Played a match with my buddy today, this was our 5th game I believe, so by this point we are starting to feel comfortable with the basic rules, but still mess things up relatively frequently, so apologies in advance if we herp-derped it up too hard.

We have been playing Pick and Ban, with one ban and the full hero pool available. I ban Cassio, he bans Eredeth. (At this point, our bans are more indicative of which Hero abused us the hardest in the last game rather than the result of any real planning or strategic goals.) We both have some crazy dojo/theory that we want to try. I end up with Kruul, Istariel, Bastion, Sir Marcus and the Ettin (whatever its real name is), with the goal of creating a fully operational Ettin deathstar. Marcus for RES 1, Bastion for +1 Mel and the big heal, Kruul for off chance of hitting lvl 3 and Frenzy. Istariel was more of a counter choice after his team shaped up. Speaking of which, he brought: Doenrakkar, Sven, Zaffon, Loribela, and Thorgar, with the idea of bringing lots of displacement effects and killing me with the monster, with a side of Loribela buffing the rest of the Dwarf/Minotaur gang. We played map 3, with a good size forest and a wall diagonally opposing each other centralish and around the soul well. I get the side with the wall, and the first turn.

This game took 3 and a half hours, with an hour break for real life stuff in between. I tried writing a play by play, but I just can't get it right. Next time, there will be notes. Basically, turn 1 sees my Marcus, Bastion and Ettin take out Ashtooth, with Ettin getting the kill, choosing the tank head to level up and buying Armour Shredder (hindsight says it probably should've been a Vorpal Sword, but he had so much RES on his team I thought it would be worth it.) Krull sets up for a turn 2, first activation soul harvest. Istariel flanks out to contest my shrine.

My buddy had Zaffon set up Loribela for the monster kill, bought Doenrakkar glyphs of warding ( RES 4 is pretty much overkill; at RES 3 I might think about trying to wear him down, but at 4 I never bothered to attack him unless I was looking for a push for my guys), and sends Thorgar to capture my shrine. Sven wandered towards his shrine, looking to unleash Ashtooth into my squad.

Turn 2 sees Kruul snatch the soul right away, and place a null magic zone around the soul pit, trying to discourage Doenrakkar from conesting it.  A melee erupts around his shrine, with Bastion, Marcus and the Ettin vs Sven and Doenrakkar, and Zaffon hovering around as well. Sven pushes Ashtooth into Bastion and the Ettin (we forgot to randomize), doing decent damage. Marcus and Doenrakkar spend the majority of the game splanging off each others RES. ("Splang" being the universal sound effect for a blow deflecting off of armour). The Ettin beats on Sven, setting him up for next turn.Thorgar gets lit up by Istariel for about 1/2 his health. Istariel gets thrown off the point by Thorgar, letting him score my shrine.(Also for about 1/2 of her health) Loribela throws a keg at Kruul and pushes him off the wall, then throws a molotav at him and sets him on fire, then Zaffon pegs him with his crossbow, leaving him pretty beat up. Bastion teleports to Kruul, removes fire and then heals him for most of the damage he took.

Turn 3 sees Istariel activate to clear knockdown, and teleport out of melee, and fire a ineffectual blast at Thorgar. Loribela finishes off Istariel. Thorgar charges Kruul and chunks him. Kruul finishes off Thorgar. The melee on the other flank continues; Marcus and Doenrakkar contest the point. Bastion leaves to support Kruul, healing him again (for 9 i think). The Ettin finishes off Sven, and uses pushes to begin threatening the soul pit central. Zaffon shoots Bastion into Ashtooth, and Ashtooth mauls him for 7, putting Bastion at death's door.

Turns 4 and 5 are fuzzy, but I know that Bastion went down to Loribela's keg bomb, Kruul had 3 souls on him, and got put down by being shot into Ashtooth (I think), he got to put a soul onto Marcus before he went down. We trade some damage,the Ettin gets to Soul Burn Loribela and Sven who each had a soul,  somehow Loribela goes down ( I think to Kruul after Istariel set him up?) and eventually Kruul closes the game out by Frenzying, putting down a mostly dead Thorgar in one swing and harvesting the soul pit (contested by Loribela).

Post Game:
I was disappointed by the Ettin death star; at MEL 5, it was really hard to get good work done, even with Bastion and the low AGL of his team. Vorpal Blade was definitely the right item for him. He did get so much health so fast that my opponent didn't even bother going into him until the end game. At the end of the day, he is a debuff support/off tank, so I guess he shouldn't be rolling around murdering the world with a double swinging 2/3/5.
Kruul was a freaking machine; I remember at one point he had 2 souls and then frenzied, for a 4/5/6 damage track on his magic attack. He was easily my MVP, and I'll definitely be giving him some more table time.
For our first 4 games, we missed the spending a fate to heal also costs an action, so we finally got to appreciate the power of Bastion's heal ability. He is so subtly powerful, the 3" melee range with his aura is essentially +2 MEL, and his 12" teleport lets him get to exactly the right spot.

