Had my first game against Silveri's Doctors on his incredible Venice table yesterday. I ended up winning killing all opposition without losing a model but strangely enough I was absolutely certain of defeat for a while during the game. He took a few pics, so hopefully will upload some shots. My force wasn't painted but the table looks so brilliant that it was a very evocative battle even with my white phantom Patricians.
Since the game was basically just testing out the rules, we didn't have a proper scenario and ended up having a big scrum in one corner of the battlefield. Interestingly enough, I've found that's how the first game of any skirmish game always goes :)
The maneuverability of the models is certainly interesting. Barnabotis are very fast being able to travel something like 21 inches in a turn pretty easily and even more if one uses command. It'll be interesting to see how the game works with proper scenarios with such fast movement. Of course jumping over canals and running up walls slows you down somewhat.
Another interesting aspect is the command and karma system which allows for very high "narrative control" over the events in that you can make a model go all superman all of a sudden which is very cinematic and one of the definite highlights of the system.
The game was very much a learning experience, so the end result should not be taken as an indication of anything, but magic seemed extremely powerful. The Plaguedoctor had Claws of Mother Hydra spell and caused three and four points of damage on two castings crippling both my Barnabotis. Getting through protection is extremely powerful and the spell's ability to hit into close combat and the exponential power the more aces you get (since you can pick more targets and each target gets more damage) not to mention the long range and huge area (jumping to models within 6" of a target)... I dunno, it was way, way more powerful than anything else in the game and with the crazy amounts of Karma available to the doctors, he can spam the spell reliably a lot.
Another horrid thing was Arsenale Doctors pushing away Venice City Guards (Engage doesn't work and their low Dexterity due to Heavy Armor makes it very easy to push) and then frying them with the blast weapon that ignores protection. A question - can the blast be used to pick out enemies who are engaged in close combat? This made the flamethrower extremely accurate and powerful.
One peculiarity of the rules is point blank shots. If I understood the rule correctly, shooting weapons are hideously powerful in close combat. You take a penalty of one die to the pool but gain Penetration(3) which against a usual human being results in two more damage if you manage to hit your target. And since hitting is pretty simple even with a relatively low pool (two dice against Dexterity 5 have more than 75% chance of hitting) that damage boost is tremendous.
Another strangeness was that when the dudes get injured, doing damage becomes very difficult. My Barnabotis got into -2 territory and since their Combat is three, this leaves only the destiny die. With a sword, they can't do any damage to a normal dude unless they expend Karma. The image in my mind resembles this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snzv4wDAWkk
But yeah, those grievances aside, I'm looking forward to the next game. Hopefully with a bit more paint on the models as well.
