Olympus has Fallen

This week has been a busy one for painting and playing so as well as completing a couple more units for Mythic Battles I have also played three games.
The first completed model is the Nemean Lion and I  borrowed an idea from a picture I spotted on Facebook to give him a Rasta feel.

The Lion itself is fast moving with a speed of 2 and rather tanky as he ignores the first wound from any attack. He should be leading the way on most battlefields.

The Infernal Hounds are also quick but having a low defence are likely to die quickly. Being Troops they can be recalled during the game so they will probably forge ahead to try and tie down the enemy.

The unit is six models strong but as part of the Kickstarter they supplied three alternate models as well to add some variety to the unit.

Friday night saw Mick & I play through the starter battle which comes in the getting started book. This pits Zeus, Hydra and the Spartans against Ares, Achilles and the Hoplites. We took turns to play each god and both battles ended with Zeus laying dead on the field and Ares running away with the victory.

Picture not great I'm afraid

The skirmish games of Mythic Battles start with a draft where the players take it in turns to pick a god then alternate through the rest of the units until they have a 18 point roster. On Saturday Stuart came over and we went through the process. Having not done this before and not been expert on the synergies between units it was somewhat a stab in the dark to build a decent force.

I ended up with Hades who is a tanky God and then some shooting and melee units so what looked to be a balanced force.

Stuart went with Athene who is a more cunning God with a decent ranged attack and backed her up with the shooting of Medusa and the tough Campe and Leonidas.

The skirmish games start with all the units off the table so the game was much more of a slow build-up than the starter game.

The early moves saw a clash in the middle of the field and the Nemean Lion race across the board to engage Medusa. In order to activate a unit you need to have it's card in your hand and as the number of cards is limited each turn you can easily find yourself not being able to activate the unit you want for several turns in a row.

Hades and Athena avoided direct combat and instead Hades managed to claim a couple of omphalos (the red gems) before Athena could pick them up. A skirmish is won either by claiming four omphalos or the opposing God dieing.

The clash in the centre started to swing the way of team Hades with the ranged units whittling away Athena's heros and Hades claiming another omphalos.

The game drew to a close when Hades claimed his fourth omphalos with Medusa in place to cast a powerful Petrify ability but not having the cards to do so.

It was an interesting first battle and it favoured team Hades who I think had a better balance with abilities that required less cards to activate. I have drawn up a spreadsheet which can be used to play out the drafting stage ahead of the games so rather than rush that stage it can be thought out more.