Hello everyone !!

At last our review material arrived (I guess the country wide strike is not helping ^^).
I'll start with a fluff review then I'll do a rules/warscroll/combo tomorow !

The book

I) Idoneth Backstory:

In the world that was when Slaanesh consumed all the Elves he missed a few of them. Yes at the bottom of the ocean the Elves of Mathlann were hiding with the help of their god! But when the world that was started to crack, the oceans were drained by Slaanesh and they got found. Slaanesh fought hard and consumed all the remaining Elves and killed Mathlaan too!
That's it, game over, there is no elf left. (it's still not super clear on how the azyr elves happen).

II) Age of Myth:

But it did not work out ^^

The Cythai started to fight each other and Teclis thought he could purify them with the "Light of Truth" sadly that didn't work and some of them became crazy (More crazy than before I mean ^^). The rest of them fled in the ocean...
As Teclis was about to erase them, Tyrion plead for leniency and let the Idoneth escape in the ocean .

III) Souls

They can't eat Stormcast so they allied with them :

IV) Fun times !

Lot of new enemies! Expected when your main activity is eating souls ^^

LOL

Skaven win win

Orcs built an island ?

Yea Nagash is not happy

They still hate Chaos most

But

Painting guide

I know it's not fluff per se but I found the painting guide section vastly improved.
More details and step by step.

Ok that's it for the Fluff; all these war stories against the Skaven really hyped me ^^
After reading this book, I find these Idoneth super interesting.

/cheers.
bob.

(I'll do a special post for the Eidolon tomorow.)

Howdy Guys and Girls :)

Big fluff summary of the new Battletome - including answers about the Aelfs, their gods and even a hint about something upcoming …. enjoy!

The Age of Myth

Morathi awoke early during the Age of Myth, after Slaanesh literally puked her out.
In The World That Was, she used blood magic and sacrifices to Khaine to keep her youth and strength, but this wouldn’t work anymore so she used the shadow magics of Ulgu instead
Sick of being alone, she used her powers to summon mist elementals and shadow daemons to have companions, and travelled all 13 regions of Ulgu with them.
She hates herself because her new true form reminds her of Chaos and Slaanesh. With the help of her shadow daemon lovers, she could regain her old form but anger or passion would transform her back to her true snake-y self.
Later she met Malerion, and got quite jealous. Her son was now an immortal god, a master of shadow magic even mightier than her. Still they worked together against Chaos, and especially Slaanesh. They joined Sigmar’s pantheon, and brought civilization and the teachings of magic to the Mortal Realms.
Mother and Son used their sorcerous powers to summon a great citadel - the later Druchiroth, seat of Ulgu’s largest kingdom.
While part of the Grand Alliance, neither Morathi nor Malerion were fully trusted. Still, Tyrion and Teclis, Rulers of Light found common cause with Malerion, and rumours about Morathi and Slaanesh started to emerge …
She refused to talk about her past or how she escaped her bondage. She tried to seduce Nagash and the Great Necromancer struck her down - revealing her true medusa-like form and forcing her to flee in shame.
Malerion granted his mother a small piece of land in Ulgu - there she build a temple for Khaine, Hagg Nar.
Later, Malerion arrived there and claimed that the Aelfen gods had finally found what they had searched for a long time - Slaanesh!

The Trapping of Slaanesh

Following the destruction of The World That Was, Slaanesh was missing. The youngest Chaos God had hidden herself, trying to get a good nice after-lunch nap.
Teclis heard the tormented, devoured Aelf souls with the help of his beacons of light (and Tzeentch ….). Teclis, Tyrion and Malerion created a plan to lure Slaanesh out of hiding and into Uhl-Gysh. They recruited Morathi to have a balance of light and shadow for their upcoming mission!
Morathi told the aelfen gods how she had forced Slaanesh to vomit her back into reality.
Together, they harnessed the energies of Hysh and Ulgu like never before. Using themselves as bait, they succeeded in entrapping Slaanesh - and they also started to extract the aelven souls! She is now quite a hellish mass, with lots of souls coming out of her - outch!
Spells made sure that Slaanesh would be trapped between Hysh and Ulgu. Morathi cheated and added a spell that would give her more souls than originally planned, which weakened the magical bindings.
- Slaanesh is now more near Ulgu, no longer perfectly trapped between the realms. More and more questing parties are trying to find and rescue their god - The War of Shadows has started!

