Carnevale: The Game & Rashaar

 Venice, 1795

A great catastrophe has engulfed the world. While civilisations fall and empires collapse, a single mote of brightness shines from the darkness.
Serenissima, the Floating City, Queen of the Adriatic. In these benighted times the once powerful state of Venice returns to its pomp and glory. From across the globe traders, politicians and peasants alike are drawn to the City of Canals to make a fortune, or seek it. Rising from the waves that sunk most of Europe, the Venetians are poised once again to command the destiny of distant nations.
Merchants work their deals by day while riotous masquerades resound from the palaces of the nobility. Visitors astound at the marvels of artisans that ply their wares from the canal sides and piazzas. Fishermen haul in their boats and the citizens go about their business with forced laughs and strained smiles.
For Venice is not as shining a jewel as it may first seem. Not unearned is its other title - the City of Masks.
At night the baleful gleam of the Rent in the Sky defies any sleep. The music of the masqueratas grows loud and close as the celebrations take a sinister and bloody turn. Fleeing this depravity one might seek sanctuary in the quieter quarters. In darkened alleys the pad of a foot and scrape of metal on leather can signal quick demise. A tittering laugh or a fleeting shadow stalks the unwary, and here even the lap of the unquiet canal waters betrays an even deadlier threat.
The canals run red.
This is Carnevale.

Having played and enjoyed Deadzone so much I've been on the look-out for a fantasy game which embodies the cinematic feel of the game and includes terrain as a 'third' player. Just before Christmas I spotted Carnevale and having read up about it and listened to the Monsters Behinds the Masks podcast it sounded list a game that could fit the bill. The game is made by TT Combat who are a UK company and they look to be supporting it really well going forwards with a new expansion about to be released soon. Gameplay wise the start set promises: 
An emphasis on running, jumping, scaling walls, leaping across rooftops and then jumping onto your opponents from above, the game offers a unique setting with rules designed from the water up to complement the city of Venice. Throwing enemies off buildings and drowning them in the canals is only the start; with dozens of scenarios to play, this narrative skirmish game will keep you slipping your mask on night after night to take control of Venice and uncover the secrets of the Rent in the Sky. 

This sounded just what I was after and so I purchased the larger of the two starter sets and a few extra bits to start off with. The starter box is jam packed full of goodies and well worth it's price with the rule book alone being 240 pages of high quality goodness full to the brim with lore and scenarios. The rules themselves seem pretty streamline with as promised mechanics for jumping between buildings and water based combat. You also get two starter gangs and thick cardboard playing tiles and buildings, more than enough to get straight into a game. TT Combat have a large MDF department as well as a resin team so they produce terrain for the game if/when you want to upgrade and some people have built some amazing looking tables to play on and plenty of examples can be found on the Facebook group. 

Something to Aspire To

TT Combat also supply the rules for free and have an on-line gang builder so you can plan out your team and print off the cards. So lots of stuff to read and use and a good variety of factions to get into. The starter box comes with two factions the first of which is the Rashaar, these are described as:

The Rashaar are a race of creatures from beyond the pale. They are an ancient race, older than the realms of mankind by millennia. The creatures are undoubtedly linked to the emergence of the Rent in the Sky and their occupation of Venice is no mere coincidence. However their emergence pre-dates the great catastrophe, the City of Canals by dozens of years and on the Earth by many thousands.

For generations there have been tales of monsters in the sea. Giant sea creatures living beneath the waves that could eat ships and their crews whole. Even older still are the stories of cities beneath the waves, drowned by catastrophes in the past. Cities such as Atlantis with streets paved of gold, buildings of smooth marble and statues of strange aquatic creatures. Cities destroyed or sunk by God himself as punishment for the decadent splendour.

What this gives you is a mixture of monsters, fish-men, slaves and adherents of the Church of Dagon. The Church acts as a front for the Rashaar and lures in slaves and fanatics to do the bidding of the leaders of the faction.

Magi-Rashaar

Each gang needs to have one leader and then can recruit from Heroes & Henchmen, you cannot include more Heroes than you have Henchmen. The Heroes tend to be more powerful than Henchmen so this helps with keeping the forces somewhat balanced. The Rashaar like to mix magic in with the monsters so their leader is the Magi-Rashaar who can wield magic to bolster allies or strike down foes. Having not played yet I can't comment on the stats on the cards but bigger must mean better!

Along with some magic comes the monsters and the Hero monster is the Raadru, who's a big ole walking fish. The base size is important as you get a bonus for being on a bigger base than your opponent for throwing / drowning them. The Rashaar generally like to be in the water and aren't keen on climbing up buildings so they probably don't stray far from the canals. One thing I have spotted in the rules is an ability which lets swimmers dive so they can move 8" on their next turn, pretty good considering the Raadru moves on 3" on land.

Raadru

You also get two Hench-monsters in the shape of Lesser Ugdru, they haven't released the normal or greater version yet. Again these look to be happier splashing around in the canals and getting up close to the enemy. Apart from the Magi the starter doesn't include any other shooting for the Rashaar and as far as I can see all their ranged attacks are magic based.

Lesser Ugdru

Lastly we have the slaves who probably aren't much use as fighters but one look at their special rules tells you why they have been brought along. It's probably best not to tell them they are lunch, but they may already know that.

Slaves

That's all the Rashaar in the starter set and the other faction is The Guild, these are the traders and thieves of Venice who have banded together to face down the various foes now in the city.