Review Category: Merch

by Ed Fortune

Star Wars is a world that will always be of interest to wargamers. The word ‘war’ is right in the title, after all. In recent years, we’ve had a variety of tactically deep games, from the dog-fighting X-Wing to the fleet action epic battles of Armada, as well as more grounded games such as the dungeon-exploring Imperial Assault and the complex wargame Star Wars: Legion. All of these have been pretty successful and captured the vibe of the larger Star Wars galaxy.

The new game, Star Wars: Shatterpoint, breaks this vibe by making things personal. This is a skirmish game, Jedi vs Sith leading small units against each other on dense battlefields. Whereas the previous offerings from Atomic Mass Game have been about blowing up Death Stars or defending whole alien worlds, Shatterpoint is about lightsaber duels on war-torn battlefields, peppering Mandalorians with blaster fire and kicking Darth Maul in the shins whilst preparing to cut him in two (again).

It’s a very different offering than previous games in this series. It is in 40mm scale, which means the models tower over your average Space Marine or Heroclix. It also means the models are much less fiddly to assemble and easier to paint. Atomic Mass Games are so confident that you’ll do a good job that the core box comes with two back-drops and instructions on how to photograph your models so they look good on social media.

 

Inside the box, we get enough terrain to play the game, and it’s on various levels. We haven’t seen the various terrain booster packs, but there’s enough in the box to give the game that ‘close quarters’ feel, with enough pieces so your snipers can hide on a gantry somewhere. 

The models are high quality, unpainted and need to be assembled. We get 16 models, which can be grouped into small teams. So we get the Kalani strategy droid with some B1-Battle Droids, Lord Maul has some Mandalorian allies, as does Bo-Katan, and so on. Models include Lord Maul, Gar Saxon, Captain Rex, Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano and Asajj Ventress. They are simple to assemble (and instructions are online) and fun to paint.

Set-up is about 30 minutes, and gameplay takes about an hour once you know the rules. 

What makes this game different is that each conflict is designed to tell a story. A core mechanic is called ‘Struggle’ – basically, as the conflict evolves, you use tokens to indicate that the stakes are getting higher as your team draws upon their inner strength (and The Force) to succeed, which means you rarely find yourself feeling that winning or losing is inevitable. When the struggle is over, the game resets and the mission priorities are changed by drawing cards. Each game feels more like an episode of the Clone Wars or The Mandalorian than just another session of rolling dice and calculating damage. It also helps that actions are dynamic, and you have many different ways to inflict harm on the enemy beyond simple damage. 

Rules-wise, the actual rule book is more of a manual that makes the game fair rather than something you flip through in a hurry. It’s written with competitive play in mind, which makes it a little bit unfriendly for new starters. The game itself is very good, and once you ‘get it’, it flows quickly and seamlessly, but getting to that point might take a couple of hours of gameplay. We recommend looking at some online tutorials first. It’s worth the investment of time and designed with the assumption that you’re willing to take the time to get to know the game. 

That said, it is designed to be accessible and swift to play. The cards are big and friendly; the rules are all written out clearly on the cards and sheets, and all the fiddly elements are absorbed into the overall design. If you’ve played other Atomic Mass Games, this approach to game design will feel familiar. Lots of tokens and cards, but once you know what they all do, it’s an incredibly smooth game.  

Atomic Mass only gave us the core set to play with, but there is a lot in that box to be getting on with, though we’ll be intrigued to see how future expansions evolve the game. This is clearly intended to be a major competitor for games such as Deadzone and Kill Team, and it looks like it’ll be readily available for a long time to come. It’s the best miniatures game we’ve seen this year.

Proper lightsaber-swinging, stakes-raising, blaster-dodging, and jetpack-exploding fun. Recommended.

 

 

by Ed Fortune

As the mighty media machine that is Critical Role continues, it’s nice to remember what started it all. A bunch of nerds getting together to play a TTRPG, who then ended up live streaming it. That campaign was Vox Machina. It all started with D&D, and of course, the folk at Wizkids have made miniatures of the iconic heroes so you can re-enact a titanic battle with Vecna in your own home. 

The WizKids Vox Machina set contains D&D-scaled, pre-painted miniatures of the main characters from the popular actual play D&D live stream that started a franchise. Unlike the Bells Hells set, this box contains the heroes at the end of their adventuring journey.