Aelven Souls, Empires and Dead Gods

To each of the gods, as well as Morathi was given a portion of the Aelfen souls.
They reshaped the souls and forged new creatures into being!
In Hysh, Tyrion and Teclis created luminous beings and angelic aelfs. Teclis’ first enclave were called the Idoneth - although they disappeared, and future projects proved better.
Malerion reshaped his souls into something dark, terrible and majestic …
Morathi stored her souls in the Máthcoir - a giant iron cauldron, and started to create the Melusai and Khinerai after her own image. “Normal” Witch Aelves are from Azyrheim it seems.

She claimed that Khaine still spoke to her, and named herself High Oracle.
Morathi sent her khainite rivals on shard-quests to recover pieces of Khaine.
Consumed by the demise of The World That Was, all of the aelven gods were destroyed. Still, it was possible that they could one day reform! (I wonder if we even might get Ynnead in AoS? I guess not, but still ….)
The Chaos Gods, Nagash and Malerion sought what little power of them was left.
Many sought the broken shards of Khaine (should have tried a craftworld, eh?^^), and most were claimed by Khorne!
The blood god used these essences to forge weapons for his mightiest Bloodthirsters - outch!!
Khorne couldn’t reforge the Iron Heart of Khaine, and threw it away over into the Mortal Realms.
It landed in the cave of Kharybdar - the Father of Kharybdisses.
Morathi felt the heart, and seduced the Godbeast (yep, you heard right). Sadly, she kind of angered him and was forced to battle. Morathi won direly wounded, and took the heart with her to Hagg Nar. No one knows what happened with poor Kharybdar ...

Morathi cursed the male aelven souls she got - they are weak slaves (basically, similiar to House Escher). A few of them are still born quite ok, and these become the Doomfire Warlocks. Morathi binds them with runes of control - although she tells them they are there to protect their souls from Slaanesh.
The walking Khaine statues are golems, not really full-scale avatars like in 40k. Still, funny to have a plastic Avatar in AoS, but none in 40k^^

hello everyone !!

Today i'd like to complete my review of Shadespire with the part 3 : game play.

Before writing it, i wanted to play at least 10 games with different players to get a good taste of the game. I'll admit from the start that i didn't played as mush as i would have liked. Only 11 games, so considering a game is 3 rounds i played 33 of them and only made 132 models activations. When you think about it it's no more than one game of Bloodbowl ! So don't trust every thing i say as my point of view could change !

Shadespire is a game with 2 facets of equal importance, it's seem a good idea to divide this review in 2 parts. The first one is about the models activation and action resolution, the second is the deck building part and the role of cards.

It's going to be quite long so let's get started right now !

Models activation

To get a good grasp of what i am talking about i'll better explain de rules and the dices very fast. Before analyzing the way the game is played.

I) General rules

Rules and dices :

A) Rules :

Rules are super simple so it's already a good point !

The game is played on a hex board, in the box you have 2 double sided panel that you can use to build the terrain you want.

Games last 3 rounds, during a round you get 4 activations (like 4 actions points). For 1 point you can : move a model, attack with a model, switch the model to defense mode or charge with a model.
After you spent an activation the other player do the same. Once we have used the 4 activations the round end. After 3 rounds the game is over. (In competitive mode it's the best of 3 games ). It's totaly allow to spend the 4 actions of the same models.
You'll notice that the charge action while costing only one action allow move + attack so it's super efficient, the drawback is that after you have used the charge action on a model this model can't activate for the round. The move action can only be used once per model and per turn.

This way of playing is really fun, you don't wait long period of time like in Bloodbowl. It's a Ping Pong of actions. It's like playing magic or chess you have to anticipate the reaction of the opponent before each action and it's super interesting.
The piece trading theory so common to Magic the gathering are going to be central here too. The only problem you can have with the alternate activation is that if the other player is a lot better, you are getting rekt ! (but it's a good thing)

B) Dices

-Signification of the attack dice :
Hammer : Count as a "Hit" symbol if your character use an hammer attack. (2 faces per dice)
Double sword : Count as a "Hit" symbol if your character use an Double sword attack.
Support symbol (half moon) : Count as a "Hit" if you have 1 more support than the defender.
Support symbol (full moon) : Count as a "Hit" if you have 2 more supports than the defender.
Crit : If you score more crit than the defender score crit you win.

