+TheGreatHamEl terrain would be nice, but it is also more expensive to produce. Sadly that was part of the downfall of Heroscape. The cost of the expansions due to the terrain pushed the game right out of existence. I think they are trying to avoid that mistake, but at the same time they may have gone too far in the opposite direction.
my problem with anything wizards does outside of magic is they usually lose interest quickly or just abandon altogether in the name of MTG. its why i didnt bother messing with this because i had a feeling this would happen. i would not expect anything big till maybe the next block of magic, if at all. thats just how i feel about them.
+TheGreatHamEl I disagree. Lots of wiz content goes bad that isn't mtg. Wiz got wealthy on mtg through Hasbro, they didn't create it and still have ownership like FFG.
Couldn't agree more. The giant Eldrazi 3 player game seems like it would be a cool idea for a game off a forum post somewhere, but not the kind of thing you buy an expansion for. They don't need new scenarios, they don't need new mechanics. They honestly would survive without even releasing a new board or terrain. The game isn't in the toys, it is in the interaction, we need 4 more planeswalkers to have all the dual types covered, and 2-3 new squads per color. Just a giant box of minis and cards and it can cost more than a happy meal. Case in point: The card Overrun. It gives +2/+0 and trample, but only when attacking adjacent figures. Well, green currently has 1 squad that isn't primarily move-and-hit ranged attacks, and they already have trample. So it is currently "give Pummelroot Elementals +2 power". Its so limited in scope, even the cards are restricted in their choices. I get the sneaking feeling this was designed to be a promotional stunt to hype up new set releases, which is a real shame. If they produce more content, I'm buying--this game could be really fun. I enjoy playing, and even started painting mine. Bums me out to see a good thing starved to death.
I agree with pretty much everything. The first master set and the first expansion kind of feel like wizards testing the water with this sub-franchise. If returns were good enough in the second master set, and hopefully all consecutive master sets, i would expect to see 5 different planeswalkers, a larger amount of terrain, more than 12 of each color card(with no, or minimal repeats) and a healthy mix of neat squads, and heroes. For consecutive expansions I expect them to follow the planeswalkers, a few cards(a few more than whats in BFZ), squads, heroes and a scenario specific to the lore of the expansions corresponding set. BTW, the 3v1 Eldrazi is super fun. I don't know if i would expect any more terrain in expansions, as one of the design philosophies might be to keep the game quick to set up, and anyone highly interested in obtaining more terrain already has the means(ebay) to do so. Tho for AotP to be long lasting, each master set has to hit that juicy price point of $30-$40 and each expansion has to be around $20, such that we don't run into the heroscape pricing dilemma again. One of the biggest problems to me for this expansion is that the multicolour planeswalker creates a deck building conundrum for if one player is either Jace or Nissa, and the other player is Kiora. The figures are better this time around, in the base sculpt, cast and even colours on the planeswalkers are better(still some oddities tho, like Ob having purple instead of red...) I hope they continue to expand this game.
I bought the base set and me and my buddy loved it. I'll be buying Heroscape terrain to build massive arenas and will house rule a lot of things like multiple common squads, copies of cards, etc.
I completely agree with your rant. I have not yet played my base set and after reading the rules I was left wondering where the rest of the game was. Funny thing is that just yesterday I got a notification that my pre-order of the set you reviewed here is on the way. Guess I need to get this thing out and show some family members how a real planeswalker commands his minions this weekend!
I've heard the next expansion could be this fall... I have a terrible feeling this game will be a memory by this time next year at this rate. I want more, I want to build and customize my units! I want terrain and obstacles for the battlefield! I want a deck that I can build and tweak (or decks). Right now its like going shopping and getting stuck in an aisle behind a grandma and her cart, you can see what you want to get and its just taking forever to get there. WotC and Hasbro need to feed this game and promote it. Honestly the only reason I knew that this expansion was even coming out was from the podcast.
The game has only been officially out for 3 months. Most games don't even have an expansion yet at this point. I'm sure more are on the way due to the success of the game so far. My biggest complaint about this expansion is that they did not give the new plainswalkers enough spell cards to make a full deck. If you use either of them, you have to sacrifice the ability to use one of the old ones from the basic set. I ended up buying two of the core and two of the expansion so that you can make full use of any of them. I agree with Tom that it is really annoying that they made all of the current units unique so far. It really hurts them more than anything since people would buy multiple sets to get more units if they could use them. For now, until more expansions come out, we are ignoring the unique rules so that we can play some larger games with the double sets that I own.
