I have two base games, two battle for Zendikar expansions and one copy of shadows over Innistrad (and I will get another copy). Having multiple copies allows multiple people to play planeswalkers of the same color and still build spell decks and use the same squads as well. Plus it gives you more terrain and glyphs and dice so it was worth the investment.
FWIW, at 6:05 when he says that the movement costs three, I think it's actually 4 since water is at level -1. It would be three from flat ground, up to spaces, and to the top.
My son just bought the game. I've NEVER played anything like it and even after watching the video, I don't understand the game play. I'd love to see an actual game being played between 2 players with each player discussing what they're doing and why. I really think this is the only way for an absolute novice to truly understand what's going on and how to proceed through the game the correct way. Thanks for the video.
For the double size cards, I just took two standard penny sleeves and put one on top and one on bottom. They overlap in the middle, which is both good and bad: the static electricity keeps them stuck together, but it also the makes the card stack fatter in the middle. Not perfect, but it works. The cards felt so flimsy that it felt necessary to sleeve them, haha.
I definitely agree. Right now the game is awesome, but it feels like there is so much more that could be in the game. I'm super excited to pick up the expansions when they come out
WOTC is in an interesting position with this game. They could make a ton of money on it because of Magic players, mini players, and Heroscape players all buying in. But I think it could also tank. Why don't a lot of us play Magic anymore? Cause we don't like chasing rares and spending insane amounts of money! Hopefully they follow the Star Wars Imperial Assault release model and make the expansions non random. If they do, I'm on board. If they don't, I know a lot of ex-magic players (myself included) who won't touch it with a ten foot pole....
Seth Dortch I play magic. I like chasing rares and spending....well I am too poor to spend insane amounts of money on MTG, but still. lol. This game looks great. Never played Heroscape but may have to look into that.
+Kevin Long I don't know... I kind of love the idea of introducing cards but... the terrain is looking not so satisfactory... I mean... give me some more glacier tundra forest stuff! This just looks cheap. And those walls or what are they... oh man....
Actually... no (IMHO). If you want the terrain you have with AotP it is set up in few mins (and it looks way more attractive - walls from plastic, translucent water tiles (1st edition), few glaciers, mountains and trees...). But if you want something more grand you CAN do it in HS, but not in AotP.
Awesome review of this man. I myself enjoy the game, although due to lack of expansion packs and all left me bummed a bit. So I made my own figures and stats and now use that to keep it fresh. Keep it going man. 👊🏼
Ok there's Magic: the Gathering Arena of the Planeswalkers + 2015 Magic The Gathering: Arena of the Planeswalkers Battle for Zendikar Expansion Pack + 2015 Magic The Gathering: Arena of the Planeswalkers Shadows Over Innistrad Game + 2016 Its nov 2017. Guess we don't getting anything :(
You did not mention that in order to determine line of sight, you bend your head down to the board to figure out if a figure can "see" another figure. That has to be the dumbest rule. And to make this worse, if there is a dispute, you both roll a d20 to see who wins the dispute. Then it talks about moving the figures in and out of sight. It is totally subjective. I think I might change this to "if there is no obstacle between two figures whose height is greater than both of the the figures, the figures can see each other."
Bought this really cheap about 3 years ago and just took it out of the shrink wrap. I had never heard anything about it previously or even really looked at what the game was about. I was impressed by the games contents when I opened it up and now I'll definitely play some 2v2's with friends. Thanks for the review Tom, love your content. Read the rule book in full tonight, and afterwards I like to watch your videos for solidification of what I learned. It's always nice to hear you casually break down the mechanics as opposed to the written text. Relatively well written rule book but still helps
Was hit by a drunk driver and lost my left leg so it's hard for me to do things with my son but he kind of likes fantasy stuff so I got this game at a yard sale recently never was much into board games but I'm looking forward to playing this with him
This game is like running into an old friend because he married a new friend. Here's hoping that next year's Zendikar expansion includes a jumbo-sized Ulamog figure.
+Nathan Herbeck some foil versions of the base Planeswalkers cards(useless), like 6 more pieces of terrain hexes, and two extra glyphs. The terrain is totally worth it if it were a few dollars more, and mine was actually cheaper than the other one, off Walmarts website
Awesome game but my issue is getting in marked Glyphs. Sent one back and my return had two more marked Glyphs than the previous. No idea as to how why but they need to tighten up on that. No sense of having them face down if everyone knows which one is which.
This reminds me a lot of battleship : galaxies. "it's gonna be awesome with the expansions !!!!" and they never came out... I guess "magic" has a better chance, thanks to brand recognition alone.
+Kayla Kaze The second has now but it seems really unlikely well ever get a third. The bright side. All three sets a super cheap on amazon at the moment. Anyone who likes this game I would recommend buying all 3 sets cheap now. You can get everything for under $40 and still have a great game to play with friends even if nothing else ever comes out.
Do you find the mix of transparent and opaque plastic distracting at all? Because even you just showing the transparent and opaque units next to each other on the video was a bit bothersome to me (The transparent units with the prepainted planeswalkers, not so much, it was the transparent units - Red and Blue - next to the opaque units - Green, White and Black.)
Gizensha Fox To be fair, the opaque figures in green, white, and black make sense, as those are 'solid' creatures. Blue and red, however, focus on Water and Fire, therefore it does make a kind of thematic sense for the 'water' and 'fire' creatures to be translucent.
got this today at goodwill, 50% all toys this weekend. paid 6$ for it. all there. but one little tiny hit counter square! score-- almost got pandemic, but they wanted 15$ for it AFTER the discount open box.. shine. keep an eye out for games there!
