I HAVE THE POWER!!!… to withstand a miniatures recreation primarily based on one other basic IP from my childhood. Okay, possibly that may be a lie, since I caved pretty rapidly after I noticed Masters of the Universe: Battleground on Gamefound final 12 months. After a lot ready, a bit endurance, and a few trials in meeting, I used to be capable of finding out if my lack of willpower was price it.
Masters of the Universe: Battleground is a miniatures recreation from Archon Studios pitting the eponymous Masters of the Universe towards the Evil Warriors and different factions from the IP. It’s a recreation for two gamers and takes 1 to 2 hours to play.
Gameplay Overview:
The sport is performed over 4 rounds. Usually, this isn’t sufficient to eradicate an opponent’s drive, although that may be a victory. As a substitute, the aim is often to play and full goals that award victory factors. Nevertheless, a sure margin of victory is required (20 factors) with a purpose to declare a victory as an alternative of a draw. Although finally, when you do take out your opponent’s complete drive, the factors are just like the factors in Who’s Line Is It Anyway (for these for whom that reference is simply too dated, meaning “they don’t matter”).
The objectives you must obtain in direction of this finish are partially outlined by your chosen battleground/state of affairs (the core recreation comes with a e book of prebuilt choices), however are additionally customizable. Along with constructing a drive of heroes/villains from Masters of the Universe, part of your military choice earlier than the sport is your deck of destiny and glory playing cards. Each outline the actions that you simply’re in a position to take throughout a spherical (extra on that in a second), however the latter additionally comprises aspect missions, which you’ll full to accrue extra factors.
In furtherance of those goals, every spherical, each gamers begin with a hand of 5 destiny playing cards. Each gamers choose a destiny card from their hand (or one in all their glory playing cards, that are all the time obtainable until used) and concurrently reveal them. These destiny and glory playing cards give quite a few actions and mana (the 2 assets used to activate skills) and probably extra results when used to activate a personality, but in addition an initiative quantity. Whichever participant has a better initiative on their revealed card, chooses one in all their characters and prompts them primarily based upon their chosen card; then, their opponent does the identical. The method is repeated till all of each gamers’ characters have been activated or each gamers select to cross.
When activating a personality, you get an quantity of motion factors and mana listed on the chosen destiny or glory card, in addition to an optionally available extra impact which you’ll forgo for extra mana (on a glory card, this extra impact is a aspect mission that awards victory factors if accomplished that flip, and forgoing it provides an motion level as an alternative). You possibly can spend these assets on quite a few actions, reminiscent of transferring, attacking, or utilizing particular skills listed in your character card or gadgets. You are able to do actions greater than as soon as, however they’ve an escalating value for doing so after the primary time. Fairly fundamental stuff for essentially the most half.
Recreation Expertise:
As in a lot of most of these video games, the sport begins earlier than you get to the desk. An enormous a part of the expertise is constructing your drive/military. There are numerous choices for force-building within the recreation, although naturally, the core set choices are extra restricted. You begin with an agreed-upon level complete (usually 100 factors), select a faction (within the core set, it’s simply Masters of the Universe and Evil Warriors), decide characters, equip them with any remaining factors, and construct your destiny deck (and decide glory playing cards). A lot of that’s acquainted from different related video games.
The extra step of establishing your destiny deck provides an additional wrinkle, in addition to a little bit of time. Whereas there are premade choices to get you into the sport faster, the primary few video games, transferring to constructing your personal lists could be a bit daunting. That feeling of an imposing first step is a bit magnified right here as a result of the playing cards for characters and gadgets don’t even have their level totals printed on them. In an effort to extra simply stability sooner or later, the present level totals are listed on-line. There are advantages to this form of system, however it’s not one in all which I’m significantly a fan.
When you get to the sport itself, although, it does numerous issues rather well. One space that it’s significantly robust is theme. The designers do seem to be followers of Masters of the Universe, or have carried out their homework nicely. For instance, Skeletor is a ruthless chief of the Evil Warriors. His fundamental tools—an improve particular to every character which solely they might use, on this case the Havoc Workers—grants him the flexibility to achieve mana at any time when his allies take wounds. Throwing his minions out as fodder to get attacked fuels his spells, basically. Fairly on-point.
He-Man is a sturdy front-line fighter, Man-at-Arms is an efficient defensive teammate, and so forth. I’ve heard it critiqued that “He-Man isn’t highly effective sufficient,” which can probably be true, however some issues should be bent when adapting an IP to make a good recreation. If it have been 100% constancy to the IP, Skeletor would run away each recreation, and that may not be very attention-grabbing!
