Robot Viking

My Han archers take careful aim at the Romans...and fail to hit a single one.

The Arcane Legions demo kit arrived at Robot Viking headquarters last week, and last night we finally sat down to a serious army-vs-army test battle. The Romans won a narrow victory, and despite some finger-numbing assembly issues, we can safely say this: Arcane Legions is really fun.

I explained the elegant mechanics that power Arcane Legions’ mass combat system in our preview post a few weeks back. Now that we’ve had a chance to play a full game with full armies, that initial impression holds true. Marching your unit trays across the field, then giving them reorganize orders to prepare for an attack (or to defend against one) is simple, yet truly gives you that armchair general feeling of controlling massive numbers of troops in a realistic way, mummies notwithstanding.

One thing we noticed immediately — this game moves very quickly. Our table was two feet shorter than the recommended tournament size (6′ x 4′ — the Robot Viking gaming table is 4′ x 4′), so our troops were on top of each other immediately, and with a few terrain pieces around, it became a traffic jam. Obviously, using a larger table would ameliorate this somewhat, but this is still going to be a game of sudden strikes and bloody confrontations. If you had a much larger table, you could play a longer game of maneuvers and counter-attacks. With the demo rules, you can play an entire game in less than hour easily.

Ranged units were still incredibly powerful, as noted when we demoed this game at Origins, but we also discovered that the game’s mechanics compensate for this quite well. Most ranged units have to move their figures into non-defensive positions to make effective attacks. This means that they may be devastating for a few turns, but the instant an infantry unit gets in close enough to attack, the ranged unit will be basically defenseless and instantly obliterated. In other words, much like real archery units were. I also single-handedly discovered the perfect solution for overpowered ranged units: terrible dice rolling. My Han expert archers pushed to make two attacks on one of Joe’s Roman legions, and didn’t score a single hit in either attack.

You score three points for controlling one of the two control zones at the start of your turn (control both, get six points), two points for destroying a “formation” and one point for destroying a “sortie” (Arcane Legions lingo for the larger and smaller unit trays, respectively). The demo game plays up to 15 victory points, and the Romans won this battle 15-14. The Han army fell one hit short of destroying the Roman minotaur sortie, which would have won them the game. It was close, exciting and most importantly, fun. We can’t wait to play again.

The demo kit is essentially the same as the starter packs that will be out in September, although it’s something of a beta release, with a errata sheet and inkjet rulebook. It comes with three armies, one for each faction, but enough bases for two armies. That’s fine — it gives you a taste of each faction, allowing you to decide which one you’ll want to collect when the faction-specific boosters come out. I’ve already declared my allegiance to the Han Chinese and their usually awesome ranged attacks. Han shot first.

The one negative is that the commons come still attached to their plastic trees, and need some assembly. Rares and uncommons are prepainted and come in blister packs (and look excellent right out of the box). Cutting out the commons and trying to fit the shields on the little pins on the hands or attach the tiny arms was really difficult for me. It took me about an hour per army to cut and assemble. I’m a guy with experience painting minis and building plastic models, and I had a hard time working with these tiny pieces. It was frustrating. Kids would not be able to do this, and anyone with a visual impairment, arthritis or some other coordination issue is pretty much counted out as well.

I strongly feel that the figures should be molded in one piece — not only is assembly a pain, but even with glue, you’re going to spend some time before each battle putting the pieces that fell off in storage/transport back on. I understand why they are the way they are (it keeps costs down and lets them produce pieces like shields with some color, which look really good). I’m just afraid this is going to put some people off of a great game. As excited as I was about Arcane Legions, even I was discouraged by the difficulties I had in assembly.

One last logistical complaint — each figure has a code number embossed by its feet so you know which hole in the unit tray to place it in initially. I have excellent eyesight, but I found these numbers really hard to see. They need to be either embossed more deeply, or just made larger.

Once I got the armies all assembled, though, I kind of forgot about those problems. After one game, we’re already pondering cool scenarios, new terrain set-ups and the possibility of excluding the fantasy type units to recreate historical battles. I’d like to try some battles with many more units, a larger table, and reinforcement schedules. Create some more interesting win conditions and control points and play out multi-day battles with weather tables and…well, this game is going to keep me busy. It was inevitable that one of us would suggest a Civil War version of this, Joe just happened to say it first. Yes! Do that.

Related posts:

1. Arcane Legions Has Been Released!
2. Arcane Legions Preview – 7th Legion Testudo
3. Warhammer Fantasy: Empire Strategy Guide
4. Arcane Legions Could Be a Game Changer
5. Project: Death Race – Open Alpha Playtest Rules