire grenades) makes the game less interesting for me as did most of the unbalanced features in the first edition rules. I think that the random factor has been reduced in the new edition.

The new rules in general in my oppinion add a lot to the fun by removing most of the unbalances, adding overwatch and nerfing the matriarchy. Asteros in an exception, not the rule.

I want to thank Miah for mentioning me and pointing to the Anti-Asteros thread, but if you read it you'll notice that the Anti-Asteros team, the equipment packs and the strategy were suggested by GrandClam. I merely tried out the team and replaced one character, but kept the strategy. "My" team managed to win against Asteros once after losing three or four times. He is almost unbeatable in Deathmatch mode, even more so if used in a team together with Zor'ka. I don't even dare to think about a team like that!

That said, my opinion on Asteros quite matches Moebius': Although I indeed have Asteros, I haven't used him for some time now because he's waaay unbalanced and overpowered, especially in Deathmatch.

Thanks for your thoughts.

I havent played the game often enough to be able to say, wether Asteros is unbalanced or if i made some newbie mistake that kept me from damaging him. But judging from the comments so far, i guess there is enough tactical depth in the game without that guy. I guess he will stay in the box for the next few games. Are there other characters to avoid? I just bought a few, so there was some variety when building a team. So far i own Yula, Wolf, Hoax, Georgei and Hoss.

What other game mode would you suggest for a new player? We started with deathmatch because it seemed like an easy way to start the game.

I really appreciate the discussion with other players. So far i havent been able to get a lot of people to try that game with me.

what I've noticed about Asteros is that he is based solely on the fact that his team is incapable of reinforcements in the 3CP deathmatch and basically gets no CP is games less than that. Still, I use house rules and abitrary game balance. such as:

New player with Asteros vs. experienced player= no change (new player still going to lose)

otherwise I have afew mainstay Asteros rules. Asteros' team cannot choose bonus tokens (seeing as that's an optional rule anyway) and/or that he is worth -2CP instead of 1.

Each faction has ways of dealing with him.

Union: heavy guns, use their core team (Tala, John, Barry). Give Tala's extra ammo to Barry or John and pray you get continuously lucky.

Tala: Combat, John: Combat, Barry: Combat or Stamina, Trooper Alpha(s): Combat and/or Trooper Delta(s): Mental (trooper delta's mental pack won't do anything to Asteros, but remember you have a whole team to contend with.)

Matriarchy: use their core team with lots of healing, Zorka's stats will actually be stronger than Asteros with Irina. Give Zorka the electric truncheon ASAP and have as many healing voivodes as possible along with Irishka. Zorka lacks Asteros' power but is much better than him if you manage to keep her team alive. I'd use Irishka's stamina or mental packs to get stamina bonus or even more voivodes.

Zorka: Stamina, Irina: Stamina or Mental, Irishka: Stamina, Voivodes: Healing and CV boost

Reich: I would stick with the anti-asteros squad I thought up (I don't quite remember what it was), but always use Hass Horbinger with mental pack. Also try out a HORRIBLE combination with Hass Horbinger with mental and x2 Strosstruppen with mental. As long as the Strosstruppen are at full health, they'll take the 2 wounds from Hass' reichdoktor ability but will almost certainly then heal the wounds with their attack damage. Yula can also be a good idea, get lucky on her attacks and you can leave Asteros naked.

Shogunate: Haven't ever played as them yet but I would suggest Mizu with stamina as a mainstay, unless you have a certain tactic planned out. With her stamina Asteros cannot even touch Mizu other than bullrushing. Iroh I would say is also a mainstay, but his pack would depend on what your tactics are, I'd use either Combat or Mental.

Iroh: Combat or Mental, Mizu: Stamina

Right now I am also working on a Werewolf character for the Union who is VERY difficult to control, but could quite easily tear Asteros AND his team to shreds... so long as he can manage to stay in beast form and get lucky on dice rolls.

If anyone has ever played as the VC is warhammer fantasy, this guy is basically Conrad Von Carstein.

I just tried to use some of the ideas i read on here and a few more questions popped up:

How do the Schocktruppen get a command pack? There is no mention of one in the revised rulebook.

