WoWMinis

Darkewolfe · November 2008

World of Warcraft Miniatures Game Linkage

Following nearly two years of development, Upper Deck is pleased to announce that the World of Warcraft Miniatures Game is on sale worldwide starting today, Tuesday, November 11!

Featuring amazingly detailed figures and innovative, engaging game play, the World of Warcraft Miniatures Game is available in four-figure Starter Sets and three-figure randomized booster packs.

Each of the 70 figures available in the World of Warcraft Miniatures Game captures the flavor and style of the popular World of Warcraft MMORPG characters, including such fan favorites as Leeroy Jenkins, Warchief Thrall, and Varimathras. Each miniature can be mounted on a uniquely engineered, removable base, allowing it to serve as both a game piece and a standalone collectible.

The World of Warcraft Miniatures Game four-figure Starter Set comes with everything two people need to play, including Upper Deck’s pioneering detachable miniatures bases (dubbed the UBase™), a Beginner’s Guide, custom dice, and a game map. The Starter Set also includes character cards describing each figure’s attacks and abilities, as well as interchangeable Action Bar cards for an extra layer of customization. The booster packs feature three randomized figures, complete with their associated cards.

In addition to offering the best quality figures in the pre-painted miniatures market, the World of Warcraft Miniatures Game booster packs provide players with a World of Warcraft Trading Card Game sample pack, which might include a Loot™ card from the upcoming Drums of War™ expansion. These rare cards give players access to exclusive cosmetic in-game upgrades for their online World of Warcraft characters.

Upper Deck has planned a robust Organized Play structure for the World of Warcraft Miniatures Game. For Organized Play details and the latest news and information about the exciting World of Warcraft Miniatures Game, stay tuned to WoWMinis.com!

So, this is basically a collectible mini's game ala Mageknight, Star Wars Minis, etc. based on the video game which has probably devoured a good 75% of this forum's populations lives at some point or another. Might I add that this devil game already has a board game, card game, manga series, book series and Sigmar knows what else already dedicated to it? Penny Arcade could do some jokes on it, but they've basically already made the best one...

So... I haven't actually played the game yet. I hadn't been in a general gamestore in... god, almost a year, and I JUST HAPPENED TO WALK IN THE DAY THESE FUCKERS GO ON SALE!

I swear, there's a plot to just take ALL my money. I actually had to restrain myself from buying an entire case. (Instead, I bought a giant pile of 7th Sea Cards. A game which is no longer really played, or in publication. Seriously, I have a problem.)

From what I saw when some other guys came into play, the game is sort of an Arenas/Warsong Gulch theme (for those who actually play/played the MMO). Each player seems to bring two heroes, at least in the basic version, and they run around in the field beating each other up. During the three or four hours we were there, I never actually saw a game get played. I don't know if this speaks to the difficulty of the rules, or the miniatures experience of the guys who were trying to play. Each of the mini's is on a little clicky base, but the clix aren't as number-filled as Wizkids bases, and there are cards with info on them telling you more about how each character plays.

I can see immediately where some disappointment might arise, as the mini's are VERY similar to Mageknight stuff. Some of them look like half-melted, gooey blobs of plastic with weird splotches of color on them, while some are just completely awesome. I watched a game in which the coolest Tauren figure I could imagine went barreling across the table to... some purplish-green.... stick thing... which I can only assume was a night elf of some sort. I can see that the player who buys more stuff could have a morale advantage, in that he could only select cool looking figs.

Anyway, I've made an OP because there wasn't one, and I want to hear from you guys: is this game any fun? Who plays it? How bad is the urge to buy a million of the damn things?

INeedNoSalt · November 2008

sigh and goddamnit

i already quit you, warcraft

why do you keep tugging at my heart strings =[

Darkewolfe · November 2008

INeedNoSalt wrote: »

sigh and goddamnit

i already quit you, warcraft

why do you keep tugging at my heart strings =[

Agreed. Not only does this make me want to buy the minis, but I've also started thinking about reactivating WoW for some bizarre reason.

Touche, Blizzard.

Zombiemambo · November 2008

Saying this early to get it out of the way: no one gives a fuck what you think of Blizzard. Shut. Up.

