After depressing political articles that were a bit TL;DR, I've come back to the point that we're here to talk about tabletop gaming and their many realms of adventure. Today I'll be looking at what I refer to as a "Pick-up Game", meaning that unlike a "Hobby Game" like Warhammer 40,000, Warmachine or Flames of War (all wargames have "war" in their title), these games can be picked up, played, and stored away until some later time, not requiring a large investment of money or time to collect and paint.
Today We'll be looking at Arcane Legions.
Wizkids was a company specializing in collectable miniatures games like Mageknight (my first introduction to mini's gaming), Heroclix, and Pirates of the Spanish Main. They had much success since if you can make trading cards playable, you can do the opposite with miniatures games. After they closed down, some of their designers went ahead to form the company Well's Expedition, and in stead of the innovation of their clicky base, have decided to do something more in line of Games Workshop's style. Behold their latest creation.
In the year 42BCE, a mysterious magical force was unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. The miasmic shockwave of pure otherworldly magic spread outward from a point somewhere in the middle east, and in a few short hours plunged the entire globe into chaos. In those terrible moments, human civilization changed forever.
Magic infused their very bones, manifested in their children, came unbidden to the fingertips of their women, and plagued their countryside in uncontrolled bursts of power. Ordinary beasts of the wilderness were turned by these bursts into fanciful creatures of legend. Entire tribes of humans from all corners of the world were altered by the flood of uncontrolled magic, changing before the very eyes of their friends and neighbors into elves, dwarves, orcs, trolls, centaurs, and even minotaurs. Creatures that normally existed between our reality and others were shunted into this one, leaving ghosts, faeries, and other magical creatures stranded in our world in ways they were never intended to be. Even remnants of the Old World, gods of the ancients and their ken, were awakened from their immortal slumber through this great cataclysm to trouble mankind once more.
The world had changed forever.
The year is now 37BCE and the middle-east sits at the center of a vast struggle to control humanity’s fate. Three powerful nations have harnessed the power unleashed by the day of chaos, and they struggle to claim dominance over the known world. Their arcane legions are now yours to control.
Arcane Legions is a collectible game where you control an army (roughly the size of one in a decent sized game ofWarhammer Fantasy) against your opponent in pitched battle, consisting of historical units like egyptian archers and SPAAAAAAAAARTAAAAAANS with mythical things like minotaurs and dragons. It's a pretty neat idea with a nifty mechanic for organizing your men into formations. where there positioning can affect the squad's outcome and performance. I'll copypaste something from BGG:
"Players each field "bases" of variable sizes (Sortie/small and Formation/large) with individual figures inserted into starting positions on the base. The goal is to control victory point areas and inflict losses on the opponent. Movement and battle resolution are conducted through a unique formation management mechanic that allows players to move figures around on the unit bases to increase either movement/melee/ranged combat at the cost of losing capabilities in the other areas.
Figures are highly detailed true 25mm made from PVC 105. Common figures are unpainted with colored tempo prints on banners and shields, while all the uncommon, rare and Commander figures (Booster Pack contents) are fully pre-painted. The game is designed to use both types. There are 9 different unpainted common figures for each faction and at least 20 different fully painted premium figures for each faction. If you buy a legion bundle of a faction you receive around 70 prepainted figures, whereas buying one of each army pack gets you about 54 unpainted figures."
Now as a pick-up game, it should be cheap right? Well:
"With more than 110 figures, the Starter Pack includes small armies for all three factions and enough formation bases, sortie bases and base cards for a complete two player game - all for $34.99
The Army Packs contain 40 common soldiers - $14.99
The Cavalry Packs contain 15 mounted figures - $14.99
The Booster Packs contain 5-10 (depending on the size) Leader / special figures and their associated base cards, plus five additional formation base cards for use with figures from the Army and Cavalry Packs - $11.99"
The final deal sealer is the incredibly campy set of videos explaining their game, like something you'd see out of a Command and Conquer FMV.I'll probably picking up that starter set for a quick spin, and hope that this is all that and a bag of Sun Chips.
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