Takanosuke

Info from Hawaiigamers:

Takanosuke - Prowler/Wanderer - level 45
Attack: 5
Damage: 3
Defense: 9
Armor: 0
Life Points: 12
Resistance: 10
Movement: 12/16
Action Recovery/Max: 3/4

2 - Stealth (Subterfuge, Effect) Takanosuke becomes hidden. Upkeep: 1
2 - Kage (Subterfuge, Dodge, Escape) +1 Defense. If Takanosuke successfully defends the attack, he may automatically escape combat and use action points to move as a Reactive Action.
2 - Kage Shuriken (Subterfuge, Ranged Attack) Distance (12 inches). +2 Attack. If Kage Shuriken causes damage, target unit suffers level 1 Paralyze. Effect 15. This skill can be used only if Takanosuke is hidden.
2 - Tenchu (Subterfuge, Attack) +3 Attack / +3 Damage. This skill can only be used only if Takanosuke is Hidden.
3 - Void Eye (Ki, Effect) Takanosuke targets an enemy unit within 12 inches. Target unit and all friendly or enemy units within 3 inches from target suffer level 1 Slow. Effect 14. Takanosuke may not use Void Eye while engaged in Hand-to-Hand combat.

And just because it's so relevant, the accompanying card:

8 Orochi Seal; Awakened State
Type: Power
Category: Unique Character

This card my only be used on Takanosuke. Reveal this card at the beginning of the first turn. It remains in play for the rest of the game. Awakened State may not used if your group includes Kojaku Hime. While in play, Takanosuke gains the following special rules:

* Takanosuke is considered a Dark Unit.
* Takanosuke gains +1 to his Attack Attribute.
* Void Eye causes Level 1 Doom instead of Level 1 Slow.
* At the end of the maintenance phase, throw a die; with a result of 8+ put a Berserker counter on Takanosuke.

Janiel

Info from Hawaiigamers:

Janiel - Warrior/Mystic - Samael - level 40
Attack: 5
Damage: 2
Defense: 9
Armor: 0
Life Points: 12
Resistance: 11
Movement: 8/12
Action Recovery/Max: 3/4

1 - Einjeil Eyes (Magic, Seek) This ability gives +8 to Janiel's control zone and +1 to the success roll of the Seek Control.
1 - The Mark of Einjeil (Magic, Effect) Choose an enemy unit within 20 inches. Until the end of the turn, all Ranged Attacks of any friendly unit against that enemy gain +2 Attack. Effect 16. Limit: 1 per turn.
3 - Feathers Storm (Magic, Ranged Attack) Distance (20 inches). +2 Damage.
3 - Healing Breath (Magic, Effect) A friendly unit inside Janiel's control zone gains level 2 Healing.

Kairos

Info from Hawaiigamers:

Kairos - Warrior/Samael Level 45

Attack: 5
Damage: 4
Defense: 9
Armor: 1
HP: 15
Resistance: 11
Movement: 8/12
Action Recovery/Max: 3/4

3 - Dark Valestis (Ki, Charge) +4 Damage. Kairos may charge up to 16 inches.
3 - Soul Spiral (Ki, Ranged Attack) Distance Attack (16 inch), +2 Damage.
3+ Final Burst (Ki, Attack) Final Burst affects all enemy units within 3 inches from Kairos. Kairos may spend an additional action point to gain +2 Attack.

Alis Testarossa

Info from Hawaiigamers:

Alis Testarossa - Warrior /Church Level 40
Attack: 4
Damage: 4
Defense: 9
Armor: 0
HP: 14
Resistance: 11
Movement: 8/12
Action Recovery/Max: 3/5

Wings of Light: If Alis sacrifices 3 LP during the Maintenance Phase, she obtains the Flying skill during the rest of the turn.