INeedNoSalt · November 2008

thank you for moderating for us zombiemambo, we couldn't get by without you

FURTHERMORE

OP could probably use a link to the website. I totally don't have twenty five bucks to waste on a starter of these, but if I did, I would probably buy a starter at least. Do we know which figures come in those things? It didn't look like they were listed, just 'two horde and two alliance'?

minigunwielder · November 2008

Man, fuck blizzard.

Darkewolfe · November 2008

INeedNoSalt wrote: »

thank you for moderating for us zombiemambo, we couldn't get by without you

FURTHERMORE

OP could probably use a link to the website. I totally don't have twenty five bucks to waste on a starter of these, but if I did, I would probably buy a starter at least. Do we know which figures come in those things? It didn't look like they were listed, just 'two horde and two alliance'?

The Starter has a clear box and you can totally see the minis in it. It's always the same four minis. It also comes with a battle map, some dice and rules.

Of course I don't remember what the minis are.

Darkewolfe · November 2008

Also, there will be sealed tournaments this weekend to celebrate release.

I might just have to do that. It'll be my excuse to buy some shiznit.

DampCat · November 2008

Sigh. Pre-Painted, randomly selected.

Looks like i won't be bothering then.

Darkewolfe · November 2008

DampCat wrote: »

Sigh. Pre-Painted, randomly selected.

Looks like i won't be bothering then.

Yup. These are the collectible ones. I'm a fan of both styles of miniatures game. I've got plenty of 40k stuff to paint into the next decade, my Fantasy army has to be completely repaired and re-painted, etc. There's a different kind of thrill to tearing open a box of collectible minis. It's closer to playing a CCG, with more toy factor involved.

I'm amused, though, that so far no one has posted anything about actually playing. I'll have to take the camera if I manage to get to the tourney this weekend and take some pictures.

DampCat · November 2008

Yeah, but i have a dense distaste for CCG style ever since my group stopped playing Babylon 5. I was 15 at the time and had invested a huge amount of my money in the game to keep up with my 20 year old friends with higher income disposal. they randomly stopped and went back to Magic, and I lost heart altogether.

Highest Earner Wins is not my game, i'm afraid

Cosmic Sombrero · November 2008

The sense of superiority I get from never having played WoW is immense and undeserved.

Darkewolfe · November 2008

DampCat wrote: »

Yeah, but i have a dense distaste for CCG style ever since my group stopped playing Babylon 5. I was 15 at the time and had invested a huge amount of my money in the game to keep up with my 20 year old friends with higher income disposal. they randomly stopped and went back to Magic, and I lost heart altogether.

Highest Earner Wins is not my game, i'm afraid

Cosmic Sombrero wrote: »

The sense of superiority I get from never having played WoW is immense and undeserved.

Yes, thank you both for having contributed absolutely nothing to the discussion, while expressing your nerd-superiority on a gaming forum on the internet.

Is anyone aware if there is more than one type of map? Seems like things would get stale without the ability to customize maps. I guess they could easily do the City of Heroes stuff, with several maps and tokens that change the terrain on those maps. (This is a square movement based game, not move distances using inches or anything.)

Cosmic Sombrero · November 2008

I appreciate your modding efforts, Wolfe. Before you came along we were sorely lacking in Moderators with no reading comprehension skills.

Here's a map that's apparently been well received by the WoWMinis community.
http://www.wowminismods.com/index.php/fr/wowminis-customs-maps/3-wowminis-map/6-news-wowminis-map-the-magicwell

The site as a whole has some interesting stuff. Anyway, here's a poorly written review from ICv2.

Bill Bodden wrote:

World of Warcraft Miniatures Game

Upper Deck Entertainment

November 11, 2008

Starter $24.99; Booster $14.99

# of Players: 2 or more

Components: (Boosters and starters) Pre-painted plastic miniatures, corresponding character stat cards; (Starter only) complete rule book, double-sided battle map, bases, poster/checklist, dice.

Playing time: approximately 30 minutes.

ISBN: 1-59945-659-1 (Starter) 1-59945-662-1 (Booster)

UPC: 0-53334-62872-3 (Starter) 0-53334-62881-5 (Booster)

Age rating: Ten and up

ICv2 Stars 3.5 out of 5

With Mage Knight having apparently vanished from the face of the earth, there has been room for a collectible miniatures game with the right angle; that angle appears to be World of Warcraft, and Upper Deck is capitalizing on the online massively multiplayer gameâ€™s incredible popularity by releasing a collectible miniatures game to accompany its successful WoW CCG.