So far as the mechanical a part of the sport, one of many core elements that I discovered labored rather well is the assessments. Most stuff you strive within the recreation are by way of assessments. Attacking, defending, utilizing abilities, and extra are sometimes determined by rolling a take a look at. All assessments are primarily based on one of many characters’ 5 stats, and all characters have totally different strengths and weaknesses. Orko, for instance, has low Toughness and Energy, however has an excellent Energy stat. When rolling a take a look at, the bottom variety of cube you roll is regardless of the relevant stat’s worth is earlier than any modification. The success or failure (and the diploma of that success) of the take a look at is predicated upon what number of “success” outcomes you roll, which is often 4 or better. If a take a look at is opposed, your opponent will get to roll a protection, the place their successes cancel out yours. The ultimate wrinkle that retains it attention-grabbing is exploding cube. Any results of a six lets you roll a further die (which itself can explode). Because of this, no take a look at is a surefire success or failure, because the exploding cube add an additional degree of ambiguity.
I significantly take pleasure in that the sport just isn’t a straight-up duel-to-the-death. Too usually, miniature video games boil all the way down to that, which might detract from the sport in some circumstances. Participating and disrupting your opponent is vital, however given the spherical restrict, you’re extremely unlikely to have the ability to win by defeating your entire opponent’s figures. Goal factors are what’s vital. Utilizing your staff collectively successfully to each work on getting as many goal factors as potential whereas denying them to your opponent requires a sure stability. An excessive amount of offense, and also you’ll lose out on the target factors (except you do handle to wipe out the enemy drive). Video games could be misplaced by somebody focusing an excessive amount of on chasing a kill, which is a facet I feel extra video games ought to pursue.
There are numerous different nuances to the sport past these fundamentals. Which is probably one of many recreation’s shortcomings. It has rather a lot packed into the rulebook for what at its core is comparatively easy gameplay. Even after enjoying it many instances, I do have questions, and am not fully assured we got here to the right conclusions throughout gameplay. The sport has a 20-page FAQ already posted on-line. There are only a lot of interactions that aren’t readily obvious primarily based on the bottom rulebook.
The list-building is each a power and a weak spot of the sport. There are various prospects, even inside simply the core field, for how one can outfit your staff, and that listing of prospects solely grows when you add expansions (of which, at this level, the sport has fairly a number of). I discover myself utilizing the web listing builder fairly a bit within the lead-up to a recreation to get issues good. Which, in a method, highlights the difficulty. As I discussed, the purpose values should not printed on the playing cards. Whereas I recognize the will to make the factors adjustable for future balancing, with a purpose to construct a listing, you both should do it on-line utilizing the up-to-date builder or reference the several-page PDF of the most recent prices. I’m not a fan of both of those choices. Even when the stability isn’t good, I’d reasonably have a look at a card and see what it prices proper on it. On-line level values are one thing I’ve observed extra video games transferring in direction of and I’m not a fan.
The rulebook was one other vital sticking level for us. After the primary recreation, I bear in mind the quote “That was enjoyable, however I’ve questions.” That may largely sum up most periods of this recreation. There are some things that weren’t precisely clear within the rulebook. I don’t wish to belabor a degree on guidelines an excessive amount of since I do know they are often exhausting to put in writing, and a recreation with so many distinctive skills (resulting from many characters and upgrades) is sure to have uncommon interactions. Nevertheless, it’s a little telling that issues might be carried out a bit higher if the primary response after a recreation is that you’ve questions. However I don’t assume that both of this stuff makes it a foul recreation by any means.
Last Ideas:
As somebody who has performed numerous miniature video games, I discovered that this one did convey one thing totally different to the desk. Whereas it has some fundamentals that you simply discover in lots of miniature video games, there are elements which can be distinct to this recreation (in my expertise). Using the exploding cube as a core mechanic was one thing I used to be at first skeptical of, however in follow turned out to be an excellent function. Some would possibly discover that it detracts from the “ability” of the sport, because it usually will get introduced up in video games with random components, however I discover the alternative. It makes you consider issues extra and have backup plans in case the surprising occurs. Additionally, rolling a bunch of cube is all the time enjoyable.
Masters of the Universe: Battleground delivers on the theme very nicely. The idea of goals, glory and destiny playing cards, and the assessments are all attention-grabbing and play nicely. The miniatures themselves are very detailed and look precisely as I might have hoped. Even having by no means performed a recreation the place I wanted to truly assemble the minis myself earlier than, I felt that it was well-worth the time assembling the 25 or so minis I at the moment have. The sport has many expansions, which I’m planning to discover a bit sooner or later.
Last Rating: 4 Stars – An attention-grabbing tackle miniatures/skirmish video games that’s trustworthy to the supply materials, however has a number of bumps in some areas.
Hits:
• Extremely detailed miniatures that are straightforward to assemble, even for a novice
• Characters are very thematic.
• A concentrate on goals prevents the video games from changing into a jousting match.
• Glory and destiny playing cards are a pleasant method of dealing with initiative
Misses:
• The purpose values are solely obtainable on-line or in a downloadable PDF.
• Sure ambiguities within the rulebook drag down what’s in any other case fairly fast gameplay.
