Arbiters

Figure 1

Arbiters are an unusual class of units. Initially limited to Azur, since last year other Organization Parties have access to Arbiter benefits through Mijhail Mashen'ka.

Arbiters offer a small extra resource to their Parties. Each Turn they receive 3 Order Points, and each Arbiter has 3 or 4 Orders to choose from. Each Order uses between 1 and 3 Order Points, and each Arbiter has a different suite of orders they can use, although some Orders are common to two or more of them.

Orders may be a small extra 2 inch move (Motum), or a free hand to hand Attack (Opugnis; very useful for units with hard-hitting Basic Attacks). All Arbiters so far have one or both of these Orders available to them.

Figure 1: In a Party including Team Les Jaeger, The Colonel becomes an Arbiter. The Colonel uses Opugnis on Maximo Ligori who has already Activated earlier in this Turn; Maximo Ligori can now make a free Attack on Sho. 

Orders are used when the Arbiter Activates, so it is important think ahead to get the best out of them; in the example above it would be more helpful if The Colonel was better positioned to Attack or Charge Sho or Janus Faith; but then again, that kind of planning ahead is true of any good strategy game isn't it?

Initiative

Figure 1: The Colonel adds to the Party's Initiative roll

A simple ability, Initiative adds to the die roll for Deployment, and then in each Turn to the Initiative roll (goes without saying, but I said it anyway!).

Multiple instances of Initiative stack, so it is an ability which can weigh the odds of winning the Initiative roll in a player's favour. While I don't suggest picking a Party to win just one roll each Turn, when faced with some choices of unit, it may be a factor to weigh up.

Figure 1: For example, The Colonel has Initiative. If playing him, then the Tactical Advantage Plot Advantage Card is worth consideration as it also adds +1 to your Initiative roll. Doubling up the bonus means that the odds significantly shift in your favour (around 64% of winning/74% chance of not losing - assuming no extra dice etc. - if my maths serves me well), which can be useful tactically and psychologically (will your opponent burn a Gnosis point for the increased chance to win the roll?). Again, it is not the be all end all strategy, but something to think about.

Azur have the most easily-combined options for Initiative, followed by Church, Empire and Wissenschaft; In terms of synergies for Party-building, I would suggest that Azur have the better options, which helps compensate their relative fragility.

Stealth

Figure 1

Stealth is an Action common to many Prowlers in Anima Tactics, and allows them to become Hidden, therefore staying out of danger until they are hopefully ready to attack. Basically it is hard to attack Hidden units until they reveal themselves.

A lot of models with Stealth, particularly among Azur Prowlers, also have powerful Actions contingent on them being Hidden.

However, this is where things become tricky for the player managing units with Stealth. For a start, Stealth requires Upkeep, meaning that assuming a move plus Hidden-based Attack plus Upkeep, will mean that the Prowler probably has no AP left for Dodges etc. after they have Attacked. There are exceptions like Kagemaru whose AP limit is 5 and who can maintain Hidden if using basic Attack or Charge.

In addition, these units are usually quite fragile with low to middling Life Points and usually no Armor. Therefore, when they Attack from Hidden, they need to time it right  to minimize risk afterwards. This is compounded by the fact that when a model Attacks from Hidden, the Hidden status is usually lost; therefore resuming Hidden through Stealth means paying the full AP costs, and requires the unit to be outside enemy Control Zones.

Figure 1: If The Type-004: Hellhound wants to Seek (try and find Hidden models in its Control Zone), it would only be able to find Kyler since Juliette Kaim is out of LOS. The Hellhound is a better choice than Arkham to Seek as it gets a bonus for being a Prowler.

If both Kyler and Juliette Kaim wanted to use Stealth, only Juliette could so because she is out of LOS.

The game management around Stealth is one of the things that I like about Anima Tactics; each Organization favours certain troop types, which in turn creates certain play-styles. Azur certainly has a dominant Stealth-based play style among its earlier models, although as their line-up has been expanded that has changed.

Flight

Figure 1: Elhaym, Maiden of Light wishes to engage Damaris!

Flight is an Innate Ability that modifies how a unit may move.

Basically it allows a unit to ignore movement penalties for terrain and move through/over other models without impediment. It also means they cannot be Intercepted when Charging except by other Flying units!

Figure 1: Elhaym, Maiden of Light wants to Attack Damaris. She has 4 AP left, so she could Charge (ignoring the Hellhound as she moves over it) using her Flight, or could Move (1 AP; again ignoring the Hellhound) then use Wings of Withdrawal to Attack and hopefully move again. Ether way the Hellhound cannot Intercept, since it does not have Flight.

Guidance Points

All of these Undead are within Kingsley Warlock's Control Zone

Controllers in Black Sun Parties have Guidance Points which allow them to do a couple of things:

• Maintain or regain Control of Uncontrollable units within their Control Zone (see below) 
• Recover extra Action Points for Undead units, subject to those units' limits (Influence)

Undead units run the risk of going out of control (the Uncontrollable rule). For many Undead, the chance to become Uncontrollable is quite high. Uncontrollable units pose a risk to any non-Undead units nearby, friend or foe, activating similarly to Berserk models.