The World of Warcraft Miniatures Game is, at its heart, simple. Players have one or more characters, and each character has a stat card listing several basic abilities â€“ armor, resist (vs. magic), and health â€“ plus the number of dice rolled using that characterâ€™s different attack modes, and the all-important Honor stat. Hits are scored by rolling a â€œ4â€ or higher on a ten-sided die, and the player being attacked has a chance to reduce this damage with similarly successful rolls against the Armor stat.

To win the game, players must score victory points equal to the partyâ€™s combined Honor score. Players claim victory points by defeating a foe (reducing that characterâ€™s Health stat to zero) and by being on or adjacent to the Victory Point location at the end of turns five and ten.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this game is the way time is measured. Each action takes a specific number of turns, marked by clicking the figureâ€™s base ahead that many turns after an action. When the turn number matches the number showing on the characterâ€™s base, that character is able to take another action. Players must be careful to use their attacks wisely or risk having their characters unable to act for extended periods.

The World of Warcraft Miniatures Game is fast-moving fun, but is limited in scope. It works best with two players; games with more players or more than four characters on a side become ponderous and sluggish. Like its online counterpart, this game works well on a smaller scale, much.

Darkewolfe · November 2008

Ending a condescending statement about the people who might be contributing with a note that that statement isn't "for realz" isn't participating in the conversation about the game. That boy sure is ugly, bless his heart.

This seems to be a pretty thorough review.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/332994

The Game:

World of Warcraft Miniatures Game is a collectible miniature game (CMG) in which players will create groups/parties of miniatures from 3 different factions and try to beat the snot out of each other. Death is only temporary, so it’s extra safe for the kids.

The demo game consists of a simple map, and 4 characters. Each character comes with 2 action cards which give them more options during the game. The game does allow for using multiples of a single character so I suggest printing out 3 sets of the characters, and using this to give more variety in playing the demo.

The game play is based around a timing mechanic. Each turn, time advances by 1 tick. This is measured on a track on the map that counts from 1 to 10 before resetting back to 1.
Characters each have their own clock. You spend time on your clock to take actions. Taking simple actions advances their clock by small amounts. Other actions, like attacks, add more to their clock. On each turn every character whose personal clock matches the game’s clock can do something.

The time aspect is interesting, and is growing on me with more plays. I think it's a definite step forward from other CMGs combat systems, and allows for some very interesting planning and strategy. You can plan to have your characters all take actions on the same turn, or spread them out. Since you can also see your opponent’s miniature’s clocks, you can also plan around when they will next move. It’s very simple, though it will be better with the actual bases for the game, but makes for interesting strategy.

The map provided with the demo, is a simple hex-based map. There are 3 types of special terrain; forest, hills and victory point locations. The game has simple line of sight rules, which can quickly be resolved with the map. Overall the map is very symmetrical, and games tend to start with opposing teams on opposite sets of the map, and meeting in the middle.

Action Cards:

Action cards are attached to each character, and give them optional actions on their turns. Each character can have 2 action cards. Normally when they are used you will exhaust them, meaning they can not be reused again until the clock resets to 1. These actions can be special attacks, heal skills, or other useful boosts. Action cards can be limited to specific character classes (priest, warrior, mage, etc..) or even to specific characters. When creating a team to play, choosing appropriate action cards will be a big part of the decisions process.

The action cards are a huge part of the game and really form your strategy. Having more action cards to pick from will be a big deal, and add a lot of dimension to the game. Since I believe each character comes with 2 specific cards, this means the cards inherit their rarity from the character they come with. Thus there should be more action cards from the common characters available. Put another way, this is both a CMG and a CCG, since action cards can and will be collected separately from the miniatures. I can very much see situations where ability cards and miniatures will be traded separately.

This is interesting because it slightly improves the situation when buying blind booster packs. Even if you play only alliance miniatures, you will still likely want ability cards from the other factions.

Action cards also allow you to customize a miniature. In most other CMGs each miniature has a definite set of abilities. This game provides more choices and flexibility in creating your group of characters which is nice.

Winning:

The game is played until one party/team reaches a specific number of Victory Points. Each team may be playing to reach a different number of points, based on the characters they are using. Each character has an honor value, and it appears that stronger characters have a higher honor value. Each team adds the honor values of their characters together to get the number of victory points they need to win.

