Why should I buy this game ?

You can take any combination of 4 characters out of the 8 in the core set. This gives 70 different possible teams. Yes, your opponent could take exactly the same team (assuming he has his own core set) but this rarely happens. I suggest that you check out the Discord channel associated with the Table Top simulator league to see how experienced players have chosen their 8 character roster from the first 12 available (including the Soldier of Fortune expansion to be released very soon.). Here is a link to the current ranking in that league.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...Ch7e5VYnotrlOXGV1EjyfwPNAU/edit#gid=958950963

 

I don’t think there is any optimal build since the tactics cards play such a big part in gameplay and each scenario demands different strengths.

Add to this that any optimal build can be easily countered by an opponent since some characters act almost like direct counters to others

 

As someone who is looking to be a warcor and help spearhead Aristeia into the forefront of competitive gaming like Infinity, id love to answer your questions.
1) With only 8 characters in the core box, it may become boring initially, but like with any early game, the reliability of knowing all the units capabilities lends towards more skill based play than having situations where you may be caught off guard by a new character. Also there is the tactic deck which can add drastic variation to your games. To further this, expansions are coming and will help with the replay value. As for draft, there is no set requirement yet per say, but i tend to like the moba style 1st player picks 1, 2nd picks 2, 1st picks 2, 2nd picks 1, 1st player picks 1, 2nd picks 1, then you pick tactics. After the release of SoF, i can see a small ban mechanic implemented aswell due to more characters than required being in the game.

2) Yes it does change the situation but isn't purely chance, most characters under use by skilled players are capable of grabbing the objective needed even if it was in the opponents deployment zone, you would be amazed by how mobile and flexible some team comps can be.

3)You could argue this with any game, yet you still see decent variance in tournaments... well in most cases. The point here is balance of the units, synergy with perhaps weaker units to make them viable again, etc... Also don't forget the draft/ban system that helps keep mobas running well despite balance issues. Likely if a new unit is too strong, you actually wont see it that often, or will have control over how often you see it to a degree. Imagine the game starts, and you go for bans, each player can ban 2 (in order of course) characters that cant be used by either person, then you draft from the remaining characters as i explained earlier. The key is to not think of the future of this game as being like a wargame, but like an online MOBA videogame just with more time for strategy, physical models, and a MUCH less toxic environment.

 

It has proto rules in the AGL but it isnt enforced yet. I can say however that as the roster increases, AGL should adopt it as official tournament format.

 

Don't forget the very aggressive plan for expansion characters, so you should definitely see a lot more characters in the future

 

Others in my group have bought Aristeia and I've been playing enough games to be helping out demoing it to people on occasion. It's a lot of fun and has good replay value, even with just the core set. Drafting your team usually ensures that you don't get repetitive game experiences since, if you are working with just the one set, you can just pick a character to deny them for your opponent. Even then, tactic selection can significantly influence the game. If you are using the tournament rules (and each of you are bringing 8 characters) then there is a veto where you can deny one character from the opponent's roster as an option (and vice versa).

Even working with just a single core set it's rare to find multiple games with the same teams and even when that happens the game rarely plays out the same, particularly with different scenarios and changing your tactics selections. Drafting teams from just the core set can be an entertaining game in itself as you try to pick your favourite characters or deny them from the opponent. (Since you take turns selecting team members it's very unlikely to get to pick your ideal team and the starting characters have very good internal balance from my experience so far.)

The way scenarios move the scoring zones typically favours the underdog (whoever is behind) and thus usually works to help the person losing to catch up so long as they've thought it through. The way the different characters operate also greatly influences the scenario dynamics.

I have no idea what is the best team of 4 with this game, whether you are working off just the base set, or with the first expansion. After many games I can only offer a personal favourite team, because I like the characters and in some cases, their specific tactics. I know it's not the strongest team because of how many weaknesses there are that can't be covered. Tactics cards make this even harder to work out and the mix of aggressive and support characters really makes it hard to conclusively measure a team's strength. For example, Gata has no way to deal damage, only 2 health and not the best defensive stats. However she is incredibly mobile (with her freerun action) and can dazzle models for just a single action point. This makes her the nemesis of characters like Wild Bill and Major lunar who become next to useless whilst dazzled. Her tactics cards are also very useful and potentially game winning. (Pain suppressants is an easily overlooked card.) With the highest natural initiative she also nearly always gets to decide who activates first.

The value and strength of a character can also change depending on the opposing team. Maximus is slow and ponderous but very difficult to take down. He also has low initiative so in a lot of circumstances may not appear very strong. This is particularly true against teams with characters who can displace him such as 8-Ball and Hexxer. However he's much more useful against teams that like to deal damage and attack directly because of his excellent defence and health. If opponents try to attack his teammates then he's also deceptively mobile as he displaces himself around each time they attack his allies. (This can bring him next to the targeted ally to then use his 'get behind me' rule to shield them from damage.)

 

Then I would like to post my impressions of the game here as well.

In the last days we played our first matches. We started with assault. The scenario was also well suited to take the first steps and learn the movement. It was really fun, but the underdog, who decided where the next scoring zone would go, always made the next point. I think our map control was really bad in this respect and we have not quite understood how to set up all four team members.

We also reduced the number of laps from 5 to 3 after the first match. With 3 laps the playing time was still 2 hours. 3 rounds is a completely different style of play. Very aggressive. No management of the tactics required. I think if we have the rules in it better, we'll switch back to 5 laps right away.

Last we tried the scenario King of the hill. Also here in 3 rounds. A very fun and exciting scenario. Our game has become more and more tactical and we've done pretty cool moves. Hexx3r and 8-Ball have partially completely changed the rounds. Just Maximus was extremely strong. With the scoring zone not changing, Maximus' more static game showed its strengths. Never hit the tank!

My conclusion: A really good transfer of MOBA to boardgames. The aspect of switches and dsiplacing makes the game very unique and leads to an extremely successful game concept. The individual heroes are really beautiful, unique and different to play. Due to the strong impacting actions and tactics, the game situations change enormously.

PS: All figures are painted. even if the figures are not so high quality, they have many details and are imaginatively designed. Next, I make the obstacles out of hexagonal PVC.

 

@Eightballz i also played shorter games for the first few, but have since moved up to full 5 rounds and play has been getting much faster with players familiar with the game. We are at abput 90 mins a game now.

To @Marc C I am sure most of your questions have been answered already but a few notes:
The AGL offers many drafting variants from "picked characters are banned, snake draft" to "you bring and roster the opponent picks from." Which all offer different fun options.

According to CB there will be a total of 24 playable characters by the start of 2019.

The senarios have more subte differences than they appear. For example king of the hill really hurts squisher mobile Aristos while Scoarched Earth can be really hard for slow pokes like maximus and bill to contribute in.

Like everyone here, I am still new to the game but it feels very vibrant to me, and thats with only the 12 characters we know about. I expect by this time next year some typical builds will start emerging, but CB has been very good at influencing their meta with their yearly ITS updates and I fully expect simmilar care will happen for the AGL senarios. And you dont need to be in a tournament to still make use of those.

Hope you like the game and if you do, tell someone about it. I think it has real potential for growth

 

Yep -- by end of 2018 we will have 24 characters available.

 

One strength and challenge of this game is that there are no factions per se. Choose any four of the twenty available characters and your opponent may even choose a duplicate of yours. This allow for tens of thousands of possibilities and we have not even thrown in the mechanic of choosing two of four each individual character-specific Tactics cards. This game is more about improvising on the fly than about any specific pre game strategy. As attributed to the American prize-fighter Mike Tyson - "Yeh, everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face"