I must admit, i am warming to this game. Having seen Nicks' unboxing vid on Board Game Brawl and now Toms' review, this could be good. I never got into MTG and Heroscape passed me by, but i love miniature games and arena style combat. For the expected price it seems worth it, even if only for the miniatures. I do however see it becoming another bank account emptier, like dicemasters and other collectable/expandable games.
Chad The Inhaler's Hobby World. Hopefully they follow the Star Wars Imperial Assault model and release non random boosters. If they don't I say, save your money. Magic was fun but it is the most expensive game ever! (besides maybe Warhammer 40K)
Tom is so right about how they should have released (at least some) expansions alongside the base game. There are definitely people who will want more... quickly.
I kinda want to paint those figures but I don't want to ruin the transparent figures. Would it look dumb to have multi-colored figures with mono-colored transparent figures?
I'm actually kind of "meh" on this. One of the big points of flavor about Magic is drawing on the land for mana, and they had such an opportunity to do that here. Also, I know they're holding back some stuff for expansions, but I didn't see any of the iconic creatures I expect in a Magic game. I wouldn't expect them all at once, but a Tarmogoyf or a Serra Angel or something like that would have been much cooler. The planeswalker minis do look pretty awesome though, but I'll probably stick to Heroscape.
i saw this at Walmart and was really excited! I had a dream a few months ago where I was playing an awesome MTG board game, so logically when I saw this being sold I thought my dream had come true... sadly it seems a little... i don't know... it seems to lack that MTG flare.
If this game was MTG TCG compatible (which actually wouldn't be that hard) it would be broken. EVERYBODY would play it. A little conversion of MTG data and you could make a Commander-ish deck for this game.
I know im extremely late to this party but i just picked it up with the base game for like $7 and I'm thinking of converting some other planeswalkers into playable ones, or somehow convering it to tcg compatible if someone hasnt beat me to it
I'm cool with extra stuff, but will they go crazy with it like they have with their card game? it releases so often I cannot keep up. I know I know, don't be a completionist, but meh. I get caught up at wanting a game at it's full potential.
Stephen Gross Agreed. I purchased a ton of the Heroscape stuff both Master sets, the tower, the Iceland, the forest, several waves, but only played using the 1st master set. This looks cool.
I missed the Heroscape releases and era and this is all I've got.... I read people buying two sets of all the 2 expansions and the base game which I don't like as I suspect there will be "some" redundant duplication, another thing the 2nd Expansion SoInnistrad wasn't available in Europe and I had to import from the US, come on Wizards of The Coast help EU out please.
Nice little game. They messed up by making everything unique. You can ignore that i guess. But they ruled out multiple purchases. Its just not quite customisable enough. Just bad marketing. You can buy it for less than a tenner. At that price point people would have bought multiples. Silly things like the board maps been only one sided would have added much more interest to the game. That said. You would be crazy not to have a copy of this on your shelf. For the price its a nice game.
A cardboard board, hardly any plastic terrain, crappy cardboard stand-up, cheep dice, and honestly the replayability factor looks really low without expansions. I'm disappointed and won't consider this until we see some expansions to see if it will be worth it. Everyone who doesn't have Heroscape looks to be out of luck for now.
Mister Rob I'm guessing it was a Hasbro decision to really cheapify things. Basically, for $30, I'm buying this for the miniatures. =) I'm also looking forward to expansions before I pull the trigger. I was never big on Heroscape but I am a big fan of MTG but I'm not sure that's enough from what I've seen so far.
Joseph Sedita a step back, well put. Look at the amazing games we have these days, this in no way looks amazing. I fear that Heroscape fans may have their fond memories clouding their judgement on this one.
Mister Rob Mark my words, they will be making terrain only expansions to really squeeze out as much cash from this puppy as possible. Why give you the plastic now, when they know you will buy the expansions later.
I wonder why they just didn't do this as another release of Heroscape, just a MTG themed one... then they could still do more of various themes and also continue doing MTG themed ones as well. If Heroscape seemed so viable to them, why not just do it as Heroscape or 2.0 (yet compatible)?
I saw this at Comic Con and my main question, why would I want to play this over Magic the card game was never answered. The art is recycled from the cards, the board is generic (you play on dirt), and the sculpts are weak compared to Cool Mini and D&D.
+W. Ruff This is clearly way different from mtg. You can say the art is reused, but I think it's meant to be more of an adaptation. They took mechanics and cards from magic and adapted them to a miniature game. I personally don't care that it's 'recycled' (I prefer it honestly), but if that irrationally turns you off for some reason, so be it.
It's hardly irrational to expect a new product to have new art. If it doesn't bother you, all the best. As for me, this game looks budget and recycled art is further proof. Pass.
Your question was, "why would I play this game the art is bad/reused". You're like the boardgame equivalent of the modern gamerchild who can only have fun playing games with nextgen graphics... AKA irrational.
Javier Olguin I was being sarcastic. A spindown D20 isn't as good for rolling, but it's much easier as a life counter. Also, what Magic player doesn't have an abundance of regular D20s?
kereminde Not a big enough reason for me to pass on the game, but it is something I would hope they would consider changing in future copies. Spindowns really aren't good for rolling and I think most gamers adhere to this idea, from what I have read and those I have spoken to, so I hope they take that to heart and fix that down the line. I have plenty of dice, so I'll just replace it for my copy.
Wow this game's board and components look sooooo boring.... for a top notch franchise like magic I expected flair and tons of colors.. This has to be the biggest cringe game I have seen in a long time. Everything seem terribly boring... mountains make me laugh xD Doesn't feel Magic... low amount of unit choises, weird deck pulling gameplay...?! Oh man...