Victory points are earned in 2 ways. Killing an opposing character will earn you 4 victory points. The map also has special spaces that give you 1 victory point for each character on or next to the space at the end of turns 5 and 10.

Combat results in rolling D10s, lots of them. The attacker rolls a number of D10s equal to the strength of the attack. Each roll of 4 or higher is a success, and doing a point of damage. The defender rolls D10s equal to their defense, with each 4 or higher block a point of damage. Rolling a 10 is called a critical, and may result in extra damage or other bonuses.

Combat is quick and simple in practice. Due to the high numbers of dice rolls, results can be pretty random. When a character is killed, they have 2 ticks added to their clock and then respawn on their side of the board.

Overall:

The game plays very fast, often less than 15 minutes. It’s quick to setup, and provides a decent amount of fun for a miniature skirmish game. There is also talk of potential dungeon crawl expansion, as well as large monsters that can be battled as a group.

There are 3 factions currently in the game. Alliance and Horde have characters in the demo game. A Monster faction will be introduced when the game is released.

The game will be sold in fixed starters (with the same characters as the demo I believe), random started (with fancy new maps), or in random boosters. Boosters will have 3 miniatures but all of those will be from the same faction. The boosters will not indicate which faction you are buying, so collecting only a single faction will be difficult.

Good:

-Timing mechanic is interesting and provides strategy
-Action cards allow miniatures to be further customized for play
-Multiple play styles, when future expansions are released

Indifferent:

-Collectible, it is a collectible game, you are either OK with that or not
-Dice fest, it has a lot of random dice rolls, you are either OK with that or not

Bad:

-Random booster’s make collecting specific factions impossible without trading

Edit:
A less positive review:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/332418

Upper Deck released a downloadable demo of the highly anticipated WoW minis game. It is the contents of the Basic Starter.

So I downloaded it, printed it out, changed my tri-color ink cartridge and printed it out again so it was readable. I then cut out the handful of cards and made the little standee heroes, since you can't actually print out miniatures unless you have one of those really cool 3D printers, but even then, I don't think Upper Deck is releasing the data for 3D printing.

You might be able to tell I'm kind of stalling here. This is because I look at my Minis gamer microbadge and my CMG microbadge and I wonder what went wrong.

As an early disclaimer, I really love the collecty format of games, so lets just skip anything dealing with that.

Now, I will readily admit that the purchased game will obviously exceed my inkjet version. By turn two of the first game, my son shook his head and said "This will be so much better with miniatures". And he's right. Not just because they promise to be really friggin cool, but because of things like damage counters on the mini bases, and the Click indicator time phase thing.

And that's the element that sets this apart from other mini games on the market right now. The click indicator time phase thing. Which we simulated by putting a 10 sided die next to each paper standee guy. Yeah, I'm sure the game is less fiddly with a proper counter.

The mechanic is very nifty. If you've ever played Car Wars, you've seen it before. OK, maybe its different, but its the same concept. The game is not an igougo (I go, You go) game. Actions take different amounts of time (seconds?) and determine when the character can do something next.

The result is a creative variable downtime in a way. Some dudes have a main attack that takes 2 seconds. Some dudes take 3. OK, the 2 second attack is weaker, but that guy gets to do it quite a bit more often. On turn 1, if you take a 2 click action, you move your timer to 3 (1+2), and then when the turn counter gets to 3, you activate again. This would be real striking and original if it wasn't done 20 years ago by Car Wars in a slightly modified version.

But the effect is really cool and works nicely.

There are two types of attack - magic and physical. And each has its own defend. While not apparent in this demo starter, I assume that the keywords (like FIRE) may have certain resistances and such somewhere in the set so that this means more than THIS attack type and THAT attack type. Combat is roll a number of D10s equal to your attack number in the type you are using. 1-3 misses, everyting else hits. Then the defender rolls for their defense for that attack type, again, 1-3 misses. Remaining damage applies.

Yes, it's pretty much HeroScape with D10s, and you roll nice handfuls of dice, and I'm OK with that.

Attacks can get Criticals (10s). No matter how many you roll, it counts as one. Usually its a bonus point of damage. Sometimes its a cool area effect or healing or something, but you can't really plan all that much on it.

