Mortal Gods – Athenians

Athens. What do you immediately think of when you hear this name? The Parthenon? The goddess of wisdom and strategy from ancient greek mythology? Well, when you play Mortal Gods, you probably think of arrows. Many, many arrows…

Since I would like to use them, I treated myself with the additional card set of the Athenians from Footsore Miniatures and will take a closer look at it for you along the way.

The set is currently available for between €11 and €15, depending on the retailer, and comes with a booklet as well as the cards. The cards include the Athenian troop types, named heroes, new equipment cards and additional omen cards.

What I noticed right at the beginning was that the cards are slightly larger than those in the core set. They may have been produced by a different company, where the die cutting tool had slightly different dimensions. The cards themselves are of a high quality, the illustrations are clearly recognizable and the print image is a perfect fit.

The artwork by Steve Beckett and Jody Lundy is really beautiful. I can only repeat myself when it comes to the art style of Mortal Gods in general, which I hope will be maintained as we move into the next iteration of the game.

The booklet also contains artwork by Peter Dennis, who also illustrated the motif for the core box of Mortal Gods. If you don't know Peter, you've probably seen his work for other manufacturers, such as Warlords Games or Wargames Atlantic, as he's been working as an artist in the games industry since the 70s.

In terms of play, the rules for Athenians offer two interesting directions. For example, they can be used to create armies with a maritime theme. Since Mortal Gods generally allows you to mix armies from different rulesets, it's a great idea to bring armored peltasts on board ( excuse the pun). Troops with the prefix “Marine” are lighter armored than their counterparts from the core rules, but shine with their own version of “Inspire”.

Usually, Inspire gives you an additional attack as long as you are within a certain range of a model with this rule. With the Athenians, however, this gives you an additional W6 movement range. This way, you can not only capture mission objectives very quickly, but also risk attacks at long distances.

As long as you have the leader nearby, you only have to forgo the attack bonus indirectly:

With the Blessing of Athena, Pegasi hit results become Double Swords - however, this bonus is only available for the Athenian part of the troops, not for those from the core ruleset.

And this is where the Athenians show their true strength, as an army consisting mainly of Athenians, especially in ranged combat. This is because the Athenian archers have medium armor, making it possible to give them commands and unleash their deadly hail of arrows once more.

CONCLUSION

For the price, the quality of the cards and the booklet is good. Discounts are also available from various providers, which increases the temptation. The booklet only has 16 pages, but these are filled with historical background and a few short stories for the heroes in addition to the rules.

Below I have put together an example list that you can use to explore the full might of Athens:

55 Athenian Lochagos, medium armor

20 Blessing of Athena

45 Greek Promachos

48 Athenian Marine Hoplites

40 Greek Veteran Archer

42 Athenian Marine Archers

3 Eagle Eye, +1 attack, one time use

42 Athenian Marine Archers

5 Might, +1 attack, one time use

Total, 300 points

An athenian army built with Victrix Hoplites and parts from Oathmark Goblins

If you place the archers on high ground, they already receive an additional attack. If the veteran is standing nearby, this also gives them an additional attack, which also applies to the Promachos, as he has a different special rule. This already takes them from three to six dice in a single ranged attack. I guess it's not just the Persians who can blot out the sun with their arrows.

However, the Athenians have a massive disadvantage - this elitist style of play drastically reduces the size of the army (not necessarily a disadvantage for slow painters like me). In addition, in order to develop their full potential, the troops have to stand quite close together, which makes it difficult for them to capture mission objectives. They can even get in each other's way like this, which is an additional problem if the terrain offers few open areas or narrow corridors.

Have you acquired a taste for Athens? Then let us see your Athenians and share your gaming experiences with us.

Greetings from the Chaosbunker

Dino