Warhammer Age Of Sigmar Champions

Hello!

Recently, while visiting family in south Devon, I had the chance to pop in to Taylored Games in Kingsbridge. While I was there, they had a nice man called Dave from PlayFusion doing intro games for Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Champions, so I thought I'd give it a go. I'm not really into card games these days (I used to play a bit of Magic back in the late nineties) but it looked quite interesting.

As you can see, coming from the company that makes the game, Dave brought all the goodies. Game mats, all the starter decks (in sleeves) and some freebie badges and the like. I watched a bit of a game in progress, and it looked very complex, but I could tell there were a lot of interesting mechanics at play. Four lanes on the board, each of which occupied by a titular champion, the units, spells or abilities they control and any 'blessings' they have unlocked. Most of the cards have numbers on the corners, and are turned anti-clockwise as the game progresses, giving the impression of, for instance, a unit of warriors being worn down by casualties or a spell being charged up by a chanting shaman.

I got my chance to play Dave shortly after, and notably before I could work out what was going on. Helpfully Dave was very... helpful. I chose to play the Destruction deck - made of of Orruks, aka copyrightable Orcs. Dave lined up the Death deck, with spooky vampires and the like. A bit more of an explanation from Dave came next. The objective is to reduce your opponent to 0 health (represented by the numbers around the edge of the mat.) To do this you deal damage from units, abilities, spells etc. There are two types of Champions, ones that can deploy units, and ones that can cast spells. And ones that can do both, like those vampires. Units, spells and the like rotate at the start of each turn, applying the effects on the card to the value of the number in the now upper left corner. The champion cards can also rotate when they meet certain requirements (e.g. cast a spell, deploy a unit, deal damage etc), and if they manage to rotate a full 360 they gain one of the four randomly placed blessings, which have powerful effects like dealing lots of damage or boosting units.

This was a lot to take in, but I could already see how different strategies might arise. Go all in with early damage, or build towards a strong late game by activating multiple blessings? Spam units, abilities or spells, or have an even mix?

Anyway, we played the game. Turns out the Orruks like to put lots of units out onto the field and buff them with abilities and by stacking units on top of each other to swarm the opponent, an ability not common in the other decks. The undead however would be able to regenerate lots of units and the player health over the game. This all felt very thematically appropriate. I also found the rotation mechanic allowed for clever counter play, as you can, to a certain extent, tell what is coming up over the next few turns. A good example is the Arcane Bolt spell, while does nothing for the first two turns, then deals a massive 7 damage.

And in the end, probably more by luck than judgement, I was able to finish off Dave with that very spell. I think it was quite a long game, we both managed a couple of Blessings, and thanks to various combinations of cards we were scrapping around with less than half health for a while. It felt quite tense towards the end, and definitely gave me the impression that the game was designed with the intention of there being tight finishes.

After the first game I sat down opposite Adam, one half of Taylored Games, and played the Order (Stormcast) deck against Chaos (mostly khorne). This turned out to be a bit of a nail biter, with both of us clinging on with low health for some time. In the end Adam emerged victorious, as my last ditch attempt to block some damage fell apart due to a key unit not sharing the Stormcast keyword. It was very entertaining though!

In the end, I grabbed myself some sweet loot, picking an appropriate badge in light of my victory. I then remembered to take photos (which is why all the shots above are of the set up rather than the game itself in play), which is when Dave revealed to me another cool feature of the game. It turns out each physical card is unique, and by scanning them with a smart phone you can 'own' the card in the app as well as in real life. So if you play on the app you can add your real cards to your online collection. I've no idea if this is a completely unique thing or if other card games do it (remember, last similar experience was in the previous millennium) but it impressed me.

I definitely had fun with the experience, and as a result, once I got home I downloaded the app (free but with in app purchases as you might expect) and had a go. I'm not sure if I'll keep playing it, but I could see myself getting into it if I find a pocket of players about and get myself some cards. If you are into this sort of thing, I'd definitely recommend it. It seems like it has a lot more depth to it than I remember from other games or similar apps, beyond just learning what all the cards do. Basically I liked it, and I don't normally like this sort of thing. Thumbs up.