Terrain is simple (forest, +1 defend, hill, +1 attack), but servicable. There's also VP spots. You get 1 VP for being on or adjacent to one on tick 5 and 10 (the clock repeats from there) and you get 4 VP for destroying an opponent (who respawns 2 ticks later). Oddly, you don't get more VP for killing tougher dudes. So if you're bringing a squad of weak guys, hoping for quick VPs, I guess they all have targets painted on their foreheads for quick kills. Everyone has the same movement (2), again, at least with the figs provided.

You win when your VPs equal or exceed your Honor, which is like unit cost. When you start the game, you choose number of dudes in the fight. Not points. You then look at your crew, and figure out your victory total. Again, there's a library of games that have done this before, but its a nice change for army building in this type of game. You want all the brutes? Man, you're gonna need a boatload of VPs. On the other hand, those weenies on the otehr team needs only a handful of VPs. It will be interesting to see how tht plays out once army building comes in.

Of course, this demo has no army building. One team has a magical powerhouse gnome (to save on plastic costs?) and a dranei (good demon) paladin, who is pretty well rounded and can heal. The other team has a blood elf healer and a mighty melee Orc. These appear to be balanced.

Each guy also gets some cards of abilities, like a different attack or a defense. When you use a card, you can't use it agin until the clock strikes 1 again. Although, in a very nifty move, some of the cards are re-readied as their critical hit, so you MIGHT get another use soon.

Wow. This sounds awesome! Nothing hugely groundbreaking, but a nice mix of little touches to make for a cool game. Let's play.

...

That was it? That was the game? What was that, like 6 minutes? Did you get to actually make any choices you felt affected the outcome?

Let's try again.

So, wait... The map is really this small? OK, the map, in all truth is a nice size. But there's not a lot of hexes. And the VPs are the obvious targets to run to.

So a game is pretty much this:

Move guys towards VPs. (they can't reach on turn 1, but they don't need to be there until 5.

Get on VP spots (no one has any reason to use any skills at this point, so its basically IgoUgo). Oh, look, guys in range. Roll to attack. Roll to defend. There is no incentive to save card powers until a later time, so use them as soon as they apply, especially if they might reset for another use. If I don't heal myself this tick, I'll die next, so I better heal. Oops, guy down. 4 VP. Hey, its Tick 5, everyone gets some VPs.

Hey, Alliance team (gnome and dranei) wins.

Five times in a row.

Unbalanced? Maybe. But I think 3 of those wins would be classified as wholesale slaughters with final scores like 11-3. That seems a bit more than 'unbalanced'.

The board is tiny. Tactical choices are something between 'do I want this dude or that dude to stand in the VP zone' and 'Should I send this guys Left this time, or send him right just like last time?'

If each team is defensive, they will sprint to the VP zones, not fight and end up in a tie, simply ticking on VPs. Woohoo. I can picture two little clusters of guys throwing rocks at each other.

The rules promise all sorts of coolness. Yes, the blood elf attacks a bunch more. Yes the gnome is really powerful. Yes, healing is useful.

And in the end, man was it... predictable and simply no fun.

HOWEVER.

This scenario that I went through has several things lacking. That is, real minis, the real bases to keep track of ticks and hits, and OTHER MINIS. Maybe with 5 dudes on a team, the game opens up. On the other hand, maybe it clogs up, and simply becomes more of the same toe to toe dice rolling.

What I can guarantee with all certainty is that if you buy this Basic Starter (which is exactly these figs and such), there is no game fun here. There might be component fun. But the game is hugely lacking, as all choices are so stupidly obvious that there is no room to say "Hey, cool move!" or "I bet you didn't expect THAT!" because, well, there's no surprises to be had here. Can the game be deeper, with trying to have guys synergistically have actions all on the same tick? OK, I guess. Can you choose to kill a guy on tick 3 rather than tick 1 so he can't run to a VP zone? Sure, I guess. These don't add up to exciting tactics.

The sum of the parts is definitely less than the individual ideas here.

There is a good chance this game is pretty good. There's nothing wrong with the rules and the interplay. With the exception of the fact that gameplay itself is boring and predictable. Extra minis and army building MAY spice it up. Or may not.

If this were a paper only game, as the PrintNPlay version I played, I would rate it maybe a 4. With minis and better bases for record keeping, making it less fiddly (or, for all we can guess, maybe the bases are hard to read and use), I might raise this game to a 5.

It is very very possible that with a selection of minis to build an army from that this game becomes a solid 7, possibly an 8. Or a 5.

