First play: Fanticide

I first became aware of Fanticide when Nic Robson at Eureka mentioned it to me. Then Matt got excited about it, accidentally bought two copies, and sold one to me. I would've bought it anyway, but this just sped things up.

I like the rules - they are clear and simple, and easy to apply. I also like the rules for creating your own units. It allows me to finally use all those silly things Nic at Eureka has sold me over the years. I like the feel of the world of Nowhere, although the fluff is not the best written fluff I've seen in a game. I like the challenge of developing new terrain to fit the game.
So do I like to play the game?

On Saturday, Matt and I met up at Hampton Games Club to put Fanticide through it's paces. We'd both read the rules about two weeks ago when we got them, so we'd forgotten a few things... Matt's ordered the basis of his clock-work puppet army, but is still waiting for it (I'll try to persuade him to post the army list to the blog so you can see what he's thinking). I'd bought the core of my Insatiable army from Eureka on friday night, and I ordered the rest of it from Reaper this morning. So neither of us had a full army. Fortunately, I had some Eureka warrior mice which I painted up long ago, and had written Fanticide rules for, so Matt used them.

Warrior mice ready for action.

I took two squads of three Devourers each, led by a Lord of Rapacity. Apart from the Vice of Hunger, the special rules did not come in to play. After some more play-testing, I'll put the army list up.

Name:	Give	Take	Soul	Agility	Spirit	Sanity
Devourer	3	3	2	4	6	4
Equipment:			Equipment Options:
None.			Two handed Weapons (+9)
Special Abilities:
Vice of Hunger

Name:	Give	Take	Soul	Agility	Spirit	Sanity
Lord of Rapacity	4	4	5	4	5	4
Equipment:			Equipment Options:
None.			May choose up to three artefacts, one of which may be a relic.
Special Abilities:
Vice of Hunger, Soul Powered Attacks, Soul Powered Spells, Virtue of command. 3 Spells.
Retainers:
The Legend can be accompanied y a squad of 2-6 feeder drones at 10 points each.

Matt took three squads of three Warrior Mice each - one slashers, one stickers, and one shootists, led by a Warrior Mouse legend mounted on a giant rat.

Name:	Give	Take	Soul	Agility	Spirit	Sanity
Warrior Mouse	2	2	1	6	6	6
Equipment:			Equipment Options:
None.			Blades: +4 points Bows: +5 points Spears: +2 points.
Special Abilities:
none

Name:	Give	Take	Soul	Agility	Spirit	Sanity
Mounted Legend	4	5	4	9	5	4
Equipment:			Equipment Options:
Blade, Shield			Up to 3 artifacts, one may be a relic.
Special Abilities:
none

It was a small game, based on what we had available, and the points did not quite match up (176 vs 166 from memory). We decided to use a two foot by four foot table, with a hill in the middle, and an Obo stone near each deployment zone.
Matt rolled the Sin of Envy, and I rolled Greed, so we ended up both riddled with greed. Since the game size was small, we decided to have two objectives each, with one more randomised from the center of the table. This one ended up close to Matt's edge. We used some giant mushrooms for the objectives.

Insatiable deployment.

Mouse deployment.

As to the game, well, it was quick, and it was bloody. Turn six ended with Matt having just two mice, and me having only my legend, the Lord of Rapacity. We'd both captured and removed a mushroom. My legend had more soul than the mice, so I won. Just.

The mouse legend buggers off with his mushroom prize.

The events played a major roll in the game. I got lucky with my legend effected by the Fanticide! event,  and the Time Slip event was also favourable to my forces. Of course, I also got hit by the Droppings Storm, so it evened out.

Devourers make for the Obo stone and glory!

Since it's two weeks since we read the rules, we did a few things the wrong way. We got confused about Spirit and Sanity checks, having played to much Warhammer and Warmachine, and tried to roll under our stats, not over them, and we forgot stuns in combat. But it all seemed to balance out in the end. We're certainly going to keep playing this game, and I'm looking forward to getting my armies ready and a whole table worth of terrain. I also plan to use this game at my school wargames club, as the squad-by-squad activation system means I can easily put one kid in charge of each squad, under the over-all command of a legend player. It's hard finding a skirmish game which can support upwards of eight players, and that's how many players I regularly get...

Once I have more experience of the game, I'll put up a more in-depth review.

Frivolous pretty picture showing the Devourers beating up the mouse legend while the Baba Yaga hut watches.

More frivolity which never happened in the game.