A (Relic) Knight's Tale - Aaron's Tale (Part 1)

Esper

One of the many things that makes Relic knights stand out from other games it's it's main in-game resource; Esper.
For my first blog, I am (hopefully) going to explain a little bit about it and it's importance in the game.

Let's start by breaking down what Esper is.
"Esper is the primal energy that binds everything in the universe. It is everywhere and it infuses everything."
Esper is a type of energy which is required to provide power for actions and abilities models wish to use in the game.

Esper is made up of 6 types, and each is affiliated with a particular colour and faction in game. They are as follows;

• Law (Blue) - Shattered Sword
• Essence (Yellow) - Doctrine
• Creation (Green) - Cerci Speed Circuit
• Chaos (Orange) - Star Nebula Corsairs
• Corruption (Purple) - Black Diamond
• Entropy (Red) - Noh Empire

Each of these Esper Types also belongs to one of two groups:

• Creation, Essence and Law form the Radiant Group.
• Entropy, Chaos and Corruption form the Void Group.

These groups also represent factions which can be used in game, essentially mercenaries which may be played either independently, or hired by other factions which belong to their group.
Models from each faction will tend to use primarily (though certainly not exclusively) Esper of the type affiliated with it's faction, and also commonly of the other Esper types in that Esper Group.

The Esper Deck

Esper is represented in game by a deck, consisting of 42 cards.
They are broken down as follows:

• 36 Standard cards
• 3 Void cards 
• 3 Wild cards

Standard cards will have a large icon and a small icon printed on them.
Each icon will relate to an Esper type, the larger being that particular card's Primary Esper Type, the smaller being the Secondary Esper Type. A primary symbol is worth two points of that Esper type, whilst a secondary symbol is worth a single point of Esper.
There are six cards with a primary symbol for each Esper type, 3 of which will carry secondary Esper of the next colour clockwise in the colour wheel, and 3 of which will carry secondary Esper of the type denoted by the colour anti- clockwise on the colour wheel. For example;
Of the 6 cards with Creation (Green) as their primary Esper type, 3 will show Essence (Yellow) as the secondary type, and 3 will show Law (Blue) as their secondary type.
Void cards show no Esper type and have a black, solar eclipse type symbol on them. They have no Esper type and no value, they are basically useless in game.

Wild Cards show a ring of 6 icons, one for each Esper type. When played, the owner may choose which Esper type will be used, but a wild card only ever generates 1 point of Esper. As you may be able to guess, wild cards are useful, though not overpowering, being worth only as much as a secondary Esper.
Here ends my blog post for this month, hope for those of you who didn't know anything about the game this explanation has helped you to understand it a little better. Next month I will go into more detail about how Esper is actually used in the game. See you next time!

- Aaron (@forestreveries)

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)

A (Relic) Knight's Tale - An Introduction

Prologue 

A (Relic) Knight's Tale is the cheesy name of a recent idea of mine.

After waiting patiently Relic Knight's is out and not only am I glad it's here, I am also glad to tell you that the game itself is great and there are some fantastic miniatures for you to see and hopefully get yourself.

The simple idea is, combine:

• The old school stylings of "A Tale of X Gamers"
• Relic Knights
• A amalgamation of people's experiences getting into this brand new game.

For those unfamiliar, "A Tale of Gamers" has been a series that has been repeated in all different shapes and forms, the gist is that a group of gamers start a new force for a game, having a set budget each month and making sure to get these things painted by the end.

Usually this will include some gaming, records of the gamer's thoughts and ideas about what they're collected, why, what they need next and so on.

Previously I have done #ToMB (Tale of Malifaux Bloggers) so anyone who followed that should have a good idea.

The idea of the blog running alongside the collecting and painting is to show to others who haven't yet started themselves how easy it is, how cool the models are and how interesting the game is to learn.

Hopefully, expanding into some new players joining the Darkspace Calamity.

How's it going down?

Every month the team I have bought together will have the task of painting not to a money budget but a box set or sets.

As a "spoiler" the first month will have each player starting off with a Battle box.

These are the best start to collecting Relic Knights and as I may have covered in my introduction piece, if you and a friend grab one each, get them built and a table out, you're ready to go.

Not only do these have a nice selection of models and there's a set for each faction in the game, they all come with an Esper Deck, Dashboard, Tokens and even a rulebook.

With a Battlebox being the obvious start our group has had a little more time considering it's quite close to Christmas and this will be the biggest task in one go.

Following month's will see us add support in smaller boxes, uniques, squads and even the huge Relic Knights themselves.

Accompanying the photos of pretty models everyone will also have a post to make discussing whatever is on their mind, what they're finding interesting, what they are enjoying and much more.

A nice insight into Relic Knights from multiple different perspectives.

OK, so when is it going down?

It's Monday now and this will be the day for a blog each week.

Not just that, but there will also be another blog every Thursday also.

This means you (the readers) will hopefully get Eight interesting articles with pretty pictures from a whole bunch of different angles every month.

The length of the tale itself is yet to be decided, but at the least I can see us going three months and possibly four.

Tell me more!

Where as I am not going to reveal the full team of Knights contributing to the tale, I can tell you that other than including myself the first article with pretty painting (coming this Thursday) will be from Aaron Bailey.

Aaron has been working on Cerci Speed Circuit, the speed racing ladies of Relic Knights and his stuff looks fantastic.

For those that may be asking "what happens when the Tale ends?", do not worry, this is just the beginning as I intend to work on Relic Knights all through 2015 and beyond.

I hope that I can also run some other exciting things via the blog (a Relic Knights painting competition perhaps) and will probably have a lot of things I want to show the Internet and say.

Again, if you are completely confused at what Relic Knights even is check this link for my Introduction to Relic Knights

Finally, for usual readers of this blog, Relic Knights is not taking over and kicking Malifaux out.

These two fantastic skirmish games will be here hand in hand for the foreseeable future.

-Ben (@psientologist)