Cipher Studios proudly presents: an Anima Tactics battle report! My name is David Freeman, and I’ll be your narrator today. Recently I decided we should get a good ol fashioned battle report out there so that people can get a better look at the game if they have never seen it before, or to mock Joel’s and my generalship if they are already hardened veterans.

Joel’s pre-game commentary (ill conceived trash talk): Dave and I have been playing miniatures games together for years, but the Gods of the Dice have more often than not looked unfavorably upon mine.  Knowing this, Dave showed some geat sportsmanship by agreeing to let me play the Church, and thus play a more unfamiliar Party. He had for some time been planning on crushing someone with his own Church force. Little did Dave know that in casting thousands upon thousands of metal warriors below his work station, I have actually been making sacrifices to the Dice Gods. HA!!

I first chose Romeo as the Leader and core of my Party. He is a power house with a lot of options. I like options. With Romeo, I put Alius and Elhaym on standby. These three were at the center of my plan. Get as close to the heart of Dave’s force as I could and bring the winged light to bear on his darkened soul at just the right time… whenever that would be. Evangeline was taken for her healing and buffing abilities. Nero got in for muscle against the Dark. Damien and Alis’ have impressive maneuverability while still being tough warriors earned them places in the ranks. But I’m sorry to say Jaing Pao, you were just fast filler.

Dave’s pre-game commentary (infallible plan): Joel is one of my longest running adversaries game wise. We have met many, many times across the field of miniature battle over the years. I’d like to say that my win percentage over that time against him has been due to my cunning and intelligence, but I must admit that Joel’s luck has seemed to be appallingly bad right when he needs it the most.

I am not really overly familiar with Samael, I like their models quite a bit, but I haven’t gotten in many games commanding the coalition of supernatural creatures (predators). My party consists of a group of combat characters, namely Dark Chesire, Kairos, and Konosuke, backed up by Bael casting debuffs. As the haughty and arrogant leader he is, Ophiel is supposed to play a clean-up role by coming in the second wave with Bael, guarding her and looking to move up and support the frontline fighters where necessary either by summoning Ahriman and casting Dark Beams or Devouring Darkness for some disruption, or charging in to finish off any stubborn resistance himself. I chose the Innate Mystics organization advantage as this allowed me to actually take all of these characters within the level limit. I was worried about Joel taking the Exterminators Church advantage, as I couldn’t really figure out a good way to avoid it having a big impact on Samael with the range of figures that I was looking at playing. I decided I was going to play the figures I thought where good and if Exterminators advantage ended up destroying me then it would be a learning experience.

Read More »

Cipher Studios is happy to announce that we will be partnering with Darkson Designs to add their AE-WWII miniatures line to the Cipher Studios web store. We look forward to working with Darkson Designs in the future as they continue to bring great games to market. If you have any questions please feel free to contact Darkson Designs by mailing info@darksondesigns.com or Cipher Studios at Webmaster@cipher-studios.com. We are also working on getting up the AE-Bounty figures as soon as possible.

We are now taking pre-orders for the …

Read More »