Unfortunately things never turn out as planned and just before my wife left for work she handed me a big list of things that needed doing round the house! but i'm ill! then sit down while your doing it then!.... anyway once all the work was finished and I had finished hobbling around I sat down to paint some of the backlog and ended up grabbing a Mantic Marauder Raptor off the shelf and slapping a quick paint job on:
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| Mantic Raptor alongside a GW buggy |
The Mantic vehicles that are available surprised me at just how chunky and solid the parts are, although these retail for over a tenner you can pick these up for great prices elsewhere. Compared to the GW equivalents these are quite large as well but I like them and no, i'm not going to get drawn in to what they are made of! is it Resin/Plastic/Restic or PVC? who cares, does it look good, do I like it, yep.
Anyway, i've been putting off playing Warpath for a while so got the mat on the floor (i've been "removed" from the dining room table!) and put down two 900 point armies. I used the latest 2.0 rules and army lists and each side got the following:
Marauders:
- 2 x Raptors
- A Warlord
- 4 Squads of 10 Maruader grunts with an anti tank gun and ripper claw.
Forge Fathers:
- Huscarl leader
- 2 x Jotunn Hailstorm Cannons.
- Squad of 5 Stormrage Veterans
- 2 x Squads of Steel Warriors (one with 10 men another with 5).
- Iron Ancestor
The first game went fairly well, the rules are still light enough to pick up after a quick read or two (although the transport rules could do with all being together) and the alternate activation works well, it adds a layer of strategy when choosing which units to activate and the push your luck nature of activating units can really pay of or leave you stranded depending on how your luck goes!
The Marauder raptors were fast, very fast, on a single move they can get across the table and then some although their armour is pretty weak and falls pretty easily to the forge father fire (I liked how units transported in destroyed vehicles still have a fair chance of not being wiped out).
The Jotunn hailstorm cannons provide a HUGE amount of firepower, 12 shots each, they can effectively hold back any squads on foot and they both caused the most destroyed units in the game. The marauders on foot found it really hard to get across the board in the face of all that fire!
One of the big things that came out was just how less effective characters are, more suited to a support role, your not going to see any characters taking out whole units in close combat for example, quite the opposite.
If there was a major criticism of the rules it would have to be close combat, that the only models that can attack are those in base to base combat was a bit of a pain with some larger units being penalized by not being able to get so many troops in to base combat. I prefer the more simple nature of kings of war and so we played the house rule that if a unit enters close combat it enters close combat and all unit members can fight, simples.
In the first game the Marauders were almost wiped out before they got across the table so to even it up we replaced a squad of Marauder grunts with some stunt bots (GW killer kans) and took advantage of the Marauder Raptor speed, it certainly made the difference and the game was a lot closer.
It was interesting listening to the latest Mantic podcast with Ronnie hinting that Warpath may be changing direction again with multiple based troops and big games, around 20 units a side! I guess that they are still trying to find that magic formula that made Kings of War so good to play, anyway i'm certainly looking forward to whatever's coming in the future. :)
The Marauder raptors were fast, very fast, on a single move they can get across the table and then some although their armour is pretty weak and falls pretty easily to the forge father fire (I liked how units transported in destroyed vehicles still have a fair chance of not being wiped out).
The Jotunn hailstorm cannons provide a HUGE amount of firepower, 12 shots each, they can effectively hold back any squads on foot and they both caused the most destroyed units in the game. The marauders on foot found it really hard to get across the board in the face of all that fire!
One of the big things that came out was just how less effective characters are, more suited to a support role, your not going to see any characters taking out whole units in close combat for example, quite the opposite.
If there was a major criticism of the rules it would have to be close combat, that the only models that can attack are those in base to base combat was a bit of a pain with some larger units being penalized by not being able to get so many troops in to base combat. I prefer the more simple nature of kings of war and so we played the house rule that if a unit enters close combat it enters close combat and all unit members can fight, simples.
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| Someone nicked the table! |
It was interesting listening to the latest Mantic podcast with Ronnie hinting that Warpath may be changing direction again with multiple based troops and big games, around 20 units a side! I guess that they are still trying to find that magic formula that made Kings of War so good to play, anyway i'm certainly looking forward to whatever's coming in the future. :)
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