8 ปีที่แล้ว +1
Seems to me that they are tying this to the MtG booster releases. Base game was MtG Origins, BfZ is the current set. If we are lucky, that means an Oath of the Gatewatch expansion should be around sometime in the first half of the year. I suppose these expansions are small because of that same reason. If that is indeed the case, there's going to be a lot of minis in a relatively short time.
This has the same problem that the base game does for me. If I'm going to play a Magic board game, I want to play with the cool, iconic creatures that I remember from the game. I get that this is Battle for Zendikar, so they have to put in stuff from there, but "Generic Eldrazi" isn't as interesting as Kozilek or Emrakul. When they put in Serra Angel, or Tarmogoyf, or Juzam Djinn... then I'll be interested.
MtG has a new set coming out on the 22nd, so why not also make that an expansion for arena of the planes walker? I haven't even heard one announced. I want to get this game but I'm holding off untill i'm sure that it's actually going to be supported. Hey Hasbro here's an idea, how about some color specific mini expansions. 4 - 6 units with cards that aren't unit specific released every 2 - 3 months and then do big box expansions containing new planeswalkers, TERRAIN, and units that can be used with any color.
that's what I say Tom I want more! I love heroscape and this is heroscape with deck building I see so much massive potential in this if they would just roll with it and the low price point of the game makes me happy as well
got it and agree with pretty much everything you said! and i can't find any news out there about further expansions. is there any news about if it's selling well enough to produce more expansions? it's frustrating to be trying to blend new cards into decks where the only option is basically to swap with 1 or 2 other cards in order to keep deck points at 200 and still have 12 cards. maybe the deck rules should be by points only not number of cards?
Arena of the Planeswalkers needs to come up with a better solution than heroscape did in terms of official stuff for storage. we may not be at the point where it's flooding with land tiles YET, but people? it's heroscape. you KNOW you need some kind of box that can actually hold at least 3 times the amount the ''normal'' starter box does. a Land Crate or something.
LoL, as a Magic-addict I thought at first that there must be a special reason you didn't do it in WUBRG order, but then I remembered that WUBRG is not considered general knowledge.
well, you could proxy yourself blank cards in multiple colors, just to expand your color options, but I wouldn't experiment with proxying abilities yet.
Comparing MtG:AotP miniatures to those of Fantasy Flight is somewhat unfair. A FF game retails for $60-$90. AotP can be had from Target for under $30. Of course production values are lower.
I see what they're doing here. 1 multicolored, 1 mono, and 1 abstract. this will probably continue in this fashion for a while. once at the beginning of each new block. to follow the current theme in the universe. but hey a new expansion once every 3-4 months is plenty. I couldn't afford this and a new precon even month. so I'm happy for now. if this lasts for more than a year. there will be enough to justify this investment.
i had this expansion physically in my hand and i didnt buy it for two reasons, i dont want to invest if there isnt going to be more, and two i rarely get to play this game anymore because my game group has grown bored of it thanks to lack of variety. so all toms fears are true
just picked up both games for 5 bucks a piece brand new! had my first match tonight against my gf and she beat me lol we're still learning the ropes to it but we'll get to the next game later on...shadows of nistraad i believe its called? whats different about both games? any real changes?
I don't understand why Hasbro didn't just bring back Heroscape?!??!! There are lots of people who still remember HS and even still play it. Also, most of the Magic players at my FLGS say they don't have the budget to also get into another game. So why did they make it a Magic game? To get ppl into Magic once this game dies :-P
+erikmiller11 Points are the values of units, to give you an idea on how to build your team/faction. The points are then used to assess victory conditions (ie. whoever has more points, wins)
+azraelswrd Ooh okay, that makes more sense, so you and your play group can set a number of points for team and deck building and change it from match to match?
goblins are weak in mtg tcg, not sure why they are so strong. agree that there isnt enough option for deck / army building.. its like only being able to play with 2 precon decks, the ability to customize makes the game replayable, but im not going to keep playing the same matchups over and over again, it is stupid.
