First, I’ll tell you a little about my background. I started as a developer for the Vs. System TCG in 2005, then I moved to the World of Warcraft TCG team in the middle of 2007. Since I don’t have much of a background with miniatures games, I have the benefit of an outsider’s perspective.

So far, I can say the following about the game:

1) Without ever having played a miniatures game before, I learned basic gameplay for the World of Warcraft Miniatures Game in about ten minutes.

2) Even though the game is easy to learn, you get to make a lot of decisions and it’s very strategic.

3) #2 is developer secret code for: “I’m messing up a lot.”

4) Most importantly, the game is a ton of fun.

If this sounds like a game you might be interested in, then you can understand my excitement. Combine all this with the chance to work with John Fiorillo and the incomparable Matt Hyra, and I think I’ve basically got the best job out there.

But enough of all that. On to the game!

Over the last few weeks, Matt, Justin, and John have been introducing you to the nuts and bolts of the World of Warcraft Minis Game, talking about the game clock, character cards, the UBase, line of sight, and so on. Of course, what you really want to know about is combat. I mean, that’s where things get exciting, right? All this shuffling around the board doesn’t mean much if I don’t get to rough up my opponent’s squad. But before we get too far into it, we need to study the anatomy of the figures a little bit (gross).

Laying the Hurt

Each mini in this game has a main attack, which appears on the top of its character card next to the mini’s picture. Matt Hyra broke down the character cards in his article. As a quick refresher, the first number in the upper text box (next to the hourglass) is the number of ticks the attack costs. Justin Gary talked about tick costs a few weeks ago, but in case you missed it, ticks basically represent time, and (generally) the more ticks an attack costs, the more powerful it is. Going back to the text box, the second number (next to the bull’s-eye) is the range of the attack. As Matt explained, that number basically says, “This figure can attack anything within [this number] of spaces.” Since Gorebelly is swinging his Drake Talon Cleaver, he’s got to get up close and personal to give a beatdown. Ruby, on the other hand, can attack anyone within 1, 2, or 3 spaces with her Arcane Blast attack. The last number in the upper text box (next to an icon representing either a physical or magic attack type) is the attack’s power, which tells you how many ten-sided dice you roll when you make the attack. The bigger the number, the better. Also, the attack’s damage type is described in parentheses. This will come up later when we talk about defending yourself from attacks.

Let’s say Ruby is unfortunate enough to get in Gorebelly’s way, and Gorebelly wants to make an attack. Gorebelly’s attack would be legal because Gorebelly is adjacent to Ruby. Otherwise, Gorebelly wouldn’t be able to attack because his attack’s range is only 1. To attack, Gorebelly first pays the attack’s tick cost. If Gorebelly started his turn on tick 3, he would tick his personal clock up to 6 (3 plus the 3 ticks it costs for him to make his attack). Then, you get to bust out the ten-sided dice. Since you roll dice equal to the attack’s power, in this case you would roll six dice. Each die roll of 4 through  (or 10, if you aren’t using the dice that come with the game) counts as a hit. Die rolls of 1 through 3 are misses.

In addition, rolling a  (or 10) means you “crit” on your attack, so you get to do whatever the text after the   says to do on your character’s attack. But don’t forget that crits don’t stack up, so if you rolled three crits, for example, you would only get the crit effect once.

On this attack, Gorebelly would get four hits including a crit, for a total of 5 damage. Four of his six rolls were hits for 4 damage, plus his crit adds an additional point of damage. (Remember, crit effects only happen once, regardless of the number of crits rolled.) His rolls of 1 and 3 are misses, so they don’t apply any damage.

Protect Ya Neck

Combat isn’t quite that simple, though. Defending characters get a chance to protect themselves from the incoming damage. The left side of each character card shows that character’s armor, resist, and health values. A character’s armor value protects it from physical () attacks, while the resist value defends it against magic () attacks. The health value is the amount of damage that it takes to destroy a figure. When you are attacked, roll your defense dice just like you would for an attack. Again, die rolls of 1 through 3 are misses and die rolls of 4 through are successes. For each successful roll, you prevent 1 incoming damage. So in the above example, Ruby would roll 1 die because her armor value is 1 and Gorebelly is making a physical attack. If Ruby makes her roll, she would take 4 damage, not looking good but still trucking along. If she misses her roll, she would take 5 damage and be destroyed.

Re-Rollin’ Down the Street

John Fiorillo talked about terrain in an earlier article, and he alluded to terrain influencing combat. Depending on how things are going, you can hide behind terrain to impede your opponent’s attacks or enter terrain because of the bonuses it provides. If your character is on a hill, it may reroll one of its dice while attacking. Conversely, characters in the forest get to reroll one of their dice while defending. You can reroll one die regardless of whether you’re making a physical or magic attack, or defending against either. This reroll is optional, so if you roll all hits and a crit, you don’t have to reroll. This is in addition to any reroll modifiers that may already be in place. While one reroll may not sound like a big deal, it could mean the difference between victory and defeat.   

 Wrapping It Up

That’s it for the basics of combat. While that might seem like a lot of information, the system is very simple and intuitive once you get down to playing with the actual figures. If anything is unclear or if you have any questions, feel free to head on over to the forums and hit me up. Otherwise, thanks for letting me introduce myself, and I’m sure you’ll hear from me again soon.