3 - Valkyrie (Ki, Charge) +2 Attack / +2 Damage, Alis must be Flying.
1 - Aegis' Wind (Ki, Movement, Escape) Alis automatically escapes Hand-to-Hand combat and may move up to 12 inches. This does not count as movement for the current turn. She may not engage in Hand-to-Hand combat using this movement action. Alis must be Flying.
3 - Aegis (Ki, Attack) +2 Attack / +2 Damage. If the attack causes damage, retire all Positive States from the enemy unit.
5 - Beyond the Winds (Ki, Charge) Retire Alis from the board. During her activation, in the following turn, place her in contact with any enemy unit in game and complete the Charge. Alis returns to the board with 0 action points. Alis must be Flying in the moment she uses this skill.

Slowly Building The Momentum

I got a good friend, Les (Lesther Calina), to start ANIMA Tactics with me. He will be playing a pure Light warband, while I veered off the hoarding mix and decided to stick with Dark and some Neutrals. I'll be ordering some and painting them up so that I can demo it properly later on.

Larkin Vain has also been discussing a lot about the ANIMA card game. He says it's very, very good. Looks like I'll be investing on it, too. Here's his review of ANIMA Shadow of Omega.



I've decided on getting the following for the meantime: the Dark Starter set, Bael, Alessa Raincross, Dereck Shezard, Sophia Ilmora, Celia, Tsubasa Kurokami, Faust Orbatos, Jiang Pao, Takanosuke

Playtest Results

I playtested a 300-point game last night at home using several proxy miniatures.

Setup

The Light was represented by Evangeline, Kronen, Tsubasa Kurokami, Janus Faith, Khaine D'Lacreu and Faust Orbatos. The Dark was represented by Dark Cheshire, Shinigami Ayl, Alessa Raincross, Bael, Dereck Shezard and Sophia Ilmora. Light was at 300 points while Dark was at 290 points. It would have been nice if I shifted out Sophia Ilmora for a Jiang Pao, but I wanted to see how Sophia's buffs would work in-game.

It was hard moving from table side to table side. I tried using Chessex glass beads like the ones I use for WARMACHINE to represent action points on the cards. I found it more convenient to just mark the cards with dry erase markers (again like WMH).

The game will be slow with two guys who are just new into the game, but I forecast a 300-point game on 10 turns to be done in less than an hour if both are already familiar with everything.

Being a low model count game, it would definitely be better to have a lot of terrain pieces on the table. As per the rules, there will be a minimum of two terrain pieces and a maximum of six terrain pieces in a game. The book fails to mention specific dimensions for said terrain pieces though. A safe assumption would be nothing larger than 12"x12" for a 4'x4' table.

Preliminary Tactics

As I was gunning (pardon the pun) for a fast and shooty Dark party, I tried to see how Light's approach to that would be. Looking back, Light has a healer via Evangeline. They also have a lot of high Armor models that can survive withering ranged attacks from Dark.

But what really screwed Light during my playtest was when Bael managed to snag Kronen with Paralysis. It was definitely annoying, it felt like being Icy Gaze'd for two turns.

At first blush, Dark would definitely seem to be a shooting force, while Light would have a tanking footslog. Well, it's still early in releases with a few models. I'm sure it'll have more variety by next year when more ANIMA models come out.

What I Heard

I was already attracted to the whole thing when I saw the Shinigami Ayl character design. Even more so when I got to surfing for them (along with the other miniatures games I planned on playing).

Larkin Vain (Joel) is already playing this with another player there at Hawaii Gamers. Evidently he enjoyed it so much he already purchased the currently released models. For sure I'll be following down that same path as well. I have chatted with him on several occasions and I have never heard a bad word about ANIMA from him.

Aggranal (Alger Lim) from Singapore says the game did not pick up in that country. He says that around the early part of 2007, they got some stock of the game there. Apparently, the models they got were of poor quality production (in his words, he said they looked like "their faces were hit by a truck").

I'll still be ordering a sizable amount of the miniatures which will hopefully arrive early January next year.

I have already pimped the idea to several close friends. Whether or not the local miniatures gaming community will come to support it, expect that I will continue to support it from my end myself ^_^