-Signification of the defense dice :
Shield : Count as a "Hit" symbol if your character use an Shield defense.(2 faces per dice)
Dodge : Count as a "Hit" symbol if your character use a dodge defense.
Support symbol (half moon) : Count as a "Hit" if you have 1 more support than the attacker.
Support symbol (full moon) : Count as a "Hit" if you have 2 more supports than the attacker.
Crit : If you score more crit than the attacker score crit you win.

In a nutshell

These stormcast score hit on a 4+ (hammer + crit) on attack and same on defense(shield + crit)

This guy score hit on a 5+(double sword + crit) on attack and same on defense (dodge + crit)

Support :

Little comment on the support system :
When you attack, you have support if you have one friendly fighter in an adjacent hex with the target.
When you defend, you have support if you have one friendly fighter adjacent hex with the attacker.

The support concept is fundamental in controlling the board. Spending activation on attack with support is a lot better than be forced to waste attacks against defender with support.

II) Actions & inspirations

A) Action
When you activate a model you get 4 choices (+ 3 corner case choice)

Move : You move the model up to "move" Hex. I really like playing on HEX, not only it remind me of Battletech and FMP but it solve all the diagonal move problem ! So Big +1 on the Hex !

Attack : Simple attack action. you roll your dices vs defense dices of the target, if you score more hit you inflict the damage noted on the attack stat line. (note there is no benefit of winning by 1 hit or 5 hits). If it's a tie and you score at least one hit on offense you can push the target 1 hex back.

Charge : Move + attack, it's a very powerful action but using it prevent reactivating this model for the turn.

Defense: You go on defense, the benefit is that both dice symbol (shield and dodge) count as Hit. You'll notice you'll get a lot of value of this action with a character that has dodge symbol on his card. Ex : A bloodReaver defend usually on 5+ (dodge and crit) going on def add shield for a 3+ ! Ok bloodreaver only have 1 dice on defense (non inspired Stormcast too btw)

Draw/cycle: You can use your action to draw one extra card or cycle an objective card (more on this in the cards part). As we are total noob at this game we didn't used it yet. I am sure it will be useful when you have a well planned deck.

pass: You can pass !

B) Inspiration :

All characters cards have 2 side, a normal one and a gold one, the inspired version.
To be inspired you must meet some criteria. Once you are inspired you stay like this for the rest of the game.
The inspired face grant a significant buff so it's good to keep that in mind and try to get inspired. (Stormcast are a joke they get a 4+ chance of getting inspiration each time they roll for defense ! better focus one to avoid triggering their inspired side ^^)

C) Reactions

Reactions are like their name point it, you can make an action out of your turn.
Only one reaction can be used per trigger. So you can't react twice on the same trigger.

That's it for the Models section, It's already a good miniatures combat game and that could have been just this.
But there is a deck building aspect that will blow your mind ! Cards are so important i'll say they have more impact than actions !

The cards

Yea it's true, cards are more important than actions ! maybe not for the first 3 games. After that you understand something so important !!! Each model can move only once per turn so that 3 times per game ! This is where you will need cards for extra push, reaction move and things like that. Because if you don't have move cards in your deck, you can't adapt. Imagine a warrior get pushed after you have moved it, it's over he can't do shit for the whole turn ! You can still push other warrior in BTB but yea Cards are vital !

There is 3 types of cards : Upgrades, Ploys and objectives

I) Objectives :

To get Objectives right you need : Glory, Objectives cards, Cycling.

A)Glory !
I know i didn't touched this yet, but it's time i explain the victory condition : the Glory !
At the end of the Third round of the game we count the number of glory point you scored. That's mean you can finish the game without a model on the board and still be the winner (quite hard but it happened to us once ^^).

You gain Glory points by completing objectives, the twist in Shadowspire is that Objectives are not fixed. Before the game you made an obj deck with 12 cards and by completing them you gain glory. You can trigger these gains during the end phase or after a specific action (killing a warrior, loosing everyone ...)

