From: CWM@NWC.EDU Subject: Diskwars: First Look (long) Some might not normally hear about this game until some time out, because of the company and the subject matter. But this game qualifies for a unique, clever mechanic award and you might want to check it out. Diskwars is put out by Fantasy Flight, the makers to Twilight Imperium and Battlemist. Where I live, they?re a local company (I have no connection to them other than owning several of their games and expansions) so my local store may have gotten it?s shipments in a little earlier than most. I?ve been one of those over the years that has enjoyed miniatures, but has never had enough money nor inclination to paint required to sink a deep investment in my own armies. The Diskwars concept is something I?ve always wished someone would do: translate miniatures into a cheap cardboard alternative. When I saw the paper mock-ups of this game and heard one of the company principles explain the game concept at a local convention some months back I broke out in smiles. It even comes in at the price point I?ve always envisioned for such a product. One gets into the game by buying an army. They come in small boxes at $10 a pop. Of course, you need two to play, and there are 8 unique army ?races? to choose from. Yesterday I picked up the Dragons and the Dwarves to look at. Here?s how they look: Each army comes with 8 of "flats" of disks to punch out and a rules fold-out. One flat is for markers. One flat holds a large "Land" disk and a couple of small spell disks. Three contain the base army units. The dwarves have 4 medium sized disks on each flat, 1 flat holding a basic infantry type, 1 holding missile troops, 1 holding a very tough infantry type. The dragons have 1 flat of basic infantry, another containing 2 flyers and 2 tougher infantry, and it's missile unit flat is 2 larger sized disks of fireball shooting monsters (which cause more damage than basic arrows). There are 3 additional flats of mixed units and spells, which according to the box cover are randomly selected. I believe it, as I got a dwarven hero in my Dragon Pack and a dragon in my Dwarven pack, and several ?Good? units in the dragon pack which would not be useable with that army because of alignment incompatibilities. Obviously, some ?Collectible? marketing is suspected with the game. The disks are gorgeous, the rules look good, and there is considerably more variety in army types and extra units/heros than I expected. Only knock in the packaging is that, with all the magic in the game, I only pulled one ?level 1? spell user from both packs (the lowest level). If magic is going to play as big a roll as that in the game, that distribution will need to be a little more even. You do need table space: 4 to 6 feet, depending on whether you believe the rules or the diagrams. (There are several minor numerical discrepancies between rules examples and rules text in the rules pamphlet. Take your choice which to believe, but nothing terribly tragic.) Now, how it plays. There are 4 different disk types, in ascending order of size: missiles, spells, units and lands. Lands at the moment serve as starting points and objectives. For the moment, the serve no other purpose. Spells are bought out of you initial army point allowance, used once and removed from play. Nothing new here. The uniqueness begins with the units. Units are rated for Attack, Defense, toughness, cost, and movement and may have special abilities or restrictions noted on the disks. Disks move by flipping them over edge to edge a number of times limited by their movement factor. The circular shape makes it unnecessary to dig out the ruler for movement. If you want to go in a direction, simply flip in that direction. Bigger disks will move farther in a single flip than smaller ones, but present bigger targets. If you end you move overlapping an enemy unit, you are locked in combat. In fact, if you unit is under another unit (enemy or friendly) it is pinned and may not move until the unit is removed. Combat is dice-less and usually simultaneous. Attacker does its attack factor?s worth of damage to the defender and defender does its defense factor?s damage to the attacker, and if either is greater than the recipient?s toughness factor, that unit takes a wound. Usually, one wound is enough to kill a unit disk, but some, like those pesky tougher dwarves I mentioned above, can take more than one wound. Damage is cumulative within a turn, but if it doesn?t accumulate enough to cause a wound, it is not carried over into a new turn. The rules cover multiple unit combat and some special case that can arise. Missile fire is resolved in a hilarious fashion. Once you determine a target is in range ( I?ve only noted one thing that would require a ruler longer than 12 inches), you take an unused disk, hold it 12 inches over the target spot, with the small missile disks resting on top, and then turn the disk over. Where the missile disks end up is where they hit. If it?s not on a disk, you miss. If it happens to be on one of your units, well, friendly fire happens. Perhaps hard to mentally picture, but when I first saw it, I thought the whole concept was one of the most original ideas I?d seen in a long time. I can?t say yet how it will play, but I?ll test drive it a bit in the next couple of days, and see if it works the way I hope it will. A friend of mine will be demonstrating it at Origins for Fantasy Flight and I?ll be interested in his report with a larger sample of players. Craig W Mills Roseville, MN From: Allan Rothberg Subject: Re: Diskwars: First Look (long) Craig, Sounds like System 7 souped up and translated into fantasy. I think I like it! (I have something vaguely similiar put out by a company in Hawaii. Cardboard armies, miniatures rules, fantasy setting. I went so far as to buy two copies.) These guys have a website? Allan CWM@NWC.EDU wrote: > Some might not normally hear about this game until some time out, because > of the company and the subject matter. From: CWM@NWC.EDU Subject: Re: Diskwars: First Look (long) A bit different because the movement concept is so easy to deal with. And the disks are so much more colorful than System 7! Web site is: http://www.rpg.net/ffg as yet, there is little visual stuff on the site on the product. The latest update even suggests their still putting the product together, so my game store must have a special relationship with the company to have gotten their stock in so soon.