World of Warcraft Miniatures Game

Upper Deck Entertainment

November 11, 2008

Starter $24.99; Booster $14.99

# of Players: 2 or more

Components: (Boosters and starters) Pre-painted plastic miniatures, corresponding character stat cards; (Starter only) complete rule book, double-sided battle map, bases, poster/checklist, dice.

Playing time: approximately 30 minutes.

ISBN: 1-59945-659-1 (Starter) 1-59945-662-1 (Booster)

UPC: 0-53334-62872-3 (Starter) 0-53334-62881-5 (Booster)

Age rating: Ten and up

ICv2 Stars 3.5 out of 5

With Mage Knight having apparently vanished from the face of the earth, there has been room for a collectible miniatures game with the right angle; that angle appears to be World of Warcraft, and Upper Deck is capitalizing on the online massively multiplayer game’s incredible popularity by releasing a collectible miniatures game to accompany its successful WoW CCG.

The World of Warcraft Miniatures Game is, at its heart, simple. Players have one or more characters, and each character has a stat card listing several basic abilities – armor, resist (vs. magic), and health – plus the number of dice rolled using that character’s different attack modes, and the all-important Honor stat. Hits are scored by rolling a “4” or higher on a ten-sided die, and the player being attacked has a chance to reduce this damage with similarly successful rolls against the Armor stat.

To win the game, players must score victory points equal to the party’s combined Honor score. Players claim victory points by defeating a foe (reducing that character’s Health stat to zero) and by being on or adjacent to the Victory Point location at the end of turns five and ten.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this game is the way time is measured. Each action takes a specific number of turns, marked by clicking the figure’s base ahead that many turns after an action. When the turn number matches the number showing on the character’s base, that character is able to take another action. Players must be careful to use their attacks wisely or risk having their characters unable to act for extended periods.

The World of Warcraft Miniatures Game is fast-moving fun, but is limited in scope. It works best with two players; games with more players or more than four characters on a side become ponderous and sluggish. Like its online counterpart, this game works well on a smaller scale, much.

-Bill Bodden