As it stands, the Basic Starter is a demo of the mechanics, and hopefully not of the gameplay.

So much potential . . .

Both of these are based on a printable version of the game that was released as a demo before the actual game.

INeedNoSalt · November 2008

2v2 has always been the least balanced arena

DampCat · November 2008

Darkewolfe wrote: »

Yes, thank you both for having contributed absolutely nothing to the discussion, while expressing your nerd-superiority on a gaming forum on the internet.

Oh i'm sorry! I obviously havent quite got the hang of the word "discussion". You see, what i was obviously failing to do, was "discuss" the reasons that the style of this game, relevent to this thread, is unappealing to me.

Is there are FAQ or Sticky or something i can look at so i know which superiorities are ok to express? I mean, my Nerd Superiorities are not ok, but your Moral Superiorities are? Your very intelligent scathing yet placid dig has not failed to raise you to new heights, on this gaming forum, on the internet. Hail!

DMAC · November 2008

Oh man! Sarcastic Nerd Face-off! I love this show!

PMAvers · November 2008

*steers the thread back on track*

Got a Starter pack tonight, with the fixed 2v2 teams.

It's pretty damn fun, I gotta say.

...Although, I think the teams aren't really balanced between each other. The paladin/mage can just *smoke* the crap out of the warrior/priest (hooray for the warrior having a 1 Resist!), and the priest's heal doesn't seem to be very effective.

Jeezebus, the paladin's seal attack, where if he gets a crit on his normal melee attack, he gets a free 4-dice Holy magic attack too on the defender?

Mouschi · November 2008

Yeah, that paladin is baller. Flash heal has around a 35% crit chance, and only takes 2 ticks. If he gets lucky in a turn, he can just spam it through focus fire. LIKE A REAL PALADIN EXCEPT EFFECTIVE. And then the mage just smokes the warrior with 6 damage against 1 resist, and you get lol victory points.

I'm eager to see how well the game actually balances with a wide selection of characters and abilities, and 3v3 instead of the fixed 2v2 that I played through with the starter.

Also, werewolves. I'm eager to see WEREWOLVES.

Darkewolfe · November 2008

It's interesting that you say the paladin is the overpowered part. All of the reviews of the printable demo version of the game seemed to imply that the mage was what made Alliance so devestating.

But yeah, I have to imagine that once you can bring your own team of 3 it becomes a drastically different game.

Edit: Also, it turns out the release tournament, at least around here, isn't till next week. The game store clerk said something about Blizzard not having mailed the tournament pack to them yet, and sounded really surprised.

Brainleech · November 2008

I am thinking about picking it up still even though I saw a demo over a few other people. But I had a question are all the models pre painted because someone was talking about only the larger of the two sets had painted minis

Mage Knight is gone?

Darkewolfe · November 2008

All the minis are pre-painted. Some of them look pretty good, some of them look terrible, as with the other pre-painted games. Mage Knight has been gone for awhile. They tried to revive it with Mage Knight 2.0 but that went nowhere. Also, apparently Wizkids has been closed by their parent company.

PMAvers · November 2008

Darkewolfe wrote: »

It's interesting that you say the paladin is the overpowered part. All of the reviews of the printable demo version of the game seemed to imply that the mage was what made Alliance so devestating.

I think the Mage, even though he's super-nasty, at least is killable. The paladin, on the other hand, can do as much, if not more, damage than the warrior and can heal himself for basically nothing. And, can possibly heal multiple times if he crits.

Edit: Also, it turns out the release tournament, at least around here, isn't till next week. The game store clerk said something about Blizzard not having mailed the tournament pack to them yet, and sounded really surprised.

Well, if he's waiting for a package from Blizzard, he's going to be waiting a very long time, since it'd be Upper Deck that'd be sending them out.

Darkewolfe · November 2008

PMAvers wrote: »

Well, if he's waiting for a package from Blizzard, he's going to be waiting a very long time, since it'd be Upper Deck that'd be sending them out.

Shut up, you. I hadn't had coffee yet.

Mouschi · November 2008

My gaming store is doing the same thing, putting the release tournament off until next week. Our store's manager is also constantly talking down WoW minis, and saying Monsterpocalypse is much better. The store's minis case is totally full of monsterpocalypse stuff now, and... yeah.

I think she really hates Warcraft. It's unfortunate, since I'm excited about finding people to play this with around here, and I doubt that'll happen if the store manager keeps talking the game down to anyone who'll listen.