Doenrakkar continues to impress; we believe him to be the best defender. (really wish there were more than 3). In our experience, the true power of defenders is that they all have access to immunity to displacement (Marcus can place his wall to stop pushes, but I guess throws still stop that plan).

Loribela was a stud for my opponent; she's a reasonably competent fighter, the move aura is super necessary for the Dwarves, and her exploding keg has made so much money every time it has been thrown in the two games she has been played.

Zaffon has been mediocre in our games; all of the 2 action/attack characters (Zaffon, Thrommel and Eredeth in bear form (Berne?) ) get punished so hard. By threatening to aim,  he does project a 10" bubble of "don't put anything you love here", and he is the most competent melee combatant of the primarily ranged focused guys, but he has yet to have a major impact in our games thus far (He has actually seen the table in every game so far I believe) I see the power of a ranged knockdown on 2 maneuvers, but it hasn't come so consistently to be obnoxious the way Cassio's Dragon Kick is.

That's all I've got for now, other than Judgment is quickly becoming my favorite game, and I'm already planning out how to pick up the whole line when it drops.

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Great report! Thanks for posting. I am still at work so can't comment to much atm. Will have a decent go off it tonight. 

Was great reading about Warbands and tactics of players outside our play test group. 

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Ok so I have a bit more time to talk about a few things in relation to your bat rep. [smile]

With regards to time, in our serious play testing, when both players pretty much know the game very thoroughly we play 55 minutes on each player's chess clock, with the clock paused for all Communion Phase activities. This makes for a pretty comfortable game without having to worry about time too much. For the 3v3 version of the game we are currently looking at 40-45 minutes, gut feeling is 40 will be well and truly fine once the meta matures. BTW the name of the Ettin hero has been settled, and it is Skoll Bonestorm. His official picture card is below.


I have used Skoll in a lot of games and my feeling at this stage is Vorpal Blade, Bastian and the tank level up tree makes him a formidable hero. There are a few heroes in the game that can be average on their own, however if you build your Warband around them they can become absolute monsters, Skoll definitely falls into that category. Even simply combining him with a hero that knocks enemy models down (Marcus, Cassio, Thorgar for example), Skoll can absolutely monster a enemy with AGI 1. Another update to Skoll is the fact Combo Strike can be done when he charges. It takes all 3 of his actions however a 3/5/7 attack with a 1S Knock Out combo manoeuvre is nothing to sneeze at.

Another thing I picked up on was your comment about Doenrakkar reaching RES 4 with the Glyph of Warding magical artefact and Stone Form. That has also been tweaked so that Stone Form now sets his RES to 3 directly, it does not provide +2 RES as it used to. The subtle difference here is that regardless of what Doenrakkar's RES is before he casts Stone Form, he RES becomes 3.


We are still doing minor tweaks here and there on various heroes as we race towards the final launch of the game when the Kickstarter delivers. I am actually thinking of having a pinned thread with all rules updates on there for our early adopters to easily reference. Once the game has shipped, we will have quarterly patches that are well publicised and readily available for our players.

Two things I personally whole heartedly agree with are your thoughts on Bastian and Kruul. Bastian is such a powerful supporter that can really get your Warband humming along. The amount of times he has been man of the match for me is incredible. So much utility and as you say his 3" melee range really opens up some nice options for him. Just tagging a hero with less melee range costs them an action to fight him, and it also stops them from charging. Great hero.

Kruul has more recently become my go to guy. He is a typical high risk/high reward kind of hero. You want to power him up with Souls so his damage output goes through the roof, however you don't want him to die and lose them. Also, Extract Soul can be a game saver in certain situations. Once again, an excellent hero and the sculpt is drool material. [smile]

Two examples of non-aggressor heroes that bring so much to the table.

I also struggle to get the most out of Zaffen. If your opponent ignores him then they are in for some huge hurt, however running a hero to engage him can really drop his damage output. In saying that, Tirrith (my brother) uses him a lot and has devastated me in more than one game getting the most out of Zaffen. The Bow of Accuracy, astute use of his traps (particularly early turns where you can set him up in a strong position) and his Fate ability all combine to elevate Zaffen to a scary long ranged dude.

Looking forward to hearing/reading more of your adventures guys, thanks again for posting. Jeff and I will be getting stuck into regular video battle reports soon, now that we have a decent number of actual models in our hands. So look out for them soon.

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