WOW Minis Intro

With the closing of Wizkids Games late last year, a sizable hole opened up in the miniature games market. While Upper Deck certainly could not have planned on Wizkids shutting down, they have certainly done an excellent job of filling the gap left by them. WOW minis is a fast playing warband scale game which provides a decent range of strategic options while remaining fairly consistent with the WOW universe.

For the Tabletop Battlefield Review of this game, check out Season 3 Episode 2

Overall Game Play

While WOW is highly customizable and expandable, Upper Deck intends the game to be played with three to five characters on a side. Battles are short, with the average tournament game lasting around 45 minutes, and are played on a somewhat small hex grid map. The combat system is clean, simple, and straight forward. It's quite similar to Heroscape, except that instead of custom dice, WOW minis uses near standard d10s. This game is a collectible miniatures game and the price per figure is fairly steep. Fortunately for us, a player really only needs the Deluxe Starter Set and a booster or two in order to have a decent army.

Image Gallery

Character Stats

Every character in the game has a matching card which lists the stats and attacks about them. Under standard tournament rules, players may also add two action bar cards to their characters. Action bar cards add extra attacks, abilities, and options to the game. They are a nice feature of this game because they add tactical depth with minimal complexity. One complaint that some WOW players will have is that the cards are not as detailed as they could be. While the various schools of magic(Shadow, Holy, Fire, etc) are present in the game, they have little effect on it.

Map Boards

While the map in the core starter set is cheap and flimsy, the ones that come in the deluxe set are quite high quality and customizable. Maps tend be a bit small for anything more then 5 character games, but map boards can be placed next to each other to expand the size of the play area. Too bad for us, the only way to get additional maps is to buy more starter sets.(More on this below) Another disappointment for WOW fans is that some of the iconic WOW battlefields are not present. Even though terrain tactics exist in the game, they are extremely simplified.

The Personal Clock System - AWESOME

I think the coolest feature of WOW minis is its personal clock system. Players do not necessarily take turns moving figures. Along the top of the board is a row of numbers. These numbers are used to keep track of the current time 'tick'. Each character then has a personal clock on its base. When the current time 'tick' matches the number on the personal clock of a figure, the figure may act. Each action taken by a figure will increase its personal clock by one or more ticks. More powerful attacks will increase a personal clock more then weaker attacks. In the time it takes a character to make a more powerful attack, it may have been able to make several smaller attacks instead. Simply put, this mechanic adds additional strategy and tactics to the game. It is awesome.

Epic Fails - uBases and Product Distrubution

The biggest failures of the game lie not in game design, but in product design/packaging. WOW Mini figures are designed to be attached to uBases. Ubases are sort of like detachable Wizkids Clix dials except they don't stay on the figure very well. It is quite common to pick a figure up during a game and have the uBase fall off. Of course when this happens, it messes up the stat tracking of the figures. Even worse is the fact the uBases only come in Starter Sets. If you want to play a large battle such as 9 vs 9, expect to buy at least three Starter Sets. Not only are the uBases hard to come by, but so are the maps. Each Deluxe Starter Set comes with a single random map. Do you want to play on a 2x2 board? Go pick up 4 Starter Sets. This type of product distribution is an absolute nightmare. Upper Deck should have gone with some sort of map/accessory pack like Monsterpocalypse. Can I also say that a few more dice would have been a nice thing to add also?

Overall Final Review

To finish things up, Upper Deck is off to good start with WOW Minis. The rules are solid for the most part. I think the game could have been taken a little farther in some areas such as terrain/special ability tactics, but some sacrifices need to be made for ease of play. The most glaring absence for me is the lack of cooperative play, but this could be added in a future expansion. I am looking forward to participating in a tournament, assuming I can find one...