It's hard to say who in Six Up Save was more exited at the prospect of a tabletop skirmish game where the players can take control of comic-book legends like Ironman, Captain America and Wolverine.
As there are only three starter sets available at the moment, Charles, Damien and I each chose out respective favourite crews and set about getting the rules down.
I picked the Guardians of the Galaxy starter set, which contains Starlord, Draxx, Gamora and Rocket Racoon. I also picked up Nova, who is the only other character available for the Guardians at the moment. Knight Models have confirmed Groot will be coming out by the end of the month and I cannot wait to get my hands on him.
Damien purchased the X-men crew, which contains Cyclops, Wolverine, Colossus and Rogue. He also picked up the Deadpool blister and is anxiously awaiting the release of Gambit at the end of the month.
Finally Charles went for the Avengers starter crew, containing Iron man, Captain America, Black Widow and The Mighty Thor! He also bought the Black Panther blister to round his crew up.
THE MODELS:
As anyone who has played the Batman Minis Game will tell you, Knight Models puts out some fantastic quality miniatures. All the current models are metal and are extremely well detailed, capturing the style and
likeness of the characters perfectly.
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| PRETTY, PRETTY SCULPTS |
As I've only painted the Guardians, I cant speak for the other crews, but I've found 4 out of the 5 models were an absolute joy to paint.
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| DRAXX THE DESTROYER |
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| STARPRINCE... I MEAN, STARLORD. |
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| ROCKET RACOON |
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| NOVA |
However, there is one model in the set that was a total nightmare. Gamora's arm was miscast and was missing the top half of her right arm. I managed to fix her arm up with some greenstuff, but even with a fixed arm, she had a few areas on her chest that were warped and her thin sword repeatedly snapped off.
I managed to get her finished up to a decent standard, but she doesn't look to quite the same standard as her teammates.
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| THE MOST DANGEROUS WOMAN IN THE UNIVERSE! |
Minor niggles with Gamora aside, the starter kit as a whole is of a superb quality and the models really pop with a lick of paint. My fiancée saw how much I was enjoying painting my crew so she picked up the X-men set for herself. The below picture goes to show quality of the sculpts; they were painted my my fiancée, Rachael who has pretty much zero experience with painting minis:
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| MY GIRL CLEARLY HAS SKILLS, BUT THE QUALITY OF THE SCULPTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES. |
THE RULES:
When we finally got our hands on our starter sets, Charles and I could barley wait to get them assembled and onto the tabletop. We were both very surprised and extremely pleased to find that the rulebook was written in clear, plain English.
If you read our blog post about Knight's Batman mini-game you might recall me mentioning that the first version of the rulebook was a complete mess. It had massive problems with the translation from its native Spanish, and the parts that were comprehensible weren't organised in a logical way at all. I'm pleased to say that since those dark PDF rulebook days, the Batman game had a full hard-cover rulebook (and an expansion book that followed it) which explains the rules in a much more concise way.
The marvel game rulebook in contrast, it absolutely fantastic. It lays out all the fundamental games rules in clear English across a few short pages; the way the different skills and powers work are so dynamic and well constructed that once you understand the basics, the game practically runs itself.
Perhaps my favourite thing about the way the game runs is that each of the models plays very differently, and most importantly the rules really reflect the powers of the characters. Rogues power-stealing ability, or Wolverine's famous Fastball Special all work exactly as you would want them to. It really feels like the rules accurately reflect exactly what each character can do.
Charles and I hadn't had a chance to read the rule-book fully before we started playing, but the game is so fundamentally simple we were able to jump straight in and look up each rule (movement, attacking, shooting etc.) as it came up. We were able to play the entire game through with minimal interruptions, and had an absolute blast.
OVERVIEW:
The game is still in its very early stages, and the lack of variety in kits will mean you are likely to play against the same 2-3 crews over and over until we start to get some new releases, but if Knight Models supports this game to anywhere near the extent that they have with the Batman game, we should soon have a vast variety of models and crews to choose from.
The models are beautiful and the rules are simple enough to grasp, but with enough variety and tactical opportunities offered to keep the game feeling fun and fresh over multiple games. The rules are so intuitive and fun that both my fiancée and Charles' partner have expressed an interest in playing. (a dream come true for many tabletop gamers!)
One more thing I want to mention is that the entry price for getting started is jaw-droppingly cheap; a starter crew costs around about £35, which gives you a full crew, a complete rulebook and even a mission variant specific to your crew. All you need on top of that is a few D8 dice and a handful of terrain. I think its admirable for Knight Models to include a full rulebook with the models, a practice I wish more war-gaming companies would consider.
All in all, I love this game. I love the minis, I love the rules and I love the way the models all accurately reflect the characters they represent, both by the way they look and the way they can be used on the tabletop.
I will endeavour to get some bat-reps up on the blog over the next couple of weeks and we may or may not have plans to have some video bat-reps up on our Youtube channel by the end of the summer. ;)
How are you finding the Marvel game? What releases are you hoping for in the coming months?
Let us know in the comments section below.
I'll leave you with a few pictures from an intro game I ran the other night.
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| Colossus and Rocket skulk in a dark alleyway, preparing a sneak attack. |
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| Starlord uses his hover boots to get a good vantage point. |
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| Nova and Deadpool have Rogue and Cyclops in their sights! |
Great looking stuff. You are way further along that I am! I've got the first 15 figures built but only 1 painted, and we have played a single game at 14 points. Thanks for sharing.
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