Last Crisis in Antwerp, my regular opponent and myself picked up the Umbra Turris rules from Spellcrow. We were still on the lookout for an interesting fantasy skirmish game and for €10, one could get the rule book (hardcover, A5 format) plus a free miniature of choice from their range, probably a show-only offer, that.
So that was a no-brainer. I picked up a goblin with a lute, which is normally €5,-, but he got himself a troll, which normally goes for €10,-, so he got the best deal possible there
We finally got to play our first game with the rules this week, and initial impressions are a bit mixed, but the game is certainly not without its merits.
So here's a (sort of) in depth review of the game and my first impressions of it.
First the book itself: it's in black and white, with original illustrations, and generally laid out well. It even has a bookmark ribbon. There is a minimum of fluff on the first couple of pages, detailing the background of the setting, but I skipped over that after a few lines, for reasons I'll explain further on.
The rules are generally clear, but have some remaining grey areas here and there that either need to be more properly clarified, or house-ruled. There was also quite a bit of paging to and fro when looking up certain rules, which were, at first glance, sometimes placed in a not so logical place. We usually got to see the logic behind it, but when looking them up, there was no clear reference, which took a lot of time. A good index would help a lot there.
We took that as pure nostalgia though, as we both remember nineties GW publications, which posed the same challenges
A gang/band/crew/posse is created by first selecting an alignment (Good/Anarchist/Evil) and picking your heroes accordingly. Most races have some limitations on which alignment they can have. Stat and points differences between races are not overly dramatic, but each race or sub-race has a unique special rule, which can be quite powerful.
Then you give them a profession, and this is where the meat of the game is. There are several dozens, and each has a special rule helping to highlight a profession's strong points. These can range in cost between 12 and 36(?), with the more expensive obviously being more powerful. Magic users are on that side of the spectrum. There can also be restrictions on alignment and amount of times a single profession can be repeated in a gang. One of the heroes has to be the leader, which also costs points.
Finally, you buy a weapon for each hero. One is the norm, as additional weapons cost is tripled, although there are some special rules that negate that. And if you have any points left, you can buy some additional equipment. Think stuff like poison, low level magic/healing items and things that increase spot checks, or allow a hero to climb without risk etc. Nothing too heavy, and each hero can be issued just one item of equipment, and there can only ever be two of each in the list.
So that's your gang all organized.
My gang, from left to right: Grakka the Guardsman, Anduriël Nightwound the Marksman, 'Nightcap' Tanner the Scoundrel, the leader Bel-Zharrduk the Gunsmith, Treesplitter the Duelist, DucDuc the Bowmaster and Gorduz the Red, Swashbuckler.Then there is the card thing. Yes; cards. There are decks for missions, items and locations.
A location card is drawn/selected at the start of the game and this dictates how the table is set up. Some factions may gain certain perks from this. Mission cards are drawn by both players and kept hidden unless stated otherwise on the card. You gain victory points by meeting the conditions on the cards, and those points are what decided who wins the game. Usually a player needs 2 victory points to win the game.
Item cards can be had in several ways; you can draw 3 of them for your mage, and they can be drawn when loot markers are revealed. These items can be very powerful, and can be potential game-winners. There are instant-, permanent- and effect items.
The cards can be downloaded for free from the Spellcrow website, and I must say they make quite a difference in the way the game is played. In fact, I'd pose that they are essential.
Decks of these cards can also be bought from Spellcrow and I have reasons to believe that there are more cards commercially available in these decks than there are available for free. Which obviously makes sense.
Ok, so now the one glaring negative which has to be mentioned: the writers of the rules are not native English speakers, and it shows. Their command of the language is sadly lacking to the point where passages are hard to decipher and this sometimes created ambiguity when reading certain rules in both the book and on the cards. This can be overcome by Reading As Intended (RAI) as opposed to Reading As Written (RAW), something I'm wont to do anyway, but in certain tense gaming situations, this can become a hindrance. I'm almost tempted to offer them to translate their translation into proper English
What we did take away from reading the book though is that Polish apparently has no articles (the, a/an)
So, how does it play?
I'll first have to mention that we went into the game a bit half bothered and did not properly lay out the table. The rules clearly state that the game is played on a 70x70cm play area, with plenty of terrain. We ended up playing on an area roughly 120x120, which severely impacted game play, as ranged weapon ranges were not sufficient and movement was equally slow in relation to the distances involved.
As an example; I had a hero on the board (a Dark Faun) with a movement of 10cm. So he only became involved in the fight near the end of our game, where he normally would have reached the center of the table halfway through. And since this particular model had the most expensive base cost of my entire gang, this severely impacted my fighting ability (when he DID get to grips with the enemy though, he insta-killed one with his first strike
).
Also, the terrain we used was mostly for massed battles, so LOS-blocking solid houses and rocks. We had one accessible ruin on the table, which immediately brought more interesting interaction, with minis getting inside, shooting through windows etc. This game is definitely written with Mordheim-like terrain in mind. It has been referred to as Mordheim on crack, which is a not too far off the mark description.