Blurg · November 2008

Meh, I played WoW Mini's on Friday, wasnt all that exciting. Not something I would buy myself. other hard core WoW nerds might like it, but not even in same league as Star wars minis.

Scoota · November 2008

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/871414

40 minute video of a game my wife and I just played.

She had-
Ruby Gemsparkle
Grumphreys
Vindicator Hodoon

I had-
Bog Elemental
Boulderfist Warrior
Frostsaber Prowler

Darkewolfe · November 2008

Scoota wrote: »

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/871414

40 minute video of a game my wife and I just played.

She had-
Ruby Gemsparkle
Grumphreys
Vindicator Hodoon

I had-
Bog Elemental
Boulderfist Warrior
Frostsaber Prowler

Sweet, thanks for going through the effort to put that up! I've watched a bit of it, will have to catch the whole thing later. What was your overall assessment? Also, since you seem to have bought a few things, how large a collection do you think your average players should expect to need?

Scoota · November 2008

You'll need about 20-25 minis to actually 'compete' in a normal constructed game. For a fun game like the one i was playing with my wife you probably only need 10 or so minis.

Just having more minis gives you a bigger pool of abilities to pick from. For example, my tiger wouldn't have been able to use scroll of strength, because it comes with a different mini.

I really enjoy the game so far- I wasn't too into D&D minis, but this game is better just because of the tick (time) system. It defiantly gives you a better feeling of gameplay rather than just back and forth, your turn, my turn, type of gameplay.

I'm going to be making a brighter video with more details so everyone can see exactly what is happening on the board... if I can convince my wife to play again.

Scoota · November 2008

Scoota wrote: »

You'll need about 20-25 minis to actually 'compete' in a normal constructed game. For a fun game like the one i was playing with my wife you probably only need 10 or so minis.

Just having more minis gives you a bigger pool of abilities to pick from. For example, my tiger wouldn't have been able to use scroll of strength, because it comes with a different mini.

I really enjoy the game so far- I wasn't too into D&D minis, but this game is better just because of the tick (time) system. It defiantly gives you a better feeling of gameplay rather than just back and forth, your turn, my turn, type of gameplay.

I'm going to be making a brighter video with more details so everyone can see exactly what is happening on the board... if I can convince my wife to play again.

In case i wasn't clear- 10 minis = the starter 4 minis($25) and 2 boosters ($30) which is another 6 minis. That should give you more than enough options at least with minis to work with. You might have to mix and match horde/alliance/monster though, as you probably won't have enough to make a same faction team (let alone two).

The map that we were playing on was from the release even this past Saturday. I don't know if they are going to release those to the public in general - currently you can only get them from winning a local tournament. It's got Tanaris on the other side.

Theres also a vinyl Tanaris map thats going around- stores only got one of them, and if you won the tournament this weekend you got that map. I didn't get it

Thats ok though, I laminated the map you see here, so i don't have to worry about creases and it stays nice and flat.

Darkewolfe · November 2008

Yeah, they're having that tournament here on Friday. I figured I'd go. What did they ask you to buy to participate in your store's tourney? Website says it's sealed format.

Scoota · November 2008

Darkewolfe wrote: »

Yeah, they're having that tournament here on Friday. I figured I'd go. What did they ask you to buy to participate in your store's tourney? Website says it's sealed format.

Most likely they're going to ask you to buy a Starter and a Booster.. so $40 total for the product, maybe another $5 for the tournament.

You get to take the 3 'best' of your guys and use them in it- most likely you'll only play 2 games, and whoever wins both goes home with prizes.

The store I was at was the official UDE store in Huntington Beach, CA, so they had some special rules with prizes (more prizes) than a normal store.

Try to at least get the map that i got (you should be playing on that there anyway in the tournament), plus try to get some green die and the green ubases, which are tournament prizes only.

Darkewolfe · November 2008

Ooh, thanks for the heads up. More maps seems like an obvious thing to want. Fancy dice and bases are great for nifty factor.

I figured they'd want me to buy a starter, which is why I've held off on buying anything until the event. Is there any reason at all you'd ever want two starters? (Since the models inside are always the same?

Scoota · November 2008

Darkewolfe wrote: »

Ooh, thanks for the heads up. More maps seems like an obvious thing to want. Fancy dice and bases are great for nifty factor.