The paint jobs are decent; the models are robust. The bases are translucent, so if your tastes run to more complicated bases, you’ll have to open up a pot of Goblin Green and sort that out yourself. The smallest models are the two gnomes, Scanlan and Pike Trickfoot. Scanlan looks every bit like a sleazy musician and is in a singing pose; Pike has celestial wings and looks ready for a fight. The Scanlan model is more useful in a generic sense, but Pike is a nice 3D version of Ashley Johnson’s iconic character.

The two half-elven twins, Vax and Vex, pair well together. Vex is posed mid-fight, slotting an arrow into her legendary longbow, Fenthras. Vex wields the dagger, Whisper, and his armour. The Deathwalker’s Ward is in its full exalted state, raven wings spread with Vex ready to pounce, as its bearer finally accepts their fate as the Champion of the Raven Queen. The Vax model could be used as a noble half-elven. The Vex model, when not on the gaming table, might look nice on your desktop.

We also get Vax’s most beloved, most loyal, most important companion. The bear, Trinket. It’s a nice armour bear model, and they’ve sculpted to fur very well. Trinket looks like he needs a treat. We also get Vax’s future husband, Percival de Rolo, who looks stylish in a long coat with their trusty firearms equipped. It’s a nice, smug-looking piece.

Grog Strongjaw wields his iconic cursed blade, and this is the giant strength belt-wearing, bearded version of Grog. He looks almost noble. Finally, we get a Keyleth in full arch-druid form, stag horns, red hair, staff and cloak. 

All of these pieces will be familiar faces to fans of the show, and it’s nice to have access to the official models. DM’s looking to add a touch of Critical Role-connected flair to their games, and collectors looking for small versions of beloved heroes will want to pick up a box.

 

by Ed Fortune

Wizkid’s Heroclix is always coming up with new ways to get you into the game, and given that it’s done the superhero thing in every possible way, it’s always fun to see how they lure gamers and collectors back into the hobby. 

The DC Comics HeroClix: BatmanTeam-Up Miniatures Game is a little misleadingly titled. Technically, the release is Batman, but is this starter set for Heroclix? It has the words SCOOBY-DOO and TEEN TITANS GO! in huge letters, along with a box design that makes it look like it’s come out of a ’00s TV show.

And, of course, it’s filled with Teen Titan and Scooby Doo Heroclix. Now, Heroclix is a game that includes models for the likes of Starro and Galactus. And now you can include Scooby-Doo and the gang in these epic battles. Weirdly, this works really well; they’re balanced characters for the game, and it turns out Fred is an effective leader. Who knew?

 

The Miniatures Game box itself is very good; We get ten models, cards to run those models in different ways, custom dice, map tiles and comprehensive rules. Heroclix is a pretty straightforward skirmish game, with all the rules managed through the click base. It even has a campaign which explains why Scooby-Doo, Shaggy, Fred, Velma and Daphne are fighting Robin, Starfire, Raven, Beast-Boy and Cyborg. And the models themselves are adorably goofy, the sort of thing you’d have as desktop toys if you don’t intend to play the game. 

 HEROCLIX: BATMAN TEAM-UP is also available in booster boxes; these are blind boxes with five models in them, and it’s a bit of a mixed bag. In addition to more Teen Titans and Scooby Doo figures (such as those found in the starter set), we get Batman characters broadly inspired by the animated show and a whole load of Green Lantern adjacent models. Some of these are very cool, such as The Brain from Doom Patrol, a Green Lantern Batman or Sinestro Corp Scarecrow. We also get a load of Lantern rings and constructs. The rings are okay (they have game rules that boost existing characters), but they do feel like cheap cracker toys. And the constructs are very specific to certain types of Heroclix games and don’t require their own translucent plastic model. Which makes the boosters feel a bit padded out.

 This is compensated for by how cute the Teen Titans and Scooby-Doo models are and how much fun they are to play on the table. And yes, there’s a Scrappy-Doo, and no, he’s not a villain. There is not, alas, a Scooby-Doo Green Lantern model, which we feel is a lost opportunity. A very fun set.

 

 

by Ed Fortune

Funko’s Star Wars Rivals is a breath of fresh air, a simple card-powered game that evokes all the majesty of the Star Wars franchise without needing any preparation but with enough depth and design to encourage rapid and repeated play. In a world full of super-complicated, multiple-component games that simulate everything, a fun little game is exactly what we wanted. 

