A (Relic) Knight's Tale - Ben's Tale (part 1)

Battle Box Battles

Apologies if you were expecting to read and see Aaron's beautiful Cerci Thursday, but due to unforeseen circumstances that has been pushed back.

Instead, please enjoy the first part of my (Ben's) tale which has been bought forwards.

Thank you.

Perfect Start

As discussed in the introduction article I described how the Battle boxes for Relic Knights are a perfect way of starting the game.

Not only do they give you everything you need to get gaming but they are all fairly close in total points cost which makes for a nice way to start learning.

To give an example the three factions that myself and my two most local Relic Knights playing friends are have;

Myself with Noh Empire consisting of:

• High Priestess Zineda (a Questing Knight)

• Spite (Zineda's Cypher)

• 1 Render (a minion)

• 2 Berzerkers (a minion squad)

Jan with Black Diamond:

• Leopold Magnus (a Questing Knight)

• Static (Leopold's Cypher)

• M8-Blitz Auto-Tank (a minion)

• 5 Diamond Corps (a minion squad)

and Aaron:

• Marie Claude (a Questing Knight)

• Esmee (Marie's Cypher)

• 1 Royal Wrecker (a minion)

• 2 Pit Crew (a minion squad)

Now where as these aren't all even points cost wise you can see that each box contains the same lay out of things to try.

Questing Knight

Questing Knight's may not be as flashy as their bigger brothers (and sisters) the Relic Knight's but they are still very powerful, your most complex model but also aren't too intimidating being typically 30mm or 40mm models.

Each of them still get you to see the concept of Initiates and Masters of the elements of the Esper wheel.

These abilities being shared among models means you and your opponent may not be in the same faction but either share powers or at least have things that are so similar that it cuts down the time of having to figure what they do by at least half.

The Cadre abilities each have are also powerful and as a side note the Battle Boxes themselves seem to contain Cadre's that bear them in mind and work fairly well to take some advantage of them.

However not only are they cool but they are a huge incentive to have a dig through the beautiful large rulebook and see how your cadre you already own can act differently just with a change of leader.

Last but not least, the models themselves are great.

Zineda for myself is a beautiful sculpt and although ironically the smallest model (bar her Cypher) in the set she has the most presence on the board.

That's before you start tearing people apart with her.

Cypher

As you still get a Questing Knight, you get a Cypher a very interesting piece in each cadre that at first look might seem kind of irrelevant.

It's a very different concept for a model that I haven't see much like it in other games.

Cyphers at first to me were going to be the equivalent to Totem's in Malifaux.

Now where there are similarities in the background side of things and the typical scale of the model in game they are fairly different.

Yes, like a Totem will typically do a Cypher aids your force and your leader but a Cypher does a few other things and it's bond to the Knight is far more clear.

The simple ability of handing over the held Esper to your Knight is not one to forget, your Knight and Cypher constantly wanting to keep an eye on each other to become very powerful.

At first my group and I didn't really take the time putting them in the ready queue though.

They don't hit things directly and they cannot be hit.

However this is usually more good than bad. Many have very powerful AOE effects which help your Cadre do what it's aiming to do and take it to the next level.

Also the Esper actions they have are incredibly powerful. Thief is always annoying for your opponent and being able to also hand out even more is not something to sniff at.

After a few game what I also started to respect about Cyphers was that Esper actions were not using cards, this meant I could craft a better hand for who was next in the Ready queue.

That however will deserve a blog of it's own.

Minion and Minion Squad

Minions are going to make up the majority of most typical cadres, each battle box, however does contain a single minion and squad which is a great way to see how the units work, including simple things such as coherency or how they take damage using only a single stat card.

The battle box minions also show really what the small cadre in a box is about.

Circe has two ladies who fix things and a huge Exo-suit that fixes things but can also smash face.

Black Diamond has a squad of soldiers with guns or a single tank.

My Noh, they actually show a couple of angles, a tag team of crazy warriors or a tough ranged expert.

Overall the battle boxes contain a nice mixture of units to get started.

Using Battle Boxes against each other

Now as a tool for learning these boxes do contain a fantastic array of things to try and get to grips with the game, but are they balanced to fight each other, are they really enough?

If I had to answer yes or no the answer would be. "No."

Now that might seem negative, but I don't have to answer with a single word and I am glad because really, it's more of a "Yes with a few caveats.

First of all, I have already said, but the boxes themselves don't contain the exact same amount of points.

Really though from my experiences with many other games two-player starter sets where the company has actually picked who fight who aren't really that even, so it isn't a surprise that two random picks of six would be either.

There are two ways to save this. One is to try out Boost Tokens early and allow the player with less to take some or both players can round their lists up, more on that in a bit.

The other way is, just don't bother. If you are only just getting your Relic Knights miniatures out on the table for the first time it really is  not an issue that one of you has a single point more than the other. That isn't going to be the difference between a win or a loss when you might just pick up the rules slower than the opposition and in fact, if it is your first game surely learning is what matters, not winning.

Bar people who are completely new to Wargaming, getting a win in their first game isn't or at least shouldn't be the exciting part. I myself would possibly be more turned off if I found that I easily crushed my teacher at a game I had never touched, where is the challenge?

The other part of the "No" comes with the balance.

Not to say that at such a small game Relic Knights is broken, but you can feel the difference once you start playing at 50 points, even a rounded 35 over 28 or such.

There are a couple of reasons here.

The major one is the missions, some of these at a super low point game become either pointless or irrelevant.

"Destroy three enemy units" for example, may as well read "just attempt to table your opponent" as in a battle box that is all they have.

Again two fixes of similar style for this, first is, just reflip or disallow some missions, the other again is just don't care as you are probably playing games at this size more of a learning tool about the mechanics of the game rather than a strategical affair about domination.

The other issue of balance is the Questing Knights themselves.

In 35 or less points having only ready queue slots means that sometimes it is worth just letting them go every other turn and some can be very dominant when they have little to fight.

With more access to units it is easier to overcome this, at higher point when the queue has more slots this becomes less of an issue.

Again, it is not impossible to beat a player who has their Knight go every other activation but it will dominate the game.

This however actually might be exciting and does do a good job of showing what a lot of the Knights are about.

Conclusion

In the end Battle boxes are the way to go and if you, like me are only really just starting to get into the game or are considering it, they are perfectly fine to use against each other but like every single other miniatures game, don't hang your entire judgement of the game on the one small experience and prepared to be sucked in and want much more.

Hope you enjoyed this, my start into painting the Noh Empire and the next few Tales that are on their way.

Cheers.

-Ben (@psientologist)