arcane legions
I realize this is going to be a bit of a niche post, not too many people who read this play miniature games. Then again, it's not like I have been posting much recently anyway or that that many people read this in the first place. So maybe this will spur me to write more often, or at least give me a chance to mention something that I found recently.
About two weeks ago I picked up a copy of the miniature game Arcane Legions. Specifically, I picked up the starter set. This is the first miniature game that I picked up for the rules rather than the figures. The figures themselves are okay, but nothing to write home about. Below is a picture of the figures for the Egyptian side that came in the starter (I set up the Egyptian figs first since that's the side I'm considering playing). This is one of the three sides in the starter, the total cost $35 so not a bad deal at under $12 a side.
As you can see the figures are fairly simple but get the job done. Special figures, such as the one commander fig per side included in the starter, come prepainted to a fairly low standard, but might be fairly easily improved by a dark wash and a couple highlights. A finished army would have a lot more of these prepainted figures since many units include a lot of special figures. I am not particularly overjoyed with the paint jobs, I would rather paint them myself, but I realistically know that I don't have a ton of time so I probably would never get around to it. The inclusion of the painted shields for the units is a nice touch though, trying to get 20 shields to have the identical pattern in 25mm scale is horribly frustrating to do by hand, it's nice to have a machine do it for me.
I haven't had had a chance to play this yet. It's taken a back seat to classes and other things, and the one time I thought I'd be able to sneak a game in the guy I was planning on playing against happened to have come down with a bad cold. However, I want to mention a couple of impressions from reading the rules:
* I like the unit bases, it makes setup and movement much faster. It also makes building armies easier and figuring out enemy formations a snap, just glance on the card rather than having him pull out the rule from his book which you've never seen before.
* I am not enamored, however, with the idea of moving only 8 action points of units each turn. I can justify it, but I just like being able to move each unit each turn. Not a huge deal though.
* The forums have a thread started by representatives of the company looking for data about whether archery is overpowered. I think it might well be, but I can't speak authoritatively since I haven't played any games yet. I am just wondering how this didn't come up in play testing...
About two weeks ago I picked up a copy of the miniature game Arcane Legions. Specifically, I picked up the starter set. This is the first miniature game that I picked up for the rules rather than the figures. The figures themselves are okay, but nothing to write home about. Below is a picture of the figures for the Egyptian side that came in the starter (I set up the Egyptian figs first since that's the side I'm considering playing). This is one of the three sides in the starter, the total cost $35 so not a bad deal at under $12 a side.
As you can see the figures are fairly simple but get the job done. Special figures, such as the one commander fig per side included in the starter, come prepainted to a fairly low standard, but might be fairly easily improved by a dark wash and a couple highlights. A finished army would have a lot more of these prepainted figures since many units include a lot of special figures. I am not particularly overjoyed with the paint jobs, I would rather paint them myself, but I realistically know that I don't have a ton of time so I probably would never get around to it. The inclusion of the painted shields for the units is a nice touch though, trying to get 20 shields to have the identical pattern in 25mm scale is horribly frustrating to do by hand, it's nice to have a machine do it for me.
I haven't had had a chance to play this yet. It's taken a back seat to classes and other things, and the one time I thought I'd be able to sneak a game in the guy I was planning on playing against happened to have come down with a bad cold. However, I want to mention a couple of impressions from reading the rules:
* I like the unit bases, it makes setup and movement much faster. It also makes building armies easier and figuring out enemy formations a snap, just glance on the card rather than having him pull out the rule from his book which you've never seen before.
* I am not enamored, however, with the idea of moving only 8 action points of units each turn. I can justify it, but I just like being able to move each unit each turn. Not a huge deal though.
* The forums have a thread started by representatives of the company looking for data about whether archery is overpowered. I think it might well be, but I can't speak authoritatively since I haven't played any games yet. I am just wondering how this didn't come up in play testing...