I figured they'd want me to buy a starter, which is why I've held off on buying anything until the event. Is there any reason at all you'd ever want two starters? (Since the models inside are always the same?

You don't want two starters. You get 3 die of each color (3 red, 3 blue), so if you really wanted all of one color, that'd be the reason for getting another starter. Also, the ubases are mediocre, and its a mixed bag if you get a good one or not- meaning that sometimes your minis will pop out of the ubase, or it'll never fit. If you get two starters you have a better chance of getting 6 normal ubases.

I know thats a weird way to go about it, but yeah, those would be the only reasons for wanting two different starters.

You might want to call ahead to the store and see what prizes their giving out- i'm getting reports now that all the maps are gone.

Scoota · November 2008

http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/WOW/COMMUNITY/forums/thread/1545815.aspx

http://www.vassalengine.org/community/index.php?option=com_vassal_modules&task=display&module_id=591&page=Files

Here's the full release for WoW Minis Vassal mod.

Features:

Entire collection of miniature proxies, character cards and action cards for Core Set.

Ashenvalle map only.

Save/Load warband

Hidden action cards when Loading a saved warband (I suggest using the Save/Load feature when playing tournament-style, because cards taken from the Action Cards menu are not hidden)

For next week:

*Scan the Tanaris and Winterspring maps, and create a board for those. I want to do this right and I don't have the time today. I'll have to scan them in parts and then sew it all up back together, so I want to make sure it doesn't look like crap. If anyone has a scanner big enough to scan those in one go, or for some reason have a PDF or other file format of the maps to give to me, well that would be super.

Longer term:

* Draft/Sealed deck support

This is hard. If anyone else wants to do it, I'll be happy. Technically, I think the actual draft would be easier with a web app of some sort, then people bring their warbands to VASSAL to play. The Dreamblade draft feature was sort of hacked/tacked on, and it seems like doing that kind of hack for WoW Minis is even more of a pain due to minis/cards being secret rather than public, and other considerations like that.

* Low res version

I would think it would be easy to include a low res version of the mod, with highly compressed and low resolution images for the minis and cards, which would still be compatible with the high res version. This would be for people who think the current 6 megs size is prohibitive.

For anyone thats not familiar with what this is- its basically what OCTGN was for the WoW TCG- allows you to play the game online. Its pretty slick so far- it has a whole server browser interface and everything. If you enjoy this, make sure to give props back to the original link at the top of my post.

Zombiemambo · November 2008

Scoota wrote: »

http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/WOW/COMMUNITY/forums/thread/1545815.aspx

http://www.vassalengine.org/community/index.php?option=com_vassal_modules&task=display&module_id=591&page=Files

Here's the full release for WoW Minis Vassal mod.

Features:

Entire collection of miniature proxies, character cards and action cards for Core Set.

Ashenvalle map only.

Save/Load warband

Hidden action cards when Loading a saved warband (I suggest using the Save/Load feature when playing tournament-style, because cards taken from the Action Cards menu are not hidden)

For next week:

*Scan the Tanaris and Winterspring maps, and create a board for those. I want to do this right and I don't have the time today. I'll have to scan them in parts and then sew it all up back together, so I want to make sure it doesn't look like crap. If anyone has a scanner big enough to scan those in one go, or for some reason have a PDF or other file format of the maps to give to me, well that would be super.

Longer term:

* Draft/Sealed deck support

This is hard. If anyone else wants to do it, I'll be happy. Technically, I think the actual draft would be easier with a web app of some sort, then people bring their warbands to VASSAL to play. The Dreamblade draft feature was sort of hacked/tacked on, and it seems like doing that kind of hack for WoW Minis is even more of a pain due to minis/cards being secret rather than public, and other considerations like that.

* Low res version

I would think it would be easy to include a low res version of the mod, with highly compressed and low resolution images for the minis and cards, which would still be compatible with the high res version. This would be for people who think the current 6 megs size is prohibitive.

For anyone thats not familiar with what this is- its basically what OCTGN was for the WoW TCG- allows you to play the game online. Its pretty slick so far- it has a whole server browser interface and everything. If you enjoy this, make sure to give props back to the original link at the top of my post.

Since it's a mod, what do you need to play it?

EDIT: God damn it

MAYBE YOU NEED VASSAL SINCE IT'S A VASSAL MOD DURR HURR

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