Customer Reviews

Upper Deck World of Warcraft Miniatures Core Set - Starter Deck

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After reading about the high quality paint jobs and seeing the incredibly detailed pictures on their website, I decided to purchase a few boxes just for the collectibility. I did not have any intention of playing the actual game.

Upon opening and seeing the figures for the first time, I can vouch for the quality of the models themselves, but the paint job is not up to the high quality advertised on their website. Unfortunately the paint job is fairly low quality, and greatly detracts from the presentation.

It's difficult for me to rank this game with just a single set of stars, because the gameplay itself is fun and engaging, but the quality of the physical pieces is pretty suspect. To summarize up front: buy it for the gameplay, but be prepared for the pieces to fall off their bases while you are playing, and to look kind of cheesy.

The good:

* The game is very simple to learn and get started playing. I bought it to play with my 10-year-old, and within 10 minutes we were playing a game. After one play, we had the mechanics of play down and subsequent games went faster and got smoother. Adults would learn to play in less than five minutes, probably.

* The games are over pretty quickly, but are long enough to be satisfying. So, you don't have to allot a huge block of time to play; but if you do have time, you can play more than one game. My son and I finish several games in an hour. Try that with Monopoly!

* The game is fun. The clock and Victory Point systems are clever and make for some challenging tactical considerations beyond just kill kill kill. Also, the balance of play seems pretty fair; for example, the better your players are once you expand beyond this starter kit, the more Victory Points you have to accrue to win. Also, the power of ranged but lightly armored magic users (glass cannons, we sometimes call them) vs the tough but magic-susceptible melee warriors and the frustrating ability of healers to undo all the damage an enemy has just done make it difficult to predict victory just by looking at the characters' stats in advance.

* While simple to learn and play, the game has enough complexities to keep it interesting. To win consistently requires not just lucky dice rolls, but actual tactics, such as the use of melee vs ranged (magic) attacks, the decision to heal vs attack, the use of terrain, and of course the management of your time clock. Do you gang up on the weakest enemy and go for the quick kill, or do you hold a character back in reserve to exploit the clock? Do you keep your magic user at range, away from the axe-wielding orc, or do you rush up next to him to get near the Victory Point square and use tha forest hex for defensive benefit? As I said, there are lots of considerations, and that's just with the two figures provided in the box -- and yet it is still very simple compared to real strategy games of the Avalon Hill variety.

* The game is expandable. Even with just this starter set, once you have basic play down, you can start using action cards that provide more spells, heals and attacks for your characters to use. Buy more characters and therefore increase the number of new abilities/items in your inventory, and the game can get downright complicated. So, there is a lot of opportunity for variety, with party size ranging from one-on-one duels to five-on-five assaults.

* The World of Warcraft tie-in is cool if you are into that game, which I am. My wife won't let my son play the MMORPG, so now this is a way for us to spend time having genuine fun together while I sort of get my WoW fix. Also, the immediate familiarity with the concept of the characters, spells and items makes the game more engaging right out of the box.

The Bad:

* This is my MAIN complaint by far: The interchangeable figures are supposed to snap securely into the clever bases that keep track of your characters' personal clocks and hit points via two different dials that must be turned. Unfortunately, out of ten characters (I bought booster boxes) and six bases, only two figures would actually interlock with a base. After experimentation, I decided the figures are at fault and not the bases because it doesn't matter which base I use; nonetheless, it is very frustrating to pick up your figure on every turn only to have it fall off its base, leaving you asking, "Oops, how many hit points did this guy have left?" as you go to reattach it. Losing track of hit points can impact play; so this is more than a minor annoyance. Players with bases that fall off must be very careful every time they pick up that character, and even that sometimes is not enough. The alternative is to keep a running tab of any affected characters' HP on a notepad, so you can place the figures back on the bases with the right number of HP showing each time you pick them up and they fall off, and that renders the clever dials useless.

* Once we got into using action cards, there are plenty of situations where the rules are unclear to us. At least once per game, we find ourselves asking, "can I play this card now?" or "what happens if I do this?" and the rules (as provided) do not answer those questions.

I picked up the Minis both to check out the figures themselves and to play the game. I'm not a competitive gamer by any stretch, but my brother and I absolutely loved the game! I don't have too much experience playing other Minis games, but it's similar to a strategic RPG video game and pretty easy to pick up and play. The figures are very high quality, and I was very impressed with the paints. I'm not sure if other people are familiar with pre-painted Mini figures, but it's very difficult to get high quality and detail out of something that is literally miniature but still mass produced on a large scale. There are a ton of detail in all of the figures for their size, and I like that you can place them on your desk without it looking like an actual game piece. I'll definitely be looking forward to getting the Deluxe set with the nice board and extras, and hopefully the Onyxia Raid!