The Star Wars Rivals – Series 1 Premier Set contains everything you need to begin playing; on the light side, we get Luke Skywalker and Commander Cody, and the side with cookies and force lightning have Darth Vader and Asajj Ventress. In addition, we get a funny-shaped die and all the cards and markers you need to play. This is essentially a card game; the figures are just for fun.

The aim of the game is to take control of the location cards, which are placed in the middle of the table. These are all recognisable places from the franchise, with light and fun art (this is a family game, so the art style is aimed at all ages). We send characters to locations, roll dice, play cards from our hand, and resolve who won what battle (and thus the location). The cards lean into the Star Wars vibe, so, for example, Darth Vader and Luke both have cards that make it more likely for them to face each other. When you run out of location cards, you count who won what and declare the winner.

 

 

There are some cute touches; the starting player token is called the High Ground, translucent blue versions of all the figures are available and are called ‘holograms’, defeated characters go to the ‘bacta tank’ and so on. None of this makes the game more difficult to understand; they’re all fun little things that add to the experience.

Because this is Funko, the figures are high quality. Each one is a single pose, a full-painted stylised version of the character. These could simply be cardboard tokens, but we’re glad Funko decided to stick to their brand and add a touch of cuteness to the game. These aren’t the super-sized bobbleheads you might expect; they’re slimmer and cuter than that. The cards are durable and well-designed.

In addition to the core set, there are blind boxes themed Light and Dark Side that contain an extra figure, cards, etc. You can play the game by picking up a pair of these boxes, but we recommend the starter set and throwing in as many extra boxes as you fancy. Obviously, this is designed to appeal to collectors, but it’s also a nifty way of introducing the game to groups or families.

Rivals is both a playground card game and an appetiser. It’s the sort of thing you can play on a break or as something quick and fun to play before you get stuck into the likes of Star Wars Rebellion or Funko’s Rear Window. Light, silly and very, very playable. Recommended.

 

 

 

by Ed Fortune

It’s almost a tradition now that when Wizards of the Coast launched a new thing, Wizkids does some tie-in minis. Heck, even the new D&D movie, Honor Among Thieves, has its own blister pack of minis. So obviously, now that the Dragonlance Shadow Of The Dragon Queen adventure book is out, we’re getting a set of Icons of The Realms blind boxes to tie in.

These are boxes that feature four pre-painted models based on the world of Dragonlance, typically inspired by illustrations in the book. The models vary in size, typically, if you get something hobbit-sized, you also get something horse-sized. They’re all in the standard scale for D&D models.

They’ve done something a little different this time around by introducing Super Boosters, which means you get two larger models. In this range, this means a dragon and maybe something dragon-like as well. To our delight, we discovered that the Young Black Dragon in this range has a detachable saddle and comes with a rider. This means you can either have the rider as a standalone model or on the back of his dragon buddy. Though be aware that if you do put the dude on the back of the dragon, you’re left with a mini that is just a pair of legs as the piece detaches at the waist to attach the saddle. (There are a few of these saddle swap minis in the range, and sad to say, they’re all specific to their mini, which makes sense as it means they all fit their model snuggly, but is a little disappointing from a toyetic sensibility.)

The regular minis are varied and quite fun. We get, for example, a Gnome Flinger – a siege piece that is basically a siege catapult. It has no working parts, but the ‘flinging’ bit is large enough for you to put a gnome min on it. We also get a little silver dragon egg in a chest;  this is actually a nice objective marker or quest item (and underlines the fact that these models are for roleplay rather than skirmish games).  There’s a Skeletal Knight Rider, which is an undead knight on the back of a not-skeletal horse and a rider-less warhorse, which seemed odd at first, but when you realise that Dragonlance Shadow Of The Dragon Queen is set in various war zones, makes sense.

There are some ‘chase’ promo models. Two very domestic-looking Kender (who are basically cheekier versions of hobbits), a really nice version of D&D’s own dark knight, Lord Soth and a surprisingly Goth version of the Dragon Queen herself, in mortal rather than dragon form.

There are also some nice character pieces; Dalamar is an evil wizard who plays an important role in the Dragonlance series, and his model here has him casting a spell and looking stern. Mostly the range Is complemented by citizens of Ansalon, the world of Dragonlance, looking stern. It’s a great set and a great addition to your collection.