Teleologica
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I don't know if you are still interested in getting playtest data or if the rules are now fixed pending printing. Anyway, I managed to convince some buddies waiting for their KS bundles to get some play test games in with proxies over the weekend.
All at Skirmish level. I played four games, all with Nasier using the same models. One Hakar and six Ashmen, One Howl and six Bloodmasks, a Longhorn and a Rathor.
First game against Teknes. I took Marked for Death, he took Assassinate. He took 1-6 each of the pigmen and Linemen, and I think two of the Galvanic Defenders. Basically nothing was learned from this game as my dice were super cold and my opponent just kept rolling tens. Over, and over. And Over. Again. So yeah, he annihilated me.
Sadly this guy didn't have much time so we couldn't reset.
The next two games were against one guy using Goritsi. 1-6 Vamps, 1-3 Weres, and two Scourge Hounds. First game I took Call to Glory, he took, I think, Gather Intelligence. The motivations didn't really matter much here. He tried to outflank me but went too wide on both flanks. It meant the Dancing Masters and Scourge Hounds couldn't get their movement shenanigans into play. The War Dancers therefore caught a few Bloodmasks with their Flourish attacks, but not a lot. He also had a poor turn with the Skorza where all three fluffed attacks so couldn't hit and run away. All I really had by then were the Ashmen, but given the perfect setup of most being single engaged for both Duelist and Inspire bonuses, they just wrecked the world. Took off the three Skorza, three dancers, and the Hakar managed to sneak in on the Dancing Master and double-ten her in one go. That was that for him, really.
Second game against Goritsi my opponent took the same list, can't remember the motivations. This time he kept stuff more central, with the Skorza on the flanks and the specialists in the middle. A little counter-intuitive but it worked much better for him. Fair to say, the ability to shuffle my stuff around with Follow Me and Compel (especially taking Bloodmasks out of Shield Wall) is horrid when he followed up with Deadly Flourishes. This game he absolutely destroyed my first wave, then won the important initiative roll next turn so moved his War Dancers out of the way so my Ashmen couldn't counter-attack. Skorza stepped up, hit and running over a couple of turns and he almost wiped me out before my morale hit 0.
Final game was against Shael Han. Again, a mix of both infantry types, I'm getting hazy on exact numbers but something like Big Sister and four Wrath, maybe 1-4 Legionnaires, and he used The Deathbloom because she's way cool. Not sure of Motivations. Protection and, idk, Gather Intelligence sounds familiar? This one was more cagey than the previous matches. Both of us were trying to play more to scenario than in previous games. We tried to get round each other rather than bunching in the middle, but kind of inevitably ended in a big dust up in the middle again. Not sure if this is always going to happen or if it's more of a function of small game sizes. Anyway, the game went my way on attrition and eventually I managed to sneak one of my objective guys through to whichever zone it was I had to get to, and scored enough to win. To be honest my Shael Han opponent was a bit frustrated throughout as he felt that his army is basically not very good unless you can get your Inspiration models in the right places a turn ahead of when you need them. We talked through various options and I think he accepts they're not 'underpowered' as such, just that they make your brain hurt planning out the next couple of turns in a way the other armies don't! Deathbloom also spent a couple of turns walk/sprinting to get into the right position, and then I just Rathor-ed her before the Longhorn stepped in and with Unrelenting (2) carved her into bits.
General feelings:
Teknes. Seem to do what they're designed for, in that they're not outright killy but very good at denial. As I say though, not too many lessons being learned here because dice.
Goritsi. Unholy terrors when played right. Classic glass hammers in that sense I guess. When my opponent made errors in deployment / early moves I just tore him to pieces. When he did a better job of it in the second game he just danced around me picking off models until he ground me down.
Shael Han. Not sure really. Not obviously strong in any way. They have some really good support models but alternating activations makes it a little more difficult to get support pieces forward to support combat units without dying before they are used. May take a bit more practice to get used to.
Nasier. The Ashmen are still, I feel, a smidge underwhelming. I really feel they've never recovered in power or flavour from the 'over-balancing' they took early on in the testing. They are not bad per se. It's just that, for the disciplined, highly trained elite warriors of the fiction, they come across a bit vanilla. It might be the Hakar's Inspire ability, which only did anything meaningful in one turn of one game, and that required my opponent's dice to fail him for any to survive in melee. The Bloodmasks are great though. Pinballing enemies out of melee or even out of zones and into each other is so much fun. They got annihilated in every game, but they also made an impact in every game first, so I think they are spot on. The Leaders fit nicely with their units. The Hakar's Inspire, as I said, is meh, but the training ability is amazing, both for the Ashmen and the Bloodmasks. The Howl's training is a bit more niche, but still good, and her Inspire is one of the defining rules of the Bloodmasks. The Longhorn is great - not quite as much as I had expected but that may be because I talked him up so my opponents all went straight for him in every game ... The Rathor, conversely, looks a bit so-so on paper but is amazing in play. The aura, spell and melee attack are each good in different situation so he has much more flexibility than I'd seen before using him. I really want to try out the characters and the Greathorn, but for now my general sense is that Nasier is in a very good place. The Ashmen could use a tiny bump up, but really they're not bad.
