Vanguarding Vanguard?

Last few posts have been about the concept of hobbying rather than the actual hobbying itself. So trying to get back on track here. Lets talk about Vanguard. Vanguard is Mantic's latest skirmish level fantasy game. Lore wise, it ties in with Kings of War. Mantic chose to have it fully integrated with the lore of the massed fantasy battles game instead of some kind of "one off" scenario (a la Mordheim).

Strangely enough, I didn't back the kickstarter for Vanguard. Nope, I figured I had way too many models already, and I just didn't need more. Plus, I don't really have Mantic models anymore. I did at one point have an Abyssal army, but traded that away some time ago. My friend Robert though was very interested in it and dropped some serious coin. He's getting all the stuff, and I can use my existing models to play. Win/Win for me.

Before going too much farther into this, no, he does not have the rules yet. So all of this discussion is going off what has been posted in the Mantic blogs so far and other rumors I've heard. That being said, what I know of the game is that it is a skirmish warband game. That means small model count and an integrated campaign/progression system in place. So yes, the game is more like Mordheim than it is Age of Sigmar. That is a good thing as I prefer a Mordheim style game over AoS.

I also need to interject at this point that the models are pretty good. Clearly the best stuff Mantic has put out so far. Nicely detailed, good poses....makes me wish I had actually done the KS, but that's because I'm a sucker for cool models.

So the game is basically, you have a leader, some cool LTs, and then a few grunts to carry the baggage. Strangely enough, they only ever mix it up with other gangs and Bob's your uncle. They had an open Beta Rule package out for use for quite a while, and have been blogging various pieces of the rules online as well. So far, seems fairly simple, yet adding depth in various ways. I'll go into rules later once I actually have them in hand.

So, Vanguard is about to drop...what does that mean for me? Means I'm getting ready. I haven't worked out which faction I want to go with just yet, again...waiting on rules. However, I have started to prep for the game itself. I have some mordheim terrain still from back in the day, and I've also purchased some recent stuff that I've actually started to put together. I have the cuts to prove it. I also have an un-opened mordheim terrain expansion box that I am thinking of putting together as well. I'll start putting up some pics of my progress. Till next time.