B) Objective cards

There is many different type of obj cards. It's vital that you choose your objective cards wisely when you build your deck at home. Depending on the 12 cards you selected, your game-play will be totally different. There are tonnnnnnnnns of cheeky strats : Zoning, holding objectives (on the map) , avoiding combat, dying.

Interpreting the objectives pursued by your adversary is really important, but it impose of knowing what cards he can use. In a nutshell it's like magic, if you don't know the Meta or the cards aviable it's a lot harder ! I mean if you play against a pure Blue deck you watch untapped land before casting super important spell ;) It's the same in Shadowspire, for exemple there is an objective cards worth 3 glory " if there is no enemy in your territory at the end of the game". You can suspect it's the goal of the of the opponent if he make the fight happen in yours. But only if you know this card exist !

II) Upgrades and Ploy

While objective cards are important you don't play them that often during a game (3 to 5 average but may vary with different deck strat).
Uprgrade and Ploy are the meat of the cards play. They are both played during the power step, but have different rules.

A) The power step.

In a word it's the card phase, after you have played a warrior you get priority to play a card. If used the other player can play a card too, then it's your turn and so on. If both player pass the priority, you can't play any more cards this activation. So there a bluff option : passing first to fish a card play.
ps: Yes you can pass and if your adversary play a card you can play a card.

There is no limit to the number of cards played in the power step so you can empty your hand after the first activation if you want ! Even at the end of the game there is a power step (after the last activation). It's not sage to keep power cards, because at the end of each turn you refill your hand to 5 !

B) Upgrades and ploy

Both are limited at 1 per deck, the deck must be at least 20 cards. you get 5 cards per turn for 3 turns and you can draw extra cards by spending activation. You can also discard your hand at the start of the game and redraw 5 cards, discarded cards are lost for the game (you can also do it for objective cards). Discarding your hand was an heated debate in our game group, i think, unless you have the most powerful hand possible you should always throw the first hand ! If you remove 5 cards and stay with 15 in the deck, you draw 5 more with 10 left in deck. Then when turn 2 start, you draw your 5 cards you know already what cards you will have in the third. You can also do it with objectives cards (hand of 3 cards on a deck of 12)

Upgrade cards are permanent buff, they are really strong once used. The warrior keeping the benefit for the duration of the game unless specified otherwise. Upgrade cost 1 glory to use, so you can play them only after you completed an objective card. Don't worry at the end of the game spent and unspent glory count toward the VP count.

few exemple :

Ploys are the instant, interrupt and sorcery of Shadespire. There is a bunch of choice here, from neutral to factions and warriors specific cards. Collecting them from different starter set might be useful if you want to do tournaments ! I'll say this but i am not sure as i don't have a card listing (YET) and GW only sent us the starter box. (bouhou)

That's all folks !
This is my review of the game and his different aspect after 11 games played(lol). I plan to play more this week (with a bit of luck) so if my point of view evolve i will make another post (I hope not, i have my fill of typing for a few weeks !)

conclusion :
I love this game ! i play warmachine, bloodbowl, mtg, board games on a weekly basis (i know i play too much !) and Shadespire could take a slot (i think). Granted it's only the beginning but depending on the delay between expansion and the creativity of the future cards it could be HUGE ! huge like Magic, really.

Ps : There are rules to play 3 and 4 players but as i only have one box i can't comment !
Ps: I can't comment on cross deck building by using neutral cards from other pack as we didn't got them.
Ps: The rule hint strongly about extra board because they even consider the players to have a "Collection of boards"

Official website : https://warhammerunderworlds.com/

/cheers.
bob.

Hello again !!

Part 2 of the review, the fluff !
Apart from images gw already teased there is not much to see in term of fluff.

But there are cute descriptions of each Warbands :

I really like these intro text !
The basic Rulebook is all about playing so there is not much space left.

Check : https://warhammerunderworlds.com/ to have more fluff i think.

/cheers.
bob.

Hello everyone !!

First part of the Shadespire review : Contents

The section is going to be quite straightforward, pics and brief comments of what inside the box !

1) Hex map.