Also, my gang was made up of painted miniatures I had on hand, which subsequently meant it was not optimized and as synergistic as it could have been. I gave them all equipment and professions matching the miniatures, so even though my crew was fully WYSIWYG, they were not optimally equipped for the game. I even went without a mage because of this. They did look good losing though...
My opponent on the other hand built the best list possible and picked suitable miniatures from a shelved project to match the profiles he created, all unpainted.
So there was a bit of an unbalance there (from my point of view anyway
) and sub-optimal terrain to play on.
Game play was nice and smooth after a turn or two, and I found the mechanics to be easy to grasp. Each turn, there is a roll-off for initiative, and each hero is issued a die, next to its base. To activate a hero, take away the die from the mini. Now you can assign a normal action to your hero, in addition to a short/small action. Normal actions are moving, fighting, shooting etc, while short actions are things like spot checks or hiding.
So it's easy to see which miniature has been activated and which one hasn't been. Extra activations can be issued by a leader to his gang and certain spells/abilities/conditions can also allow extra activations. this is quite powerful, and can really change the way a gang is played. One of my heroes was killed because my opponent kept stacking activations on an attacking hero, allowing multiple attacks in one turn, which was brutal.
One interesting aspect is the parry option. When a hero attempts to hit an opponent, they will first engage in a bit of bluffing/gambling, as the attacking and defending players each select and simultaneously reveal a hit/parry location. 1-2 is legs, 3-4 is torso/arms and 5-6 is head. If the selected dice results match, the attack is successfully parried, and nothing else happens.
This choice is compounded by the type of strike an attacker chooses; this can be power, normal or precision. Most weapons give bonuses or penalties for certain types of attack, just as certain professions or race characteristics do. So based on who/what is trying to hit, a player can often deduct what location an attack will be aimed at. For instance; a successful precision strike against the head will allow for an insta-kill roll, something a power strike does not. So a precision strike would be more likely aimed at the head. Or would it? Because they might suspect I will defend that location and attack elsewhere...
A fun bit of decision making there, which I really liked.
Then the combat, which I felt to be quite one-sided, as apart from the parry option (which does not work against ranged weapons by the way) there is nothing a defending hero can do but take the hit. Armor is not really effective, and relatively expensive to buy, so do not count on it to save your hero! the reason I call combat one sided is that past systems have made me used to attacked miniatures being able to strike back, which leads to a completely different dynamic. So it may be that I just have to get used to it...
An important part of the game mechanics is the hiding/spotting dynamic. We found that being basically invisible/untouchable is imperative. However, we could not find any rules regarding this status being lost when being in close proximity to an enemy. So the somewhat weird situation occurred where an enemy in hiding was standing a mere two centimeters in front of one of my heroes, but being completely invisible and so could not be attacked!
Maybe we played that wrong, but we will probably house rule this something along the lines of 'when a hero is less than X cm (I was thinking 10 or 15?) away and in the front arc of an enemy, they automatically lose their hidden status. Because with the rules as written in the book, a hero only gets a single D6 4+ roll to spot. Miss that roll, and the hero is left out in the open, unable to shoot or attack that enemy, and vulnerable to being attacked or being shot at when that enemy is activated (especially with one of the two elf races being able to shoot without losing their hidden status. And yes; I was facing an all-elf gang
).
Conclusion
I have mixed initial feelings about this game system. I want to like it, because it seems fast and furious, and has some interesting mechanics such as parrying and using different types of attack. And the different card types, which each player can build into their own themed decks, are pretty cool. The artwork on the cards is excellent by the way.
But it also has some things that I feel are missing, such as a difference between walking and running. Then there are some things that do not feel right to me, such as the aforementioned hiding/spotting at close range issue or the ability to strike back when being attacked. Also, the sometimes rather bad translation from Polish to English can prove to be challenging and there are some grey areas in the rules that need to be addressed. For instance; a lot of cards mention 'your mage', but I did not have one in my first game, so two of my victory conditions were unattainable and nowhere is it stated that a mage is mandatory or what to do in such a situation.
So yes; we will probably play this game a lot more. Experience shows that one can never judge a system after just one game. Probably the nuances will fall into place after a couple of games, and we will 'get' the system. There certainly are enough positive elements that I really like, and the fact that the rules are universal is a great plus and any omissions in the rules can obviously be house ruled very easily.
Also, I would have really liked a campaign system, but maybe a (future?) expansion will add this.
Would I recommend it? Probably yes, but maybe not to people new to the genre or miniature gaming in general. There are many nods to older systems here and there, the most obvious one being Mordheim, and when one does not get those, the game would be a lot more difficult, especially because of the translation.
Umbra Turris has been in existence since 2014, and has flown under the radar ever since. So go ahead and give this game a spin; I think it warrants some more exposure and interest. The rules and cards are
free to download from the Umbra Turris website and although Spellcrow have a beautiful and characterful line of miniatures, the game can be played with anything you have lying around...