Milites Christi Tactica v2

Having played a couple of games with the new v2 Milites Christi I thought it would be worth putting down some thoughts on the new board. Both games I have played with them have been against the Saracens who seem to have a nicely balanced board that rewards a mixture of shooting and melee units. The v1 MC board was built around small units of knights being able to make long range charges via multiple activations without the enemy being able to spend fatigue to stop it, this has changed in v2.

The new board, support the game and buy the book !

Whist the v1 board used a Piety system to power up abilities the v2 board has the Orison ability which allows you to spend SAGA dice to cancel hits. The dice need to spent during the abilities phase of the shooting or melee so you need to guess how many hits the enemy are likely to make. The predicting part of the ability means that if your opponents dice run hot or cold you can end up either not reacting strongly enough or wasting dice that could have been used in another fight/shooting. At present I don't think I've got the decision on how many dice to spend properly worked out, pr maybe I'm just not a great guesser.

Saracens v MC in Holy Ground

With no shooting abilities the MC rely on melee to most of the damage and along with Orison they have another combo to reduce melee casualties. Playing Spilt Blood and then Lambs of Peace allows you to increase your armour whilst stopping the enemy doing the same ( the cannot part for the enemy cancels out the must part for them ). These three abilities together give the MC a more solid feel than the previous version.

Saracens seize the early advantage

The most common ability you will be using with the defence ones is Beuceant which will be the most common source of bonus attack dice. The Lord's Harvest seems to be overpriced at two uncommon to be used very often though as it is the only other ability to grant attack dice ( apart from the Combat Bonus ) it may be used if you have a make or break charge and lots of dice to spare.

A bloody tussle occurs

The board also has a few abilities to help generate dice onto Orison with On Bended Knee looking like a good first turn ability as long as you aren't planning to charge straight away. Resolve is a useful ability and you can generate the Orison dice during the melee so it would be a good one to leave on during your opponent's turn and ideally Martyrs would be used during the last combat of your turn to leave dice on Orison for your opponent's turn.

The Saracens kill many MC

Several of the abilities ask you to look at the number of units you have or the number of figures compared to the enemy in melee. Resolve can only be used whilst you have less units than the enemy and Beuceant & Lamb's of Peace give a bigger return if you have less models than the opponent. Resolve and The Lord's Harvest would seem to encourage not wiping out entire enemy units so some thought must be given to if you are going for the extra slaughter points for destroying an entire unit or not.

The MC strike back

My force composition so far has been :

1 * Warlord
2 * 8 Brothers (Hearthguard)
1 * 8 Serjeants (Warrior)
1 * 8 Serjeants with Crossbow (Warrior)

This means I only generate five SAGA dice each turn but it does almost guarantee having less units for the first few turns. The larger units of Brothers does mean that you don't initially get the full benfit from Beuceant & Lamb's of Peace but as the battle goes on the units naturally get smaller so you gain later in the game. The crossbow unit is a good counter to mounted shooting Warriors as they hit on 2's against them and can out range the opposition as well.

The Saracens hang onto the hill

The battle board is rounded out by a couple of abilities that generate auto-hits with Deus Vult! being good for riding down pesky peasants. I can't see Divine Aid getting played very often but if you want to get some bonus hits against a hard target like a Warlord then it could be useful. The last ability on the board is Lions at War which is a good deterrent to make the enemy think about when charging you but I think I would have preferred a way to generate extra defence dice instead.

Victory goes to the Saracens despite them almost being wiped out

Overall I'm not sure if I am yet a fan of the new MC board, the fast striking hammers of god have been replaced by a more durable but less offensively powerful board. You won't be generating large amounts of attack dice and with no way to generate defence dice (Combat Bonus apart) then you have to rely on Orison and predicting the number of hits you need to cancel. I'll be looking for several more games with the MC before I start to tinker with them as I feel the basic composition is correct it is just the learning of the abilities that needs more work.