+Michael Litwack The kicker is whether you want to spend that much money. The advantage of this new stuff is that it is comparatively cheap. The downside is that it looks/feels cheap. Personally, they should have launched with the Eldrazi because back then THAT was the hotness. Now we are in Oath Gate and the buzz has really died down (RtZ apparently was not the ultimate set people were hoping for). I thought it was a balanced set but you know gamers -- they want all the power and no drawbacks. Hardly anything in this expansion and not enough meat for me. I am still not sure who this is really aimed for....
+azraelswrd Yeah, good points. I have the old heroscape set and I played it again this weekend and it was just out of the box much meatier. This was primarily due to the fun you could have building the terrain and just random armies of guys. I bought the base planeswalker and felt it was lacking in the terrain department as well as tying everything to your planeswalker character. This set doesn't seem to address the lack of terrain issue and it's limited in it's army building. I'm still willing to try this out but based on Tom's opinion, he seems skeptical of how much they are going to release.
Doesn't Wizkids produce the miniatures used by WoTK? That would explain the poor quality minis. Wizkids is the biggest joke in miniature gaming, just garbage.
I hope they make more. I want a big box expansion with more terrain. This expansion felt like a token effort.
+TheGreatHamEl I see what you did there.
+TheGreatHamEl I definitely wanted more terrain pieces in this, and was sad not to see any.
Kristopher Miller Def a wasted opportunity.
+TheGreatHamEl terrain would be nice, but it is also more expensive to produce. Sadly that was part of the downfall of Heroscape. The cost of the expansions due to the terrain pushed the game right out of existence. I think they are trying to avoid that mistake, but at the same time they may have gone too far in the opposite direction.
+Kristopher Miller (Kristastic) I agree. Extra terrain could make this game AMAZING. I have high hopes for the next expansion.
my problem with anything wizards does outside of magic is they usually lose interest quickly or just abandon altogether in the name of MTG. its why i didnt bother messing with this because i had a feeling this would happen. i would not expect anything big till maybe the next block of magic, if at all. thats just how i feel about them.
+lordxmugen They'll make it if people buy it. If everyone took your approach, it doesn't get bought and boom, self fulfilling prophesy.
+TheGreatHamEl I disagree. Lots of wiz content goes bad that isn't mtg. Wiz got wealthy on mtg through Hasbro, they didn't create it and still have ownership like FFG.
William Knisley Ownership really has 0 to do with my point.
Couldn't agree more. The giant Eldrazi 3 player game seems like it would be a cool idea for a game off a forum post somewhere, but not the kind of thing you buy an expansion for.
They don't need new scenarios, they don't need new mechanics. They honestly would survive without even releasing a new board or terrain. The game isn't in the toys, it is in the interaction, we need 4 more planeswalkers to have all the dual types covered, and 2-3 new squads per color. Just a giant box of minis and cards and it can cost more than a happy meal.
Case in point: The card Overrun. It gives +2/+0 and trample, but only when attacking adjacent figures. Well, green currently has 1 squad that isn't primarily move-and-hit ranged attacks, and they already have trample. So it is currently "give Pummelroot Elementals +2 power". Its so limited in scope, even the cards are restricted in their choices.
I get the sneaking feeling this was designed to be a promotional stunt to hype up new set releases, which is a real shame. If they produce more content, I'm buying--this game could be really fun. I enjoy playing, and even started painting mine. Bums me out to see a good thing starved to death.
I love that component drop music.
I agree with pretty much everything. The first master set and the first expansion kind of feel like wizards testing the water with this sub-franchise. If returns were good enough in the second master set, and hopefully all consecutive master sets, i would expect to see 5 different planeswalkers, a larger amount of terrain, more than 12 of each color card(with no, or minimal repeats) and a healthy mix of neat squads, and heroes.
For consecutive expansions I expect them to follow the planeswalkers, a few cards(a few more than whats in BFZ), squads, heroes and a scenario specific to the lore of the expansions corresponding set. BTW, the 3v1 Eldrazi is super fun. I don't know if i would expect any more terrain in expansions, as one of the design philosophies might be to keep the game quick to set up, and anyone highly interested in obtaining more terrain already has the means(ebay) to do so.
Tho for AotP to be long lasting, each master set has to hit that juicy price point of $30-$40 and each expansion has to be around $20, such that we don't run into the heroscape pricing dilemma again.
One of the biggest problems to me for this expansion is that the multicolour planeswalker creates a deck building conundrum for if one player is either Jace or Nissa, and the other player is Kiora. The figures are better this time around, in the base sculpt, cast and even colours on the planeswalkers are better(still some oddities tho, like Ob having purple instead of red...) I hope they continue to expand this game.
