Vanguard preview! Ogres and Ratkin!
2nd Apr 2020
Rob Burman
Hi everyone,
If you’ve been following the blog this week, you’ll know that we’ve been recapping some of our Virtual Adepticon announcements… and revealing a few extra things too. We’ve already covered Deadzone (and the awesome Spectra), plus Kings of War (and the wonderful goblins).
In today’s blog we’ll be covering Vanguard – our hugely
popular fantasy skirmish game.
ACCESS ALL AREAS
Since launch, we’ve aimed to improve the accessibility of Vanguard. Whether that’s making all the warband stats free to download or ensuring the core rules are free, we want to make sure we’re knocking down the potential barriers to entry.
One thing we keep hearing from the community and our retail partners, is that they’d love a two-player starter set. After all, it’s much easier to get new players into the game if you can pop into a store and pick up a couple of warbands and all the tokens, dice and other stuff you need to play. As a result, we’ll be making a two-player starter set for Vanguard. The set will feature the hideous Nightstalkers going up against the courageous Basileans. A little like this artwork...
OGRES
Did you know we’ve now released 10 full warbands for
Vanguard? They include:
- Abyssal Dwarfs
- Basileans
- Dwarfs
- Forces of the Abyss
- Forces of Nature
- Goblins
- Nightstalkers
- Northern Alliance
- Trident Realm
- Undead
A full warband release means we go back to the starter
warband list in the rulebook and review it. We also look at results from
tournaments to see which warbands might need a little boost. When reviewing a
warband, we look at what else they might need to make them effective or if any
units need tweaking to make them more useful.
The next warband to get the full warband treatment are the ogres. These mercenaries for hire are pretty loose with their morals, as long as they’re getting paid. This means they make the perfect Vanguard warband because it’s likely small groups of ogres would be roaming Pannithor looking for work.
MATRIARCH
When it comes to the ogres, you’ve got a few options when it
comes to your commander. One of those options is the Matriarch. She’s very good
at outsmarting the enemy, so has special moves that allow you to redeploy models
and even snatch the first turn away from your opponent.
BERSERKER BULLY
Another option is the Berserker Bully. This is actually a
unit option in Kings of War, but we’ll be launching the miniature as part of
the Vanguard range. That’s something we’ll continue to do in Vanguard, as it’s
a great way to release hero miniatures for its bigger brother.
PAYMASTER
We mentioned this unit on the initial video but didn’t actually show it. Well, let’s make up for that! The Paymaster is a support option for the ogres. He can put a bounty on enemies, which gives your warband +1 dice in melee when attacking that enemy. Get a couple of Paymasters in your warband and you can dish out multiple bounties.
SIEGEBREAKERS
Talking of ogres, alongside the Vanguard release, we’ll also
(finally) be launching Siegebreakers! Although primarily a Kings of War release,
there’s also a unit entry for these in Vanguard too.
RATKIN!
Ok, this is a biiiiig one! Well, actually they’re not that big but they are very sneaky. Although you’ve seen the Ratkin as part of the Abyssal Dwarf list, we’re now planning to give them their own warband.
We’ll keep the details slim, but we will unveil one of the
models currently being worked on: a Ratkin warlock…