2 double sided board.
Hex are huge, size is : each side is 1.42 " and hex is 2" wide

2)Rules book, Quick start sheet, Assembly instruction :

Rulebook is thin but there is a lot to read (not a lof of fluff though)

Quick start sheet is ok, they switched first name last name on the description and the cards so it could be troubling for the new and younger player.

The Assembly instruction are super short ( fast to build then). Models don't need glue to hold.

3) 8 Dices !

5 Attack dices and 3 Defense dices. All use special symbols (quite easy to learn do not worry)
They are actually quite heavy for their size . Quality is not great as a few of them have marking glitch (see the hammer).
I hope will see specific dices for each warbands !

4) Sprues

4.b) Assembled models :
After assembling the models my review is even higher. They look very good IRL, the poses are dynamics and details are really sharps.
Did i mention that the assembling was a treat ? High quality quick snap worked perfectly on first try every-time ! (following the assembly guide did help^^).

5) Punch sheets !

3 sheets to punch, plastic bags are included (Thanks GW !). Quality is very good and my poor pics don't do justice to the quality of the drawing. They are beautiful !!

6) Cards :

It's a deck building game mixed with a miniatures game, off course there are cards. (i'll do the details when i go over the rules tomorow)
3 decks are included, 1 starting Khorne, 1 starting Stormcast, 1 extra pack of cards. It's very good the deck are ready to play from the get go, It would have been horrible otherwise ^^
Gw even included an extra deck to customise both starting decks. I think it represent cards you would have gotten if you had bought a Stormcast battlebox or a Khorne one. It's going to work like X wing where you need cards from different battle box to build the most optimized list (or deck in this case).

Conclusion :

Ok that's it for now, i didn't want to be too long as most of the content of the box is already on the internet !.
I really think think the content quality is top notch. The dice marking have a few black spot missing, it's no big deal but worth mentioning.
Models are very good and cards illustrations are cute.

Next part is the fluff present in the book.

Check https://warhammerunderworlds.com/ for more info about the box

/cheers.
bob.

Hello everyone !!

First i'd like to apologize, the review was delayed because of a technical blunder on my side and i had to start over from scratch !

The official description is :

This box contains everything you need to run a multiplayer campaign of Warhammer Age of Sigmar in the war-torn lands of the Flamescar Plateau. Whether you want to play Skirmish games, or massive, epic battles with thousands of points, this set makes it easy to organise, set up and play.

Let's get this review started !

FireStorm campaign box

I) Content

Before getting into the meat of the rules i'd like to spend a short time on the content and it's quality. In the box there are Cards, a map and stickers.

A) Map and stickers
It's an interesting combo, using a cardboard map and sticker and it's the first time gw did it IIRC.

1) Map

The Map is foldable, in Cardboard, with 6 panels, very close in quality to the bloodbowl pitch but with a lighter density and a smaller size. It's a representation of the Flamescar Plateau a war torn lands in the Fire realm. The back story is that a magocracy used to live here but got wiped by Khorne himself after they disintegrated his armies(haha is khorne allowed to swing his axe ?) . I guess it did matter a little where the blood flowed from.

The design look good with cute illustrations on a few regions (the ones with strategic importance.)
To be honest it feel a bit empty a larger numbers of points of interest drawn on the map would have been better but it's nothing major. On the 23 regions only 9 have something drawn on them the rest is barren land.

2) Stickers (256)

Stickers are supposed to be reusable and there are a bunch of them.
First they are not sticker because they don't use any glue !! they hold in place with statics, or Chaos magic.
The bigger one (the starting position markers) tend to curl a little. One solution i found is to lightly lick the marker back
and stick it on the map (like with a stamp). Then it's super well sticked and even take an effort to remove it from the map. I didn't mention it but the design of the large one are amazing and invite the imagination !!

The smaller marker hold very tight without licking and it's worth noting that once you have used them you can replace them on the storage sheet without any trouble.

My conclusion on the map and markers is that they are of great quality, the marker re usable thing is great and work perfectly. My only caveat is, if i need to keep the map somewhere for all the campaign i would have liked a thinner material to hang it on a wall. Still doable with the cardboard map but not very intuitive.

B) Cards & envelopes
There are a lot of cards in firestorm and that's because it's a deck building game ! Off course you also need to store them for the duration of the campaign and envelopes are provided.