Same for the Stosstruppen. The ability to heal themselves is not mentioned in the rulebook. Where do i get them?

And how would Zor'ka get the electric truncheon? I thought she was not be able to drop any of her equipment and as a result can not receive equipment from other characters?

Thanks again

NichtTim said:

In my opinion you do already have the most important characters. When I play Reich, I usually play Heizinger, Zermann and Hoss because I think they make up the strongest team. From the Union, I consider MacNeal, Brown and Hoax the best team. The Matriarchy team included in Novgorod already is quite strong so it doesn't need extra characters. You can of course play Oksana instead of Zor'ka, but the resulting team is completely different from the team including Zor'ka and it is quite difficult to play. It's a great team nontheless, I just think you should leave it for later.

For game modes, you should really try Objective or Story mode to have cool scenarios and simply other goals than just killing enemies. That way you often have the option to just avoid powerful enemy characters (like Asteros).

NichtTim said:

There are troop packs for the Union and the Reich that include another one of the troopers from the base game plus a lot of tokens for them, including cool Command packs. That way you can play two of the same trooper and / or use new equipment packs for them.

And you're right about Zor'ka: She can't drop her equipment. But she has some tokens that are discarded after use. That way she gets free space in her inventory to get new weapons.

In terms of power its a fact that some characters are stronger than others; I would say that the out of the expansion figures, barring Asteros the most powerful characters are:

Hoss-with Mental pack is very good, on 3cp games you render the opponent with effectively 1 CP, this is a big difference, I like him a lot with combat pack for capture the flag and domination games, his tele-transport ability is really useful. Try him with mask of shamhain or helm of diomedes in exchange of his special ability, he is a tough nut to crack.

Hoax: I love her with stamina pack specially for the same reason I like hoss above, she can sort of teleport a flag across the board while invisible, and the pack makes her harder to make visible and gives her an additional invisible figure. On CtF games I leave one of her figures within reach of my entry point and the others go for flags, also good character to have a medi kit as she can reach quicly almost anybody on the team.

Wolf: I love him, in non objetive mode games I usually give him +1 to stamina and +1 to combat, if playing with union I always pick him against reich with +1 to mental instead of combat, he is the one to crack hermann or anybody with mental duels involved.

On the weaker side I see Tala Aponi, Gorgei, Irina and Eva. Eva might be very good to kill someone but she is too soft and dies easy.

The troop packs are a must have in my oppinion, if you are low on budget I would go for the equipment cards expansion, all the cards with the rules for the troops command packs are included there. There is an upcoming matriarchy troop pack that I am looking forward to as It will give the matriarchy an alternative set up. I dont like voivodes that much.

On game modes I just got bored of deathmatch mode very quickly, Its good for the first couple of games to have a grasp for the rules but not much more compared with the others I would try a couple of domination and CtF games before objective, as it may be the most complex one (also the best one IMO).

I just finished two rounds of objective mode and i really like it. It plays a lot more tactical than deathmatch.

Only thing i wondered about: do you take the objective-based abilities into account when playing objective mode?

I did so for the Castle-Map and that kinda forced me to take Eva Krämer as a character for my reich team which didnt play out that well. Another problem with that map are the entry points. My friend played matriarchy and his voivodes had nearly reached two objectives when my guys just managed to get down those stupid stairs. I worked wonders (killed Zor'ka with one Hoss attack just before she could finish his last objective) but to no avail. I kinda thought that the Gevaudon-Map played a lot better for that mode. But nonetheless it was a lot more fun than deathmatch and the games were quite even.

So with those Trooper Packs i can use two troopers of the same type for my team?

Yes you can, and you get the command packs as well.

Miah999 said:

Just wanted to point out that Yula can only destroy items with the weapon and hardware trait and that only Asteros axe, Labrys, has one of those traits. Asteros other equipment got the armor trait.

Good point, never noticed that. Still, I'd use house rules to let the ability destroy them anyway because he's a buttface poopmonster. Besides, I'd e surprised to see Yula live long enough to destroy just the axe.