I bought the base set and me and my buddy loved it. I'll be buying Heroscape terrain to build massive arenas and will house rule a lot of things like multiple common squads, copies of cards, etc.
I completely agree with your rant. I have not yet played my base set and after reading the rules I was left wondering where the rest of the game was. Funny thing is that just yesterday I got a notification that my pre-order of the set you reviewed here is on the way. Guess I need to get this thing out and show some family members how a real planeswalker commands his minions this weekend!
I've heard the next expansion could be this fall... I have a terrible feeling this game will be a memory by this time next year at this rate. I want more, I want to build and customize my units! I want terrain and obstacles for the battlefield! I want a deck that I can build and tweak (or decks). Right now its like going shopping and getting stuck in an aisle behind a grandma and her cart, you can see what you want to get and its just taking forever to get there. WotC and Hasbro need to feed this game and promote it. Honestly the only reason I knew that this expansion was even coming out was from the podcast.
The game has only been officially out for 3 months. Most games don't even have an expansion yet at this point. I'm sure more are on the way due to the success of the game so far.
My biggest complaint about this expansion is that they did not give the new plainswalkers enough spell cards to make a full deck. If you use either of them, you have to sacrifice the ability to use one of the old ones from the basic set. I ended up buying two of the core and two of the expansion so that you can make full use of any of them.
I agree with Tom that it is really annoying that they made all of the current units unique so far. It really hurts them more than anything since people would buy multiple sets to get more units if they could use them. For now, until more expansions come out, we are ignoring the unique rules so that we can play some larger games with the double sets that I own.
Seems to me that they are tying this to the MtG booster releases. Base game was MtG Origins, BfZ is the current set. If we are lucky, that means an Oath of the Gatewatch expansion should be around sometime in the first half of the year.
I suppose these expansions are small because of that same reason. If that is indeed the case, there's going to be a lot of minis in a relatively short time.
This has the same problem that the base game does for me. If I'm going to play a Magic board game, I want to play with the cool, iconic creatures that I remember from the game. I get that this is Battle for Zendikar, so they have to put in stuff from there, but "Generic Eldrazi" isn't as interesting as Kozilek or Emrakul. When they put in Serra Angel, or Tarmogoyf, or Juzam Djinn... then I'll be interested.
MtG has a new set coming out on the 22nd, so why not also make that an expansion for arena of the planes walker? I haven't even heard one announced. I want to get this game but I'm holding off untill i'm sure that it's actually going to be supported. Hey Hasbro here's an idea, how about some color specific mini expansions. 4 - 6 units with cards that aren't unit specific released every 2 - 3 months and then do big box expansions containing new planeswalkers, TERRAIN, and units that can be used with any color.
please do a review for the shadows over innistrad review
Thank you for the review!
that's what I say Tom I want more! I love heroscape and this is heroscape with deck building I see so much massive potential in this if they would just roll with it and the low price point of the game makes me happy as well
got it and agree with pretty much everything you said! and i can't find any news out there about further expansions. is there any news about if it's selling well enough to produce more expansions?
it's frustrating to be trying to blend new cards into decks where the only option is basically to swap with 1 or 2 other cards in order to keep deck points at 200 and still have 12 cards. maybe the deck rules should be by points only not number of cards?
I think it would be great if they would do expansions that are just spell packs/creature packs.
+The Dice Tower Can you review the newest expansion that just came out? MTG: Arena of The Planeswalkers - Shadows Over Innistrad!
Arena of the Planeswalkers needs to come up with a better solution than heroscape did in terms of official stuff for storage.
we may not be at the point where it's flooding with land tiles YET, but people?
it's heroscape.
you KNOW you need some kind of box that can actually hold at least 3 times the amount the ''normal'' starter box does. a Land Crate or something.
you know,there is a where you can use these in a heroscape game
And what about mix and mach with heroscape?
I can't wait for more
LoL, as a Magic-addict I thought at first that there must be a special reason you didn't do it in WUBRG order, but then I remembered that WUBRG is not considered general knowledge.
Is it possible to play this game only with the expansion ? For some stupid reason they only sell this in my toy shop tho i could order it from amazon
No
well, you could proxy yourself blank cards in multiple colors, just to expand your color options, but I wouldn't experiment with proxying abilities yet.
