Ares : God of War [BG]

Ares is a real melee powerhouse. He has 5 activation cards where most Gods have 4. Don't make him angry: in one turn he can even do 2 attacks with 10 dice and 1 with 5 dice (range 0 area attack). I don't envy his victim! :-p
Most of his skills are free, which is fortunate as he doesn't bring any AoW cards.

If you go for a really strong army with a lot of damage potential, Ares is a good choice to begin.

Edit: @Elder Bastidas: you are probably right. I don't think God's area attacks are free.

He seems more than capable enough to take on titans one on one.

Regarding his Are's Wrath power, I guess Quirkworthy mentioned that it costs 1 AoW.

Wrath costs 1 AoW confirmed : [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Rhalius wrote:He seems more than capable enough to take on titans one on one.

Wasn't it for the fact that he runs out of Activation cards in no time. He could do 2 double attacks in successive turns - but then it's over until the next deck shuffle ("Battle Cycle").

MaxC wrote:Wrath costs 1 AoW confirmed

Yeah, not surprising .. I guess it was too good to be true!

True, but the titan might be nearly dead or dead after those five activations have been used. And that titan won't be as much of a threat when nearly dead.

It seems Frenzy is pretty powerful, too. With two activations in a row, can't he move to an omphalos during his first activation, and then absorb the omphalos with his second?

He can, as long as he doesn't run on his first activation. (Powers can't be used when a unit performs a special action such as running)

It's kind of silly though thematically that the god of war gives not a single art of war card and may be the only god to get none.

Gameplay it makes perfect sense of course to keep him balanced and it would be stranger if he was weak on the battlefield.

Well, AoW represents strategy. Ares isn't really about that, he'd rather win through brute strength than through cunning.

MaxC wrote:He can, as long as he doesn't run on his first activation. (Powers can't be used when a unit performs a special action such as running)

I ran through the rulebook demo 3 times using this move/absorb strategy for Ares and won in 2 rounds every time (with the aid of might throw during his second move/absorb action). I don't see what team Zeus can do to stop it.

I suppose this strategy won't be as powerful when there are more omphalos to absorb, and more cards diluting Ares's battle deck, but it still seems like a pretty sick skill, especially because you can use the omphalos card to grab another Ares activation card.

Yes, because of the small decks in the demo scenario, it is really easy to draw the right cards for that strategy. However, in a real game, you have exactly enough Ares cards in your deck to deploy him and make 2 double activations. Double activations are definitely rarer in those circumstances.

As a side note, I only played the demo scenario once and didn't really like it. Sure, it makes it easy to learn most of the base mechanics without having to worry about drafting, but the teams are clearly unbalanced. I'd much rather have people learn the game by playing a real skirmish, or perhaps some of the other scenarios that have been playtested more thoroughly, even though it might take longer to get through the game and all the mechanics are in play. I might make a more detailed analysis of why I don't like this scenario later on when I'm not as busy.

MaxC wrote:As a side note, I only played the demo scenario once and didn't really like it. Sure, it makes it easy to learn most of the base mechanics without having to worry about drafting, but the teams are clearly unbalanced. I'd much rather have people learn the game by playing a real skirmish, or perhaps some of the other scenarios that have been playtested more thoroughly, even though it might take longer to get through the game and all the mechanics are in play. I might make a more detailed analysis of why I don't like this scenario later on when I'm not as busy.

Good point. Too bad I went cheap on the PNP and only printed enough for the demo. I'll have to fix that!