Hi everyone, I had discovered Aristeia when it first came out but decided to wait a bit to see how it would develop. As I will probably now delve into Infinity as well, I am looking at Aristeia anew and I have a few questions : How did the community develop in your area and worldwide ? Are there large tournaments ? I am under the impression that the game remains rather "niche", despite all its qualities. Notably, it's more accessible than Infinity and even more so than Warhammer underworlds as there is no deck-building. If I understood correctly, Season 1 is over. What's next for Season 2? In terms of gameplay : is the game well-balanced ? How skill-based is it (in-game decisions, team and cards selection...)? Finally, do you also play Infinity ? Are there some synergies among the 2 aside from sharing the same universe ? I think I have seen that some Aristeia's minis were playable in Infinity. thanks !
1. Competitive tabletop gaming is a niche hobby. Non-GW competitive tabletop war gaming is even more of a niche. But, there's tournies that are run relatively often though and an active A! Discord and Facebook groups to find them on. 2. AGL2 seems to be running well. 3. Very. The original 8 from the starter are mostly still highly competitive. I have some personnel reservations about Lei Gong, but I suspect that in play he'll turn out to be more limited than I fear him to be on paper. 4. Yes. There's a lot of miniature overlap: not least because of CB's proxy rules. It means that A! mines are great proxies even if they don't have direct rules. For instance the new TAK Spec Ops + new female Dogwarrior for A! would work well together as Dogface/warrior pair (with a simple Tomahawk weapon swap). If you're just interested in dipping your toe into A! I highly recommend Tabletop Simulator as a gateway drug. Where abouts are you located? Someone relatively local to you may know more.
Thanks ! I am located in France and I have asked similar questions in our local forum. I have found a core box on sale so I will try it pretty soon ;-)
There seems to be a larger French community who runs even larger events in Lyon if I remember correctly and Paris at least.
Concerning your questions: I think it is better than WHU because of the GW practices as well as aesthetics, but this is just a personal point of view. GW drains much money from the market and has very serious fanboys. So it can be very hard in your local meta to convince players to try Aristeia. AGL is 'just' a league to play competitive. However, you can find interesting mods as well as league rules in the document. So it is worth a try and a fun way to play Aristeia. The game is very well balanced. No character is obsolete. But it requires knowledge about all the characters and cards if you want to play competitive. But you can learn the basics very fast because depth comes from characters and tactics. So you can start with the core set and go on. Tactics are game changers and card selection matters. I own everything from Nomads, almost everything from ALEPH and O-12. Played many tournaments as well but switchting more and more to Aristeia and I just collect the Infinity stuff nowadays. Pledged Defiance as well.