1) Cards
Cards, cards, cards, cards (131). You get 4 set of domains cards (one for each players).
Glory points, build points, strategic cards, secret objectives... The quality is ok (nothing special) with a slight satin finish, if i were to make a comparison, the open war cards are of better quality. Don't freak out though, the difference is very light and you have to hold the two at the same time and look really hard to feel a difference.

2) Envelopes
Great idea to have thought of it. In fact it's primordial to be able to stock your deck between battles. If the idea is great, the actual product is not ^^ it's cheap thin cardboard that not gonna last more than a few sessions. The positive is that you can write your name on it and i am sure GW store will give them freely for playing (and that would explain the quality). One other options is getting a deck holder (for MTG) and store all the cards inside.

Quality is ok, nothing special but it does the job ! Let's get to the rules now !!!!

II) Rules

Firestorm is a campaign mode for 2 to 4 players battling for the control of the Flamescar Plateau. Playing campaigns of warhammer (battle or 40k) in a sandbox with way to upgrade cities was always a dream of me. Alas it never really worked as i imagined. Was it official campaign set, third party solution or even homemade.

And Here come Firestorm ! I know deck building game have a lot of hype these days, but to imagine GW would join the fray is great (Shadespire going have deck building too). It's innovative as a way to manage a campaign ! Made me think a little of the board game : Terraforming mars (way easier don't worry).

A) Overview of the rules

The rules are quite simple but with a lot of little details improving the depth of the game. We fight for zone control by challenging other players. before each battle, we draw 6 cards from our deck and build our armies with the points allowed. After the game, there is a post battle phase where you can loot and then upgrade your deck !

B) Set up :

Set up is quite straight forward. First you roll for starting position. Then take the 8 base cards composing your Domain deck.
Finally draw 3 secrets objectives, choose one and place it in the envelopes until the end of the campaign or until you complete it !.
Write your name on the different markers of your color.

That's it for the set up !

C) Firestorm battles :

1) No turn & honor code !

In the Firestorm campaign there is no turn per se, at any time you can challenge and play within the set time limit (One week for exemple). But you can't challenge again until the previous game is played.

The code : Instead of a big set or rules for challenge there is a code !

haha it's a cool rule !

2) Time of war and region selection

There is a Time of war rule for each of the regions on the map. Off course some have perks for certain race or drawback.
To select which region to fight on, you roll a dice and the winner choose where the battle take place. That mean you can challenge someone and if you win the roll you choose where the fight happen, your zone, a neutral zone or one controlled by the challenged.

D) Deck building & spoils of war :

The most interesting part of the campaign (outside of playing an AOS battle of course.) is spending build points to improve your deck and map control.

1)Spoils of war :
After each battle both player gain 1d3 build points to spend. (The winner can reroll. )
Unspent build points are converted to cards and are saved for later in the envelope.

2)Spending build points :
The first thing you can buy with build points is a garrison ! it's a super strong defensive tool that also help conquering close region. Garrison allow you to draw a 7th domain card before the battle (it's super good if you have a good deck).

Second way to spend build points is upgrading the Domain deck.
There is 3 types of Domain cards, basic, upgrade, optional. You always start with the 8 base cards

You can purge your deck of basic cards with upgrade cards or you can add optional cards and upgrade them too if you want.

It's really important (i think) that you get to the max muster point asap ! (max is 20 pts per fight) but i am sure other strategies are viable too !

E) Domain cards ressource :

1) Muster points :
In a matched play 1 muster point = 100 pts ! max is 20 muster points (so 2000p max). If players are ok with it, they can decide at the start of the campaign that muster points are worth 50 or 200 or any number they want.
So it's important to make the drawing of cards before the play day because you may have to change your list based on the number of MP you got !

2) Strategic points :
SP are rerolls, for 1 SP you can re-roll all combats and magics rolls. They can also be used to buy stratagems during/before a game.

Here the list of stratagems:

F) Battleplan and role bidding

In the firestorm campaign there is 4 Battleplans and they all utilise a bidding system for role selection.

1) Battleplans:
All the 4 BP used in the Firestorm campaign are some sort of surprise attack. That mean that one role, the attacker is going to be favored. The four present in the book are :Trap, Flanked, Night Attack, The Ambush.