The key then is striking a  balance between the number of Controllers and Undead in your Party. So far the typical number of Guidance Points per Controller is 2, with a couple of exceptions (Promethea and Luther Delacroix both have higher than usual Guidance Points values).

So while Undead are relatively cheap units to fill out a Party, one vital element looks to me to be in making sure your Party has enough Guidance Points available, or off-setting Uncontrollable where possible (Styx can effectively avoid Uncontrollable for example; Type-005's and Type-020's have limited upgrades that allow a single choice of those units to ignore Uncontrollable). Of course, it also means clustering units to an extent to ensure coverage of Guidance Points since Control Zones are typically 8 inches from a model.

Figure 1: Kingsley Warlock has 2 Guidance Points; when choosing the Party, if one of the Type-005's is upgraded to a Type-006: Commander, then he could use those Guidance Points to ensure the Type-020: Verrier does not become Uncontrollable, leaving one Guidance Point to boost AP.

If, when choosing the Party, the Type-020: Verrier is upgraded to a Type-021: Queen, then the Type-005's would ignore Uncontrollable as would Styx, as they would be of lower Level. This would allow Kingsley Warlock to use 2 Guidance Points to boost the AP of Undead (basically an extra AP for 2 units).

Styx cannot benefit from extra AP from Kingsley Warlock as only Promethea may spend Guidance Points on Styx. With his Uncontrollable value of 1+, he should always pass the roll unless a modifier applies.

Intangible

Figure 1: Kira is going to need some help!

Intangible is a pretty nifty Innate Ability, and one that I had overlooked until I painted Ahriman, Lord of Darkness.

At first I focused on the fact that it allows the model to avoid the penalties of moving through Abrupt Terrain (Difficult Terrain in many other games). But there is something even cooler; basically it limits models Attacking an Intangible target to those with Magic or Ki Attacks or Special Effects, or of needing to be of higher Level. Basically this particularly hamstrings Prowlers, which means that Azur and Wissenschaft more than most Organizations have units that are adversely affected, since their Actions are often based on Subterfuge, and many Prowlers are not of especially high Level.

Figure 1: Kira is in trouble because her Actions are based on Subterfuge (not Ki or Magic), and her level is less than Ahriman, Lord of Darkness' Atman value of 60 (Atman is the Level equivalency that Summons use for Level vs Level comparisons).

Figure 2: Will Ahriman, Lord of Darkness Charge Juliette Kaim?

Intangible also adds to range of Charges where that range would be reduced by Abrupt Terrain, such as steep hills. Especially useful as the game does not strictly allow pre-measuring.

Figure 2: Ahriman, Lord of Darkness wants to Charge Juliette Kaim, even though she is on a steep hill (Abrupt Terrain), which may mean he could be out of Charge range if he did not have the Intangible Innate Ability. It does not prevent Maximo Ligori from trying to intercept the Charge of course.

Intangible can clearly be turned to a player's advantage of course, and one extra option is to use the Ceridwen Equipment Advantage Card, which allows the bearer to benefit from Intangible by using an Action. I really dismissed the card at first, but in hindsight against certain Party types it could be a very useful option.

Some Thoughts On The Impact Of The Anima Tactics Update 2013

Looking at the full list of the Update Level revisions (discussed briefly here), I noticed some Organizations see a big change in cost, as do many Wanderers and Summons. I thought I would look how it would affect the costs of eight Parties we have played with and that have been mentioned on the blog.

First Games (click for link)
100 Levels; won by Dark, suggesting they had an 'edge' maybe? The Light units together are now cheaper.
Dark: Azriel and Kingsley Warlock (now 95 Levels)
Light: Lorenzo Cortes and Drake (now 90 Levels)

200 Levels; Azriel was a star performer in consecutive games, so a good thing he has not been made cheaper perhaps?
Church: Azriel; Lostaroth Marchosias; Grey; and Drake (now 190 Levels)
Wissenschaft: Lorenzo Cortes; Hiro; Wissenschaft Agent (35 Levels); and Dereck Shezzard (now 190 Levels)

300 Levels; Wissenschaft had won, and had the least cost reduction, so does that bear out the relative costs of those units? Possibly, but more widely Wissenschaft have seen quite a few cost reductions (just not in many units I have painted, LOL!).
Church: Azriel; Lostaroth Marchosias (as Optional Leader); Grey; Sarah Reindhold; Elhaym, Maiden of Light (Level 50 Summon); and Dereck Shezzard (now 285 Levels)
Wissenschaft: Lorenzo Cortes; Hiro; Valis Ul Del Vilfain (as Optional Leader); Wrath of Nature; (Level 50 Summon); Wissenschaft Agent (35 Levels); and Drake (now 290 Levels)

Battle Report (click for link)
300 Levels; the Party with the higher cost under the revisions won, perhaps supporting the need from the game's creators to do so.
Wissenschaft: Valis Ul Del Vilfain (Optional Leader); Hiro; Lorenzo Cortes; Wissenschaft Agent; Drake; and Wrath of Nature (now 290 Levels)
Church: Lostaroth Marchosias; Grey; Luzbell; Sarah Rheindhold; Azriel; Bella; Aqua; and Hamadria (still 300 Levels)

So four games reviewed and in three of those four games the more expensive Party under the new costings won. Not very scientific, but it does lend a little support to the need to redress the costs!