Factions ?

[TheBlueShoggoth]

Hi, found your game and saw it's a new lovecraftian skirmish game - so I am just wondering if Strange aeons will have any of my favourite faction playable for the cthulhu mythos races as id buy and play pretty much any of the good ones like Shoggoths, Flying Polyps, Elder-Things, Chthonians, Dark-Young, servitors of azathoth, spawn of yog-sothoth ect - so are you going to do squads or armies for those races at all? I'd especially like Polyp and Yithian armies so I can recreate the battles on primeval earth talked about in Shadow out of time. I suck at converting so I really hope you make models for these.

[Yggdrasil]

Hi.
In Strange Aeons there are two "factions". The men and women of the Threshold (the "goodies") and the Lurkers (the "badies").
While the Threshold list is a fixed group of characters gaining experience in every game, the Lurker Player is able to use in every scenario another bunch of Creatures according to the pointvalue of the Agents.
For example: the "pointcosts" (called Build Points) of the Agents is 18BP, this means that the Lurkerplayer may use 18BP to build up his "army" for the used scenario. In addition the Lurkerplayer must build a force according to the scenarios conditions ("having more Lurkermodels than Threshold agents" and so on)

You can choose between more than 20 different types of Lurkers, these are Cultists, Zombies, Beasts, Night Stalkers, Flying Horrors and so on.
You can use any Myth Creature because there are rules for the "godling" which allows you to create a fitting profile for your type of big creature you want to use. With the Godling you could create a dark Young of Shub-Niggurath, or of course a star-spwan (using wings for the godling). But godlings are very powerfull, they do cost many BP making them a bit rare (normaly the agents need to gain much experience before the Lurkerplayer is able to use a godling).

There are many possibilities to display any kind of Myth Creature.
But you do not use Armies consisting of hundrets of miniatures. Instead, 15 Miniatures for one player is already a very big game. Normally the Agents use something about 5 Miniatures, while the quanity of Lurkers depends on the played scenario.

Hope this helps, and excuse my bad english  

[TheBlueShoggoth]

Ah, interesting - could I just have several models that are just like for example formless spawns or something then ? I did like the one on the site that looks good to buy...

[LidlessEye]

It depends on the scenario.  Some stipulate the Lurker player must have more models than Threshold (who typically have 3-5 figures), and a single Formless Thing costs as much as an entire starting Threshold squad.  As a result, its often necessary to deploy a number of lower cost models (Cultists, Ghouls, Fishmen - there are plenty of choices) rather than a big beastie.  Once Threshold squads become more experienced, they'll find themselves fighting larger and nastier opponents on a more regular basis.

[TheBlueShoggoth]

It depends on the scenario.  Some stipulate the Lurker player must have more models than Threshold (who typically have 3-5 figures), and a single Formless Thing costs as much as an entire starting Threshold squad.  As a result, its often necessary to deploy a number of lower cost models (Cultists, Ghouls, Fishmen - there are plenty of choices) rather than a big beastie.  Once Threshold squads become more experienced, they'll find themselves fighting larger and nastier opponents on a more regular basis.

Yeah, I dont like cultists/ghouls/deep-ones ect, actually the least interesting aspect of the mythos for me. I like the pure abstract/floaty/sliming nasties... do they have or will they bring out lower-cost models in that style?

[Yggdrasil]

I don't think so, because mythos creatures like Shoggoth are relatively powerfull and therefore one Shoggoth is strong enough to kill a bunch of Investigators.
But of course you could use the profiles of other creatures in your game to embody the shoggoth miniature. For example you could use the rules of a conglomerate (costing half as much as one shoggoth) for a shoggoth model.

Another option would be to use Strange Aeons as any other wargame where you only have to place your army on the table and fight games (like Warhammer 40K). Of course you are still bound to the Scenario requierements to offer a fair game...

Normally in Strange Aeons you have a starting group of Agents/Investigators, which will develop with every game played. This means that you need to make some games before the Lurkerplayer is able to use the big and nasty creatures (such as Shoggoth, werewolves and so on).

What I mentioned before would mean that you could ignore the "leveling" system in your games. Just agree on a maximal BP value the Thresholdplayer may use to build his force and play without leveling.
But, with this option many interessting and anjoyable aspects would be missing such as getting new skills, death of important agents...

Short version:
Strange Aeons isn't a Wargame like Warhammer 40K with fixed armys on both sides where death of an important character would be unimportant for the next game. Instead it's more like Mordheim because the Agents are able to gain experience, new skills and of course the death of the maincharacter would end the campaign.