2) VP bidding:
As a way to balance the scenario, both player bid VP before the game (secretly on a piece of paper). The winner get the attacker side !
It's a super interesting mechanisme, but you are going to need a few games to get the right amount VP bid. Because if you bid too much you will loose even as the attacker and if you bid too low you give away the attacker role for cheap and loose.

G) Other details and conclusion :

There a few thing that i left out about the Firestorm campaign

1) Other details

-Parley : Player can make tractation and even trade stuff.
-Legacy Campaign : You can start a new campaign on the ruin (map) of the old one !!
-Victory : At end of the campaign duration the player with the most glory points win. But you win instantly with 30 glory points or by making a flame scepter and controlling 3 specifics zones !
-A realm gate

2) Conclusion

Firestorm is a really cool box ! It solve all the campaign problem that i encountered in the past.
The deck building is great and manage everything in the game : army size, town upgrade, defense, objective, win and loss.
It's fast and easy to explain.
To me there is only 2 problems with this release :
-The map is a bit heavy to hang on a wall and you need to keep the board open during all the campaign (or make sure that the markers are really well fixed !)
-The enveloppes quality is a bit low.

That's it for the review of the campaign mode of Firestorm !
I think it's going to be my favorite release for the AOS, i honestly think it's brillant and super fun to play. I can't wait to start a campaign (maybe next week !)

/cheers.
bob.

Hello everyone :)

Yesterday we started our review of the GH2017 with Allegiance abilities, points and matched play. Today i'd like to complete the review with open and narrative play!

Open Play in GH2017

The Open play goal didn't change this edition. It's still a fast way to start playing, if you don't have all the models needed to fill the force organisation chart of matched play, don't want to bother with points or have models from different alliances.

While this didn't change GW pushed the envelope and spiced up the open play!

Multiplayer games: Coalition of Death

I think the biggest obstacle to wargames is having to play 1vs1. GH2017 tackles the problem and offers full support to 2vs2 or 1vs2 or 3vs3... in the form of Coalition of Death!

This is the first page of this section explaining different options:

Use wounds or points, uneven numbers of players, confederation, game master ... quite a number of cases covered.

Fog of War

The studio even considered the way we play and added a fun little twist with Messengers and Charge declarations ^^

That looks so funny, I imagine starting the game with both generals close to each other to be able to communicate and switching to messages when they are separated ^^

Other rules
But there is even more stuff in the Coalition of Death!
- There is only 1 warlord (AKA the super general of the 2 generals)
- Both generals can use their command ability but only affect their forces (even if they have the same Keywords)
- Finest hour: During a turn (random and secretly decided at the start of the game) your general gets extra omph.
- Divine Intervention: Divine help mechanism were failure is bad news ^^

Battleplan
There are 6 Battleplans with Coalition of Death, here's one example:

Basically you have to fight for the 6 points each to score victory points ^^

If you are into more chaotic multiplayer games, there is another option included in the book!

Multiplayer games: Triumph and Treachery

This game mode is crazy and my most memorable game of AoS was the T&T scenario in the White Dwarf.

T&T overview
- The Mod is for 3 players or more.
- Each turn you roll to see who is first. The winner of the roll "CHOOSES" who's turn it is. You are not forced to play first but instead you can choose someone else to see how things turn out. ^^
- Neutral: At the start of each phase you choose one player (and only one) to be your enemy for this phase - the other is neutral. It's important to choose well because only enemies get to pile in, neutral ones can't! (unless they spend treachery points)
- VP & Bribe: you can use Victory points as a currency to bribe other players!
- Treachery points: the worse the situation the more you generate, then you can use them on sneaky actions.
- You can use optional secret objectives.

There is even an option to use a Campaign map:

To conclude on T&T, this is my favorite mod for AoS. You can gather your friends and play like it's a board-game night, but with cool GW models!

Narrative play

Last but not least the narrative section. This is a rich blend of fluff and gaming.
The 3 importants parts that I am going to show you are:
- Time of war
- New Battleplans
- Siege Warfare

Time of War

7 regions of the mortal realms are represented, they all introduce new rules, spells, risks or gains. Here are two images of what you can expect:

Battleplan

6 new colorful Battleplans with a bunch of twist and fun ^^
They all look super interesting, but they are not playable without a bit of preparation in advance.
Most of them need scenery, extra beasts ...