Comparing MtG:AotP miniatures to those of Fantasy Flight is somewhat unfair. A FF game retails for $60-$90. AotP can be had from Target for under $30. Of course production values are lower.
I see what they're doing here.
1 multicolored, 1 mono, and 1 abstract. this will probably continue in this fashion for a while. once at the beginning of each new block. to follow the current theme in the universe. but hey a new expansion once every 3-4 months is plenty. I couldn't afford this and a new precon even month. so I'm happy for now. if this lasts for more than a year. there will be enough to justify this investment.
i had this expansion physically in my hand and i didnt buy it for two reasons, i dont want to invest if there isnt going to be more, and two i rarely get to play this game anymore because my game group has grown bored of it thanks to lack of variety. so all toms fears are true
Where's the terrain?!?!? Some of us don't have access to Heroscape stuff!
eBay has a lot of terrain that can be had for pretty reasonable prices.
You can also buy two other boards called Shadows Over Innistrad and Arena of the Planeswalkers both come with a combine 10 piece boards
just picked up both games for 5 bucks a piece brand new! had my first match tonight against my gf and she beat me lol we're still learning the ropes to it but we'll get to the next game later on...shadows of nistraad i believe its called? whats different about both games? any real changes?
Just other games I'd rather build with. I'd like to see 10x the content.
The second letter in Kiora's name is an i, not a j. Otherwise you pronounced the Planeswalkers right. In Scion, the c is silent. Think psi- on.
goblins are onlyreally powerful in large groups, so the 3 together I suppose
Has anyone thought about adapting this with actual MTG decks? I want to play with Origins.
I don't understand why Hasbro didn't just bring back Heroscape?!??!! There are lots of people who still remember HS and even still play it. Also, most of the Magic players at my FLGS say they don't have the budget to also get into another game. So why did they make it a Magic game? To get ppl into Magic once this game dies :-P
They really should of added little expansions in between and this set HUUUUUGE! This is battle of zedikar!!! Tons of neutrals, tons of creature types!
3 player variant reminded me Archenemy mode from MtG PC game (that was 3 on 1).
P.S. hate all the eldrazi stuff in MtG..
What are the points for in the game?
+erikmiller11
Points are the values of units, to give you an idea on how to build your team/faction. The points are then used to assess victory conditions (ie. whoever has more points, wins)
+azraelswrd Ooh okay, that makes more sense, so you and your play group can set a number of points for team and deck building and change it from match to match?
Yep, but instead of cards it's units or spells. But there isn't much to choose from right now, unless you have access to the old Heroscape stuff.
+azraelswrd Okay, that makes sense, hopefully they can put some more expansions out relatively soon.
goblins are weak in mtg tcg, not sure why they are so strong. agree that there isnt enough option for deck / army building.. its like only being able to play with 2 precon decks, the ability to customize makes the game replayable, but im not going to keep playing the same matchups over and over again, it is stupid.
i am sorry man, but wizards doesnt put much stock in this game, its fun, but to them its kind if a little gimmick
So maybe it makes sense to just spend our money on older heroscape stuff and forget this.
+Michael Litwack
The kicker is whether you want to spend that much money. The advantage of this new stuff is that it is comparatively cheap. The downside is that it looks/feels cheap.
Personally, they should have launched with the Eldrazi because back then THAT was the hotness. Now we are in Oath Gate and the buzz has really died down (RtZ apparently was not the ultimate set people were hoping for). I thought it was a balanced set but you know gamers -- they want all the power and no drawbacks.
Hardly anything in this expansion and not enough meat for me. I am still not sure who this is really aimed for....
+azraelswrd Yeah, good points. I have the old heroscape set and I played it again this weekend and it was just out of the box much meatier. This was primarily due to the fun you could have building the terrain and just random armies of guys. I bought the base planeswalker and felt it was lacking in the terrain department as well as tying everything to your planeswalker character. This set doesn't seem to address the lack of terrain issue and it's limited in it's army building. I'm still willing to try this out but based on Tom's opinion, he seems skeptical of how much they are going to release.
it is pronounced sion not skion
Doesn't Wizkids produce the miniatures used by WoTK? That would explain the poor quality minis. Wizkids is the biggest joke in miniature gaming, just garbage.
Fu**ing cringiest boardgame I have ever seen. I laugh out loud (for real) at how tacky and cheap it looks.