Magic: the Gathering Strategy Board Game

[AMIS]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

A friend of mind decided to strip all the paint off a heroclix figure so he could repaint it from the base layer up, and it turns out the figure was actually made from clear plastic. Never would have guessed that just looking at it straight out of the box.

I agree that is seems likely they will go the blind booster route. Magic thrives on the blind purchase format for their cards and that is their intended market for this new mini game. They are going to want people blind buying and trading figures.

I could see a blind purchase for one common/one hero figure happening.

Not sure how I feel about the total abandonment of Heroscape to create a new game but it is historically accurate to say it has happened in the past. Although, as has been argued, you could say that WoTC (Hasbro - Parker Brother - whoever) had already closed the door on Heroscape. Love to see the handle turn though.

[Agent Minivann]

Originally Posted by Elstree

Here's my contribution to the wild speculation:

Reading between the lines, this only refers to the five Planeswalker figures in the base game. What about the squad figures? I feel like they're dodging the question here. I wouldn't be surprised if squads are (1) largely unpainted and (2) blind purchase.

In support of 1, it seems unlikely that they would cast figures out of translucent plastic just to cover them with paint. I'm expecting little or no paint as a cost-saving measure. Of course these are prototypes, so maybe as more information is released we'll see painted squads. Still, the prototype Planeswalker figures were painted, but not the squads...

In support of 2, consider the odd, long format of the prototype cards. It's just not a convenient size for prototyping and playtesting. I think we can infer that there's been a design decision here and it tells us something about the size and shape of the box the cards are meant to be included in. I would guess a long, narrow box that can be hung on a peg, similar to the old MonPoc boxes. Despite what they say about the base game, I wouldn't yet rule out blind purchase on boosters.

Regarding whether the squads are painted or not, they might have dodged the question because they haven't made a decision on that aspect yet, or they are still ironing out production issues. I would think at this point they have a pretty decent idea of what is in the box, but maybe they are holding back on that decision to make sure they can deliver their final product at the price point they are aiming for, and squad paint is a potential cost cutting decision. I'd rather avoid saying anything there than make a promise that will end up being broken.

[Hogg]

It looks like the figures and bases are one piece. Maybe they 3D printed them.

[ParaGoomba Slayer]

I think that they're going to go pre-painted, since they've already shown a painted figure, among other reasons. Since it's CCG players they're targeting and not the Warhammer hobby crowd, it seems like they'd go for pre-painted in order to draw in a bunch of the card players that wouldn't be into it if the game came unpainted.

Look at the success of X-Wing. That game wouldn't have had 40% of the success it did if the ships weren't beautiful by default. I know some people like to paint their own stuff, but for the other 85% of us that suck at it and/or don't have the time just think having to paint your own stuff is a pain in the ass.

[A3n]

To me the BGG interview indicated that the plainswalker would be painted but the squads would not but be instead the "magic" colour that the plainswalker represents.

[ParaGoomba Slayer]

Originally Posted by stubobj

Look at Lilliana's ability.
Mind Sizzle: Target any squad figure that has one or more damage markers and is within 6 clear sight spaces of this figure. Destroy the target figure. Use this ability one per turn.

So squads will have a way of tracking damage markers. Theres gotta be something more than just "If the scathe zombie card has 3 damage marker all 3 scathe zombies die". Also what if you can have more than 1 squad of zombies. How do you determine which squad members belong to which card? Lots of questions and lots of speculations.

I highly expect this to be huge. I posted it to a MTG facebook group for Beatrice and its gotten some pretty postive comments so far. Most of players have already said they are excited to play it. Funny thing is NONE of these players have shown any interest in Heroscape...until now! Since Ive been comparing this a lot to Heroscape Ive had a couple mention theyd like to try Heroscape. The Magic name is huge and since Ive had such a hard time getting the Magic players to play something else I plan on hyping this up as much as I can.

In Star Wars X-Wing, various tokens are places on/around the ships and just moved with them. The damage is tracked with miniature cards placed on the unit cards and not the ship bases though, but with Heroscape it would be pretty simple to just track damage that way.

[Hogg]

Battleship Galaxies also had squad figures that could take damage. There were damage markers that you could insert into the base of each mini.

Its too bad that game was never expanded. It was another fine example of CVN's handiwork.

[Leotheanimal87]

My initial reaction....SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!!

In all seriousness, I'm excited simply due to the fact that this will be the closest thing to a Heroscape revival that we'll get. And if you so called "true heroscape fans" dismiss me because of that, I simply shake my head at you for making us seem like an unwelcoming community. People are going to like what they like, no need to put them down for disagreeing with you. Don't hate, appreciate. What I like most about this is the simplicity of map building. I really dread building maps for Heroscape because it takes so long, so this is a very welcoming surprise for me. I've never played magic nor do I ever care to, so I'm a bit iffy on slapping on the Magic namebrand on it, but if Craig Van Ness is behind this, then I'm onboard 100%. Definitely will buy two of these when they are released.

[Foudzing]

Originally Posted by Agent Minivann

Keeping with the shelf feel, I think the multiple life squads are basically a way to indicate textually that there are three figures in the squad.

No because if you look at Liliana power it's clear that squads figures has multiples lifes.

Also the "fire dogs" have 2 lifes whereas they're 3 per squad.

The cards will not be usable for Heroscape. We'll have to custom like we already do.

You're way too optimistic about this. I am pretty sure the actual game (not the proto) will have nothing adaptable to Heroscape except the 5 heroes.

Could be a cool game for itself tho. But I don't see why it's a bigger news for Heroscape than any new pre-painted figures game (as precised in the interview it'll not even be a pre-painted game because only the 5 heroes will be painted).

Also I don't know why you talk about if it'll be blind boosters or not as it has not been precised if there will be any kind of expansion.

[IshMEL]

I was trying to explain to my wife the mixed reaction of the die-hard Heroscape fans to this announcement. "Imagine if Joss Whedon announced he was going to be making a new sci-fi TV show, with all the original Firefly cast in it -- but it wasn't going to be Firefly."

[chas]

"That'll be an interesting day."
--Jayne Cobb

[ParaGoomba Slayer]

Just because the squad figures are treated as uncommon does not make them incompatible with Scape. Their point costs will have to be adjusted accordingly.

I think we'll end up with a game that's 70% old Scape and with a few tweaks we could make the new stuff work with pre-existing Scape.