Vanguard: Ice & Iron Preview

After all the incredible Kings of War excitement last week,
it’s time to change gears for this week’s blogs and talk Vanguard! All this
summer we’ve got a big fantasy focus – whether it’s discussing all the upcoming
changes and improvements in Kings of War or taking a look at Vanguard. If
you’re a fan of fantasy, the next few months are going to be chock-a-block with
news.

In the world of Vanguard, there two big things to talk
about: Ice & Iron (the new supplement) and the release of the Undead
Warband – both of which are due for release this month. In today’s blog, we’re
going to be talking about Ice & Iron. However, before we start rattling on,
let’s hear from Matt Gilbert, the designer of Vanguard about everything inside
the new supplement.

Erm… so that’s spoilt a lot of what we were going to say in
the blog, but never mind. We’ll go into a little more detail about some of the
elements mentioned in the video. First of all, let’s look at the campaign
setting. As Matt mentioned, Ice & Iron is set in the frozen wastes of the
Winterlands, as the Abyssal Dwarfs strike on the Northern Alliance capital of
Chill.

WEATHER IT OUT

The new themed setting brings with it a lot of extra content for your games of Ice & Iron. First up, you’ve got the weather table. Before each game you roll a D8 to see if the weather is changeable – on a roll of 1-4, you can keep your shorts on and get the suncream out. On a 5-8, you then need to roll on the weather table.

There are eight different weather effects, ranging from Freezing Fog to a mighty Snow Storm. All of these will impact your games in new and exciting ways. Of course, you don’t have to only use the weather table in Ice & Iron-themed games, you can use it to add some more spice to any game of Vanguard.

ADORE TO EXPLORE

Alongside the weather table, the campaign setting also
brings with it a brand-new exploration table. As you might expect, there aren’t
many dragons in the Winterlands, so you’ll be exploring the caves of Cavern
Dwellers for treasure. Conversely, the changeable weather might mean your party
gets completely lost and might not be available for the next game. There are 12
new exploration results included in the supplement.

Onto the campaign scenarios then, and you’ll find seven new
scenarios in Ice & Iron:

• Breakthrough – designed for 150pt skirmishes, each player must try and escape from the opposite side of the board
• Snowblind – visibility is reduced as the warbands hunt for a magical artefact
• Canyon Patrol – a vicious battle in a frozen valley
• Black Ice – a desperate struggle up a slippery mountain
• Meteorite Storm – larger battles with warbands hunting for meteorite fragments
• Tunnel Fight – fighting in enclosed environments
• King of the Hill – multiplayer scenario for up to four players

Again, you don’t have to play these new scenarios as part of
the Ice & Iron campaign, and you could use any as a standalone game of
Vanguard. In fact, we’re considering using the fantastic Meteorite Storm in the
upcoming Spearhead II tournament.

UPDATED WARBANDS

We’ll be detailing the updated warbands a little more in a
future blog, however in the video Matt mentioned updated warband cards. With
Vanguard, when we have a full faction release, we also release warband cards
for that particular faction. So far, we’ve released the following:

• Northern Alliance
• Nightstalkers
• Forces of the Abyss
• Basileans
• Dwarfs
• Forces of Nature
• Trident Realm
• Goblins

As part of the Ice & Iron release, we’ve reviewed some
of the existing units and some of the stats have been changed appropriately. As
well as including the updated stats in Ice & Iron (which will also be
updated on EasyArmy too), we’re also printing a set of updated cards – for
those players that like to use the warband cards as a reference.

This set of 30 updated cards will be available to purchase
from the Mantic website, but we’re also pleased to announce that all orders of
Ice & Iron direct from Mantic will come with a FREE set of the updated
warband cards.

The cards included in this updated warband card pack are:

• 2 x Abyssal Hellhound cards
• Abyssal Warlock
• Basilean Warband ability card
• 2 x Basilean Sergeant
• 2 x Basilean Gur Panther
• Dwarf Warband ability card
• 2 x Dwarf Ironguard
• Dwarf Mastiff Packmaster
• Dwarf Flamepriest
• Dwarf Steel Juggernaut
• Dwarf Berserker Lord
• Forces of Nature Salamander Veteran
• 3 x Nightstalker Phantom
• 3 x Nightstalker Shadowhound
• Nightstalker Shade
• Nightstalker Reaper Souldrinker
• Northern Alliance Warband ability card
• Northern Alliance Ice-Queen
• Northern Alliance Thegn
• 2 x Northern Alliance Ice Kin Hunter
• Northern Alliance Snow Troll Prime

Ice & Iron, plus the Undead warband, will be available to order later this week. Come back tomorrow, when we take a closer look at some of the warband updates.