All at Skirmish level. I played four games, all with Nasier using the same models. One Hakar and six Ashmen, One Howl and six Bloodmasks, a Longhorn and a Rathor.
First game against Teknes. I took Marked for Death, he took Assassinate. He took 1-6 each of the pigmen and Linemen, and I think two of the Galvanic Defenders. Basically nothing was learned from this game as my dice were super cold and my opponent just kept rolling tens. Over, and over. And Over. Again. So yeah, he annihilated me.
Sadly this guy didn't have much time so we couldn't reset.
The next two games were against one guy using Goritsi. 1-6 Vamps, 1-3 Weres, and two Scourge Hounds. First game I took Call to Glory, he took, I think, Gather Intelligence. The motivations didn't really matter much here. He tried to outflank me but went too wide on both flanks. It meant the Dancing Masters and Scourge Hounds couldn't get their movement shenanigans into play. The War Dancers therefore caught a few Bloodmasks with their Flourish attacks, but not a lot. He also had a poor turn with the Skorza where all three fluffed attacks so couldn't hit and run away. All I really had by then were the Ashmen, but given the perfect setup of most being single engaged for both Duelist and Inspire bonuses, they just wrecked the world. Took off the three Skorza, three dancers, and the Hakar managed to sneak in on the Dancing Master and double-ten her in one go. That was that for him, really.
Second game against Goritsi my opponent took the same list, can't remember the motivations. This time he kept stuff more central, with the Skorza on the flanks and the specialists in the middle. A little counter-intuitive but it worked much better for him. Fair to say, the ability to shuffle my stuff around with Follow Me and Compel (especially taking Bloodmasks out of Shield Wall) is horrid when he followed up with Deadly Flourishes. This game he absolutely destroyed my first wave, then won the important initiative roll next turn so moved his War Dancers out of the way so my Ashmen couldn't counter-attack. Skorza stepped up, hit and running over a couple of turns and he almost wiped me out before my morale hit 0.
Final game was against Shael Han. Again, a mix of both infantry types, I'm getting hazy on exact numbers but something like Big Sister and four Wrath, maybe 1-4 Legionnaires, and he used The Deathbloom because she's way cool. Not sure of Motivations. Protection and, idk, Gather Intelligence sounds familiar? This one was more cagey than the previous matches. Both of us were trying to play more to scenario than in previous games. We tried to get round each other rather than bunching in the middle, but kind of inevitably ended in a big dust up in the middle again. Not sure if this is always going to happen or if it's more of a function of small game sizes. Anyway, the game went my way on attrition and eventually I managed to sneak one of my objective guys through to whichever zone it was I had to get to, and scored enough to win. To be honest my Shael Han opponent was a bit frustrated throughout as he felt that his army is basically not very good unless you can get your Inspiration models in the right places a turn ahead of when you need them. We talked through various options and I think he accepts they're not 'underpowered' as such, just that they make your brain hurt planning out the next couple of turns in a way the other armies don't! Deathbloom also spent a couple of turns walk/sprinting to get into the right position, and then I just Rathor-ed her before the Longhorn stepped in and with Unrelenting (2) carved her into bits.
General feelings:
Teknes. Seem to do what they're designed for, in that they're not outright killy but very good at denial. As I say though, not too many lessons being learned here because dice.
Goritsi. Unholy terrors when played right. Classic glass hammers in that sense I guess. When my opponent made errors in deployment / early moves I just tore him to pieces. When he did a better job of it in the second game he just danced around me picking off models until he ground me down.
Shael Han. Not sure really. Not obviously strong in any way. They have some really good support models but alternating activations makes it a little more difficult to get support pieces forward to support combat units without dying before they are used. May take a bit more practice to get used to.
Nasier. The Ashmen are still, I feel, a smidge underwhelming. I really feel they've never recovered in power or flavour from the 'over-balancing' they took early on in the testing. They are not bad per se. It's just that, for the disciplined, highly trained elite warriors of the fiction, they come across a bit vanilla. It might be the Hakar's Inspire ability, which only did anything meaningful in one turn of one game, and that required my opponent's dice to fail him for any to survive in melee. The Bloodmasks are great though. Pinballing enemies out of melee or even out of zones and into each other is so much fun. They got annihilated in every game, but they also made an impact in every game first, so I think they are spot on. The Leaders fit nicely with their units. The Hakar's Inspire, as I said, is meh, but the training ability is amazing, both for the Ashmen and the Bloodmasks. The Howl's training is a bit more niche, but still good, and her Inspire is one of the defining rules of the Bloodmasks. The Longhorn is great - not quite as much as I had expected but that may be because I talked him up so my opponents all went straight for him in every game ... The Rathor, conversely, looks a bit so-so on paper but is amazing in play. The aura, spell and melee attack are each good in different situation so he has much more flexibility than I'd seen before using him. I really want to try out the characters and the Greathorn, but for now my general sense is that Nasier is in a very good place. The Ashmen could use a tiny bump up, but really they're not bad.
