WARHAMMER: DiskWars

Man, this game is distilled high octane fun.

It's not terribly expensive, being all of the miniatures have been wonderfully transformed into 2D images on cardboard.

It this were a minis game, well, oddly, it would not be Warhammer. It might be slightly closer to 40K in play style. But the game feels like so much more is going on.

I Love miniatures. Too much. I love the Warhammer world. The Warhammer game, through it's many iterations, is a fair game. But the Warhammer minis hobby consists of all the kit bashing, conversions, late nights up painting... It's a different hobby unto itself.

If you like the absurdly feral an over muscled orcs, the insane forces of chaos, the beautiful golden elves, if you like all that great imagery that Warhammer has developed over the years, this game has it, but without any of the side stuff of painting and modelling.

Again - I love the painting and modelling. This is not that.

This is the distilled version. There isn't even really any of the famous Games Workshop lore here. But a trip to Barnes & Noble can find you any of a few dozen books on the universe.

So, what we have is a new way in to the WH universe.

And an old game system, torn down, reassembled, and dressed up.

And man, does it dress up nice.

The old graphic design of DiskWars is abandoned for the heavy baroque art that GW and FFG love. In this case, it works. Now, understandably, the old Diskwars was probably created cut and paste for print, not digital, so they get a bit of a pass for changing technology of production methods.

But the Disks are now SUPER clear as to what everything means. Wow. Get told once - that's it. You know how to read those disks. Movement, with the wacky flippy disk thing (Anyone seen the Korean monster movie The Host? The Host moves like these disks when it's under bridges.) is clearly the arrow. Attack and counter attack are super easy to determine by the extremely subtle and brilliant two circles, one on top of the other. Toughness looks like a damage marker. 

Really, as someone who does graphic design for a living, I have to give a professional courtesy 'bravo' and golf clap to the team that came up with the basic disk template and design.

Because the disks have all these bits of info, and probably some super power, there's A LOT to consider in your tabletop wars.

Building armies has some rules, but it's super fun and simple. Synergy with the cards by going single race, or breadth of units by allying with other races? The units have wonderful subtle differences. Little tweaks to a number - long or short range vs fewer or more dice, faster vs beter on defense. So many things to juggle.

Then you whip up your little custom scenario. Right now, there's not a ton of different things, but the included terrain bits and scenario conditions change things up nicely. At first, I was afraid this game would be way to similar to BattleLore 2e. It is not. Yes, its fantasy dudes beating the snot out of each other. Yes, it is tactical combat controlled by a hand of cards. Yes it has random created scenarios.

OK, I swear, they sound really similar. In play, they are quite different. BattleLore feels more like big troops assembling to support each other, and with more detailed hand management.

The concept of trying to get your guys to pin the other guy and not be smacked back hard enough to die is awesome.

There's a turn sequence in play that makes the game poundingly tense. I can shoot and move and all that. A few guys, based on whatever card I chose to play. Then you move and shoot with a few guys. Back and forth. Until all of our guys have done stuff. Now, during this, we're using abilities, plinking at each other with arrows, lobbing boulders.

Guys are accumulating Damage tokens. But if your damage tokens don't add up to your Toughness at the end of the round - you shake off the damage.

This is extremely similar to games like Halo or Gears Of War, where you start getting hit and your screen starts going bloody, but if you can survive another 6 seconds, you can take cover and quickly regenerate your health. The repeated single arrow hits mean nothing without a skullcrushing mace to end it off.

So you're deviously maneuvering, casting weird little spell effects, shooting, gaining position.

Then - melee.

The game has a build and resolution of tension that is similar to Neuroshima Hex (play, play, play, BATTLE) or to a degree X-Wing (plan, plan, plan, fly, fly, fly, SHOOT).

The part I really wanted to hate about the game is this bullcrap that there's only 5 turns.

Man, does that sound stupid.

Man, does it work well.

For one, I'd say in 80% of the games, by the end of turn 5, there are so few disks left on the board that those guys would have run or limped back home anyway. For two, it prevents and concept of turtling or delaying tactics.

This is a game of bleeding cardboard and it forces you to draw that blood. With a red marker. OK, not really...

The tension is great. The teams feel fabulously different. The Range Ruler stolen from X-Wing and ever so slightly tweaked works great. The dice (rather than this absurd pseudo dex element from the old DiskWars) are fun and reasonable.

It all comes together as one of the best minis games out there, without any minis. I suppose one could stack the appropriate WH mini on each disk as a base if they insisted.

But this takes all the things that minis PLAYERS - people who PLAY the game, not just paint and collect - love about the combat of the game.

The combat here is rich and deep while staying extremely simple. The dice might sway a game a bit, but never so much that dice make you feel like they are why you lost. You don't like dice - take the Magic units which are ranged but not random instead.

Really an excellent overall package. The fact that the units are not minis mean the playability and replayability in this little box are top notch.

We are buzzing with excitement as we await the announcements of whatever the heck any future expansions might be.

Buy it.

TLDR: A miniatures style war game with no miniatures.