Review of the WoW miniatures Preview at PAX.

Hey all,

I got the chance to play test the mini's game at PAX. I figured I'd post my thoughts and toss up some pics.



My first impression of the game is that it is AWESOME! I'm really excited about rolling it out for my friends to play. I play Warmachine and Hordes (Circle of Orboros,) but many of my friends in my play circle don't want to get into mini's to the toon of hundreds of dollars spent, and all that time putting models to gether and painting them. After Playing the World of WarCraft Miniatures Game, I'm really stoked about the possibility of getting some of my 'lesser hard core' friends into finally throwing down on some miniature warfare!

I may have had a lucky shake, in that the fellow running the demo game that I played in was Justin Gary lead designer / brand - Product manager for the WoW Miniatures Game. His enthusiasm for the game was contagious, it seemed that he was really enjoying showing us the demo... with four of us standing around rapid firing machine gun like questions about everything we saw; "what are these numbers on the side for?" - "What does that marking around that hex mean? Is it rough Terrain? How do we move into it?" - "What is the VP spot on the map for?" All of which he would have gotten to, if we'd have let him just do his presentation heh, he was a good sport and answered our questions patiently, jumping back into the planned demo whenever possible.


I really liked the approach taken with movement, by simplifying movement, you don't have to break out a measuring tape for each model, and basing 'turns' on a clock mechanic, you alleviate about a billion things that discourage me when playing other mini's games. For one, there's no debate over whether something is 'in range' or not... no 'slips' of the measuring tape that seem to give your opponent an extra half an inch on every move. heh. Perhaps you've never had that experience, but trust me; it's nice not to have to even worry about it! By doing movement based on a grid map, and basing powers and attacks on a clock mechanic, many of the rules are simplified without removing the 'tactical' portions of a miniatures game.



----------------------| A couple of the Miniatures |---------------------




Here is a picture of the play area and you can see the figure scale... as compared to a 288 pound man...

Plastic pre painted: Well, I can tell you, there just isn't anything cooler than an army of metal figures painstakingly painted with tender loving care all spread out on a battle field, and that's just how it is.

That said, there are plenty of draw backs which pre painted plastic fig's fix. I'll just list em here: (ya sure, I'm doing this as sort of a personal exercise attempting to complete my conversion to the medium... but stick with me for a sec.)

Here goes:

Price: Plastics are just less expensive. That's a given.

Time: And this one is HUGE! Seriously, if I can get a fig put together and painted in less than 2.5 hours, I'm doing pretty dang good. That’s allot of time I coulda been playing.

Transportability: sure Metal is stronger - but I'll be honest, I don't feel like I have to be as protective about my plastic figs as I don metal ones. No special army transport case for plastic... unless a cardboard box is special...

ok, those are the best arguments - so, I guess I have to place those against the fact that I really like the feel of Metal figures, and the look of Painted metal Figs. and put that up against the above arguments, as well as consider the fact that these plastic minis look FANTASTIC! I counted 6 individual colors on one model alone while I was at the preview game. That's great! The sculpts were fantastic! So, at least if they can't be metal painted figs, they do still look just about as good as a person could get.
I suppose if someone was real ambitious, they could paint over the pre-paint... call it a sort of a primer coat. But, honestly I don't think that people will need to do that, the figs looked great!

Some other features that I really liked were the universal removable game bases. Very cool. When I have these on a shelf, they can look like a great collectible. When I want to play, snap on a game base, and I have some great info. For use in my games! It’s like they took the thing that wasn't fun with Hero Clicks (that all the models had that clunky base on them,) and the thing that wasn't so cool with DnD minis. (That all the models don't have anything that helps use them in a game on them,) and came up with a solution that works for collectors and players alike. I love that idea! I just hope that the bases or figs don't were out so that it’s difficult to get the figure to stay attached to the base... we shall see.

Well, I'd like to write a bit more about my experience, but I'm all out of time. I had a Blast, and really appreciated Justin taking time to run me through a game!

I'm really looking forward to Bliz Con where I'll be able to play in a turny it sounds like, where I can keep the models that I play with.




oh.. Dang, I didn't mention the 'powers' cards - What a cool concept! By making powers on cards that you can mix and match, it really ups the re-playability of the game! Seriously, using cards that can change to 'enhance' the powers of your min is such a cool idea! I loved it absolutely and can't wait to learn all the 'powers' and put together an unstoppable force!

Thanks again!

zWolf -out.

(Wade Hone.)