Here's a small teaser of "The Beast Run":

And

A special spell offered to wizards in a different Battleplan "Against the Horde"

Siege Warfare

The last part covered by the review will be siege warfare.
The GW take on siege is that in the mortal realms fortresses come in all sort of forms and aspects so you don't really need the chaos fortress to play, you can use pretty much everything you have.

Setup
- You select one of the two battleplans, decide who is attacking/defending.
- Then the besieged deploys 5+ terrains pieces of his choice in his deployment zone, so if it's fit you could use 10 brayherd stones.

2 examples of a fortress:

Siege Phase

Before the game the assaillant can choose to: Starve, bombard the wall, dig a tunnel.
The besieged chooses a defense: Gather, repair, counter dig.
Both choices are made secretly!

Then you roll some dice and see what happen, this is before the game even starts. Then you can procede and play like normal. Just keep the scenery rules close to the hand ^^

Voila, that's it for the General's Handbook 2017.

Conclusion

Incredible value out of this book. 2016 was already great but this edition is even better! I wonder how they are going to keep up in in 2018 :D

Must buy if you play or want to play AoS :)

/cheers.
bob.

Hello everyone !!

Today we received our Path to Glory review copy :D

The Book
The book itself is 90 pages soft cover. It's very dense with infos, rules, tables and battleplans - no space wasted ^^.
There are rules for 20 warbands.
7 Battleplans
17 Start collecting alternate starts.
Price tag is : 20£

What is Path to Glory ?
Path to Glory is an Age Of Sigmar campaign mode where your warband earns "Glory". You amass glory and recruit new units or improve existing ones. This is a resurrection mode campaign (dead members and losses are restored between games). There is an objective to the campaign - the first player to complete it, WINS !

Generating a Warband

Generating a warband is quite simple, you don't need the General's Handbook or a battletome.
1) You choose a warband
2) You choose One champion in the corresponding Table.
3) Choose or Roll a number of follower units/model depending on the Champion chosen.
4) You can forego a follower choice to roll on the rewards tables (champion or follower).
-ps : Elite Retinue Followers Table require spending two rolls.

Khorne warband table

As you notice, it covers the Mortal and Daemonic side of Khorne.

Bob Of khorne test run
1) I choose Khorne Warband
2) Select a Mighty Lord of Khorne (with 4 followers choice)
3) use 2 choices to get 10 blood warriors
4) use 1 choice to get a Blood Secrator
5) use 1 choice to roll on the reward table for my Mighty Lord of Khorne..

Rolled a 6 "Reward generated from the lesser rewards of Khorne table " (Chaos warband have an extra reward table for mutation and things)

This time I rolled a 3 (D3) for a re-roll failed wound rolls of 1

I noted everything on the roster page and was set to go.

Alternate Warband Generation

In the book there is an alternate way to generate a warband by using a start collecting box.

There is no simpler way to start you play with the content of the start collecting. You get a small bonus (one free reward) or one penaly (win at 12 Glory points instead of 10) to balance powerfull starter box.

Campaign progression

1 ) After each game the winner gains 1d3 glory (can re roll if major victory)
2) the looser gains 1 pt.
3) Decide or Roll the type of reward (new units, hero new reward, unit new reward)
-if it's a 2 rolls follower table the cost is 1 glory.
-You can add new units from a different warbands if it's in the same grand alliance.

Campaign Ending

To win you must have 10 Glory points or 5 new units. (it's 12 glory points for certain start collecting box) + WIN an extra game !

Hello everyone !!

New faction presented by FFG for the game Runewars !

The locust horde (desert demon/ Eater of all life theme)

Long ago, the Uthuk Y’llan ravaged the land like locusts, consuming everything in their path, leaving only destruction in their wake. After the horde’s defeat at the end of the First Darkness, the Uthuk disappeared and their memory faded into legend. But the Ru Darklands begin to stir again as the demonic warbands emerge from the Black Citadel to spread chaos and destruction once more.

Morning everyone !!

A very detailed video by the dice tower .

/cheers.
bob.