Bloodbeard:
Triumph and Treachery - a review
A friend of mine bought the new warhammer expansion for our christmas game. I was a very nicee game and the rules worked pretty well.
But I havn’t really read anything about Triumph and Treachery on CDO, so I thought I would write a little review.
The book
It’s no secret taht GW makes som really nice books and this is no different. Nice colours, lots of pictures and nice fluff texts. But the rules for the actual game only takes up about 6 pages - then there are 6 pages for the three scenarios and the rest i fluff.
Plus: Designers notes. In the margin of the book the designers have put in notes. That is a very nice feature! When reading the rules I thought a couple of times “well that seems dumb”, but then you read the design notes and it all makes sense. "We know what you’re thinking, we tried it out in the playtesting and we had to change the rules."
Minus: I think it’s just too much fluff stuff. Some army examples and theme armies for every army. Seems a bit unnecessary, and is only raising the price. We have the internet for that kind of stuff.
The Counters and cards
The expansion comes with some victory point counters and a lot of cards. The cards are used in different ways ingame. There are turn order cards and treachery cards.
Plus: The cards have a very nice finish. Great art pieces and a very good size. Bigger than the magic cards - thus easier to read.
Minus: The victory point markers (named coins) are made from thick cardboard. This i lazy! They make their living from minatures. Give us the coins in hard platic and let us paint them.
The scenarios
The book only comes with three scenarios. A capture the artifact scenario. A king of the hill scenario. And a 40k style hold as many object as possible scenario.
This means that all list will have some “must haves” if you play a random scenario. Your general must have fly, so you can steal the 500 VP artifact straight away in that scenario.
There are 6 objectives in the 40k style game. Meaning a small elite army is hard pressed. You need many and possible fast units, because there are many point in having the objectives.
King of the hill can be one with an anvil holdign it or you can use small fast unit (eagles again) to contest it. This will bring in VP for every turn you hold it or contest it.
Minus: Not enough scenarios. It’s are large book, there should have been at least 6 different scenarios to play.
The rules
They are simple and easy to remember, 6 pages read and your ready to play. And you don’t even have to use all of them - more on that later. But they change the game in a number of ways.
Turn order
A the beginning of the game everybody gets a card with a symbol (axe, torch, shield etc.). Every game turn the cards are shuffled and the turn order is random. Flip a player, that player takes his turn. Flip the next one and so on. You never know whos turn it’s gonna be - giving you some tactical headaches. How do you stay safe? Can your plan persist if you suddently go last. It’s really exciting.
Victory Points
At the end of every fase you check if you should recieve any victory point tokens. Meaning you might get victory points in your shooting fase and melee fase. VPs are always rounded down to the nearest 50 - so it’s real easy and fast to count them.
Victory Points can change hands during the game (it encouraged to use them as currency for alliances) and be used to play treachery cards.
Plus: The counters makes it easy to see who’s in the lead. And the use of counters for trade/abilities works good. Deciding to “waste” some victory points in order to strike a deal with an opponent.
Minus: Some things are unclear in the rules. Example: I break an opponent in close combat and they flee. But they don’t reach the table edge before next turn. Are til VPs lost or do I get them? A wizard or wamachine blows himself up - which of the opponent gets til VPs if any?
This way a heavy warmachine/magic army might “steal” VPs from an enemy that’s largely melee based.
If one of my opponents want me to win, he can technically give me all his VPs in the the last round and put me from 2nd to 1st place.
Fairplay is the key.
Treachery Cards
These are great fun. A the start of every turn players are given these cards. The one in the lead gets one, the current “loser” gets three and the middle players gets two cards.
The cards have small abilities. March blocking, changeing target of spells, extra combat results, higher stats, stealing VPs etc.
It’s nothing game breaking, but they can change a thing or too in you favour of sabotage an oppenent plan. Great fun. The better cards cost VPs to use - it can be a fun but tough call to make.
Enemies and neutral players
In every fase you choose an opponent and it’s only this player you can interact with in the fase. Meaning you can only declare charges against one opponent, only cast spells on one (and he’s the only one who can dispel the spells) an so on.
This means you can get into some tough descion making in the close combat fase. If i a round I go last, both my opponents might have been in combat with me. Now I most choose one of them to keep fighting. The other wil become neutral an the regiments are moved 1 inch apart.
Plus: It’s fun to make those choices. Especially because you don’t know the turn order for the next turn. So a choice might end up costing you being charges by enemies just moved 1 inch away.
Minus: Technically it’s easy to save your army with a single unit. Bring a great eagle to the battle, leave him behind. Last turn a chaos player charged your entire line and he’ll eat you up. The bird charges another player and he is chosen enemy in close combat fase. At the cost of one eagle you just “stole” an entire turn of combat from the chaos player.
Some people have it real nice in the magic fase. It’s not a bug (but it’s definately treacherous), but if you only plan on using augment spells you can choose an “enemy” on the other side of the table. This way you zombie raising spells and augment are sure to pass - because the enemy in front of you are now “neutral” and not allowed to dispel.
Mercenaries
Lastly there are rules for mercenaries in the game. For every 500 point you play with, each army gets 100 points for mercenaries that can be chosen freely among the armies in warhammer.
We didn’t use these rules, so don’t no much about them.
But in every turn an enemy player can bribe your mercenaries with some VPs. If you don’t match his offer, the unit can’t do anything in that turn.
Plus: You get to use a lot of different miniatures in a game and you can find something to strengthen your armys weakness. For campaigns and home written scenarios this can add some real flavour.
Minus: Since it’s soo easy to bribe a unit, it seems stupid to bring a large elite one for your points. As many small units as possible seems like an obvious choice.
In a game with many players and lots of mercenaries this can quickly take out all the VPs from the game - because of bribes.
Overall
I really enjoyed my two games of triumph and treachery.
It’s easy an work really smooth. Great for the casual friendly game - not real smart for a competitive environment.
It feels like it has a lot of replay value. Way better than the Storm of Magic expansion that changed the game in a rather boring way.
Play it - it’s really fun. And for once it seeems like GW wanted to give us something - not just make an excuse for making profit of bigger monsters.
Greatest plus: The random turn order! It’s so much fun and really nerve racking.
Second greatest plus: Victory Point coins. It’s easy to track who’s in the lead and try to take him out. Easy to deal with (since it’s always nearest lowest 50p). And the ability to use up your VPs in hope of getting a more important result.
Greatest minus: If you’re unlucky there can be quite a lot of waiting. If two players get at each other in all phases, your army is a bit away on the table and you’re unlucky with the turn order.
Battle Report
You can read a battle report of my first Triumph and treachery game here: ]
Another one is one the way.
