For the second on my Easter games I popped over to Fishponds for a game of Mantic's Armada with my newly completed Salamander fleet - fire based lizards who reasons lost to time are named after amphibians. I was fighting Abyssal Dwarves (evil stunties) and Twilight Kin (evil elves) in a three cornered scenario. Points are scored by being close to one of two vortexes in the centre but there is a risk you get sucked-in and destroyed.
The rules are closely based on Warlord Games Black Seas Napoleonic naval rules and could easily be played that way by selecting the basic human faction for both sides and dropping all the magic.
We each deployed in one of three starting zones, and the AD and Kin each rapidly hit the centre of the board to start scoring. Being less sure of the rules I got a bit tied up so was lagging after 2 turns and still not in the action.
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| Twilight Kin |
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| Abyssal Dwarves |
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| Plucky Salamanders |
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| Balance of the Abyssal Dwarves |
Mid-game I rallied and managed to sink a couple of Dwarf ships that had been weakened by the Kin. I was then able to get into the centre and score a few points, helped by a couple of the Kin ships having taken a very long route to avoid the Dwarves.
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| Abyssal Dwarves cross-the-T |
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| Salamanders pound the Abyssal Dwarves |
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| Twilight Kin circumnavigating the island |
By turn 5 I was in the lead but could have seen much of my fleet sucked into the vortex with some bad roles. Luck was with me an all my ships survived to make a break for it, and in turn 6 I had a big enough lead to win.
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| Prizes for all! |
A fun game and the ships certainly look the part. For scale the largest vessels we used were on 30mm x 100mm bases, so a pleasing size.
good to have you over, the ship scale certainly gives you some nice chunky boats to play with.
ReplyDeleteThe XL is coming along ok and should be ready for action soon
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