WizKids, the company that created Mage Knight, the first collectible miniatures game (see 'December Product of the Month'), announced at GenCon in Milwaukee that it would be producing a Battletech collectible miniatures game for release in the summer of 2002.  WizKids acquired the rights to Battletech from FASA (see 'Fasa Fades Away'), and ICv2 correctly predicted that a Battletech CMG was in the offing.  In addition to the new Mage Knight 'Dungeons' expansion (see 'Mage Knight Dungeons'), WizKids is also creating a DC Comics CMG (see 'WizKids DC Superhero CMG'), so by the middle of next year, WizKids will have three distinct collectible miniature games:  Mage Knight, the as-yet-unnamed DC Comics game, and the Battletech.

 

Battletech, with its anime-inspired mecha, is a natural for the collectible miniatures treatment.  WizKids has improved the quality of their pre-painted plastic miniatures steadily and the Battletech mechas will provide superior subjects for the increasingly sophisticated techniques the company employs to create its figures.   One of the big keys to the success of the Mage Knight game was the combat dial on the base of the miniature, an innovation that WizKids is in the process of patenting.  The Battletech mech figures actually have two dials on their bases -- a combat dial and a heat dial.  The heat dials track the effect of heat on range and combat efficiency and movement.  The heat dial can also shut down a mech to avoid the catastrophic results of cooked-off ammunition.  The heat dials will add second level of complexity to combat in the Battletech CMG.

 

As with all the other WizKids CMG's, the Battletech game will come in starters packs and boosters.  The starter pack will allow two people to play the game immediately.  The prepainted  miniatures are ready to go right out of the box and the combat dials streamline game play.  But much of the interest in the Mage Knight CMG is based on the pursuit of rare figures.  As with collectible card games, rare and powerful figures are randomly dispersed throughout the boosters and starters.

 

With the announcement of the Battletech and DC Gomics CMGs, it is obvious that WizKids is attempting to fill all the major product niches in the collectible miniatures field with their own offerings of Mage Knight (fantasy), DC (superhero), and Battletech (science fiction/anime).