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Stumbled across their stuff and the models look awesome, any idea how it plays?

I've played a couple of games. It plays pretty fast.

The focus point mechanic takes a bit of getting used to. To move you spend focus depending on how fast you move (you can move one inch for free if that's your only movement), so you sometimes end up spending the points you were going to use on a power attack.

Army building is interesting, there are three factions (Dark, Light, and Neutral) and 8 organizations (Church, Azure Alliance, Sammael, Wissenschaft, Empire, Black Sun, Tol Rauko, and Wanderers). The Neutral faction and the Wanderer organization are the groups for characters that don't claim allegiance to any of the other factions. You build your group based on faction or organization. If you choose to go by faction (Light or Dark), then you can have as many Neutrals as you wish. Going by organization will allow you only one Wanderer (I've never really worked that out, but hey, them's the rules.)

Some organizations are trickier to play than others.

You can go to http://www.totengraber.net/anima/ to preview teams, all their stats are there. The rules are here. http://www.edgeent.com/anima/EN/pdf/tactics%20rulebook%20EN.pdf

Unless you like the models, I would shy away from the Light starter set, it isn't quite as powerful as the Dark set. To use MMO terms, the Light is a tank and a healer team. The Dark brings some serious DPS. They've already toned them down by taking the Shinigami Ayl character out to put Bael in.

Funny. I've had the Dark Starter on my shelf for a few years and it just so happens that I finally read the rulebook today. What are the odds, huh?

The system looks quite elegant but I'm worried that the models don't have enough abilities to give you a decent amount of tactical options. And most of the stuff is just attacks with a hit/damage bonus and a status effect.

The refresh mechanic is cute. You feel like you're playing Final Fantasy on the tabletop.

It plays a lot like Warmachine. You have to manage your focus points or your gonna get crunched.

The game has both attacking characters and support characters. Depending on how you manage your focus and who you apply your buffs to will greatly help you and harm your opponent.

I got the feeling that the game is meant to be quick and dirty. 5 or less guys per side on a 3x3 table. Get to the crumping quick and have it hurt. Its for fast fun games, not long drawn out fights.

I've really enjoyed the few games I've played. Pretty simple on the surface, but there are a lot more characters out there than what I've seen so I can't comment on how deep it really goes or what combos are the most brutal.

Looks like FF, plays like a miniatures version of FF.

The ridiculously large swords put me off it (but then, they do the same thing for FF with me).

The art looks like ff tactics to me. AWESOME!

The artwork and character concepts look great - but it seems like most the miniatures are lagging behind somewhat. It's like they're too chunky or something. Plus, is anyone capable of producing female miniatures with appealing faces? I'll be picking up a few of these to paint, but only the ones which don't feature human faces.

Peekay wrote:Plus, is anyone capable of producing female miniatures with appealing faces?

LOL, I totally get what you're saying.

The artwork was really something, and honestly that's what grabbed my attention.

But after looking at the actual miniatures? I was aghast, to say the least.


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Oh, btw I kind of like the facial features of "Infinity" (http://www.infinitythegame.com) miniatures.

Wyrd Miniatures (http://www.wyrd-games.net) has some good faces too.

It's a problem intrinsic to the Anime style they chose. Features that work in the anime style do not translate into 3D very well.

Vertrucio wrote:It's a problem intrinsic to the Anime style they chose. Features that work in the anime style do not translate into 3D very well.

Have you not seen high-end resin casts of anime characters?

HLJ.com has lots of examples of beautifully-sculpted stuff.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Vertrucio wrote:It's a problem intrinsic to the Anime style they chose. Features that work in the anime style do not translate into 3D very well.

Have you not seen high-end resin casts of anime characters?

HLJ.com has lots of examples of beautifully-sculpted stuff.

Agreed!

Now, maybe it doesn't translate into 28mm/"Heroic Scale" as well as we'd like, but I've seen plenty of awesome "3D" Anime stuff out there...

I love the models but I'm not sure if I have the time/money for playing another tabletop.

I know I probably don't, so I'll be poaching them for other systems.

(OK, and maybe playing this one too!)