Arena of the Planeswalkers: Just how good is it?

The article goes on to say that it "unlocks" new squads.

"Unlocks". FFS.

Jexik wrote: I got a chance to play this last night. The game was pretty good (thanks to its excellent rules chassis), and getting my humble green spells counterspelled was pretty annoying, but the potential for expansion in the line as well as house-ruled integration of the huge catalog of Heroscape units makes this game already enormous. Perhaps the most fun part of the game was the owner and I discussing where all of the different 'scape units would end up. You could say "anything goes," but Ullar is clearly Green, and Jandar White. Utgar... I think you'd have to split him up on a case by case basis between Red and Black. Zombies, Shades, Vampires, and the Deathwalker stuff? Black. All those Gruts and the Obsidian Guards? Red. Vydar and Einar are a bit trickier, but Blue doesn't have anything yet, so maybe he'd get Vydar? Or make them artifacts? I guess Blue could also pick and choose units that make sense from other generals, like the air, ice, and water elementals from D&D scape. Einar kind of feels Red/White, if that ever becomes a thing.

Then we started talking about what colors all the Marvel Heroes should be. We really liked the idea of Captain America summoning 4th Mass, Airborne Elite, and slinging white spells. Despite being physically green, the Hulk makes most sense summoning angry red stuff. I wonder if you need to add a certain number of points for planeswalker-ness?

Multi-life squads were kind of a trip though, and I'm not sure how accurate their points correlate to Heroscape. Comparing something like Jace's Leyline Phantoms and Tagawa Samurai has me raising my eyebrow in inquisitive disbelief.

When we use Heroscape stuff in Arena, we are pretty loose by what we allow to be used by what color.

Anubian Wolves could be green, or green/black for example. Badru Wolves are all green.
Samurai seem like they were meant to be played by white with all that counter strike running around. An instant Kamigawa expansion for Arena.

I think it works well if you use the stuff that doesn't reference order markers and initiative and such. Of course you could house rule the hell out of that stuff, but there is enough already made that doing such isn't necessary.

The point spreads are kinda dubious though, as you mentioned. But I'll be damned if Warriors of Ashra don't completely kick supreme ass in this format. Their points need to be adjusted UP, if anything.

Michael Barnes wrote: The article goes on to say that it "unlocks" new squads.
"Unlocks". FFS.

Hahahaha, no kidding. The game's "inventor" must be proud.

I'm not blown away by this expansion. Does it come with new squads, or just stat cards to use with existing squads? $20 for two Planeswalkers, 4 hexes and some cards seems a little steep for the first expansion content; and honestly I was hoping for an announcement of 4+ different unit/squad boosters for January. In Heroscape terms, this is like they're skipping Wave 1 and going straight for Road to the Forgotten Forest.

I thought economies of scale favored a game like this in terms of price competitiveness?

Reading further it looks like each Planeswalker will come with at least one squad, the only question remains if they'll come with more than one. It appears that, as mentioned further up in this thread, they're hoping to entice MTG players to buy into the system by pushing the Planeswalkers as desirable characters to play as, whereas former HS players want to know about the squads.

I still don't know why they're putting 2 Planeswalkers in one box for $20, though. HS boosters were $12.99 (they may have even been $9.99 at one point) which made them casual purchases where you could easily talk yourself into picking up one at a big box store if you saw it. $20 is too much for an impulse buy so I'm curious why they didn't opt for smaller boosters with a Planeswalker, one or two squads, cards and maybe a hex or two.

SebastianBludd wrote: I still don't know why they're putting 2 Planeswalkers in one box for $20, though. HS boosters were $12.99 (they may have even been $9.99 at one point) which made them casual purchases where you could easily talk yourself into picking up one at a big box store if you saw it. $20 is too much for an impulse buy so I'm curious why they didn't opt for smaller boosters with a Planeswalker, one or two squads, cards and maybe a hex or two.

Yeah, WotC has a history of selling "duel decks" with two themed planeswalker decks facing each other. Perhaps that's the idea here?

The HS boosters pretty much always had an MSRP of 12.99. That's what Toys R Us would charge. Target and Wal-Mart sold them for 9.90-9.99.. I ran into some game stores that would sell them for $15, which still felt pretty reasonable. Driving around to different stores to see when they got overstocked with HS waves was a game in itself to fill in gaps from different waves. The Nakita Agents and Gladiators pack was infamous. I remember when I saw the wave 4 Gladiatrons and Blastatrons at Toys R Us in 2007 and thought that meant they'd be easy to get forever. That was the last time I saw them in a store! I won a Aquilla's Alliance (last large unit expansion) in a tournament once and gave it to a friend since I already had one. Then it was worth over $100 dollars a couple years later!

Jexik wrote: Yeah, WotC has a history of selling "duel decks" with two themed planeswalker decks facing each other. Perhaps that's the idea here?

Oh yeah, I could see that being the motivation.

Jexik wrote: Driving around to different stores to see when they got overstocked with HS waves was a game in itself to fill in gaps from different waves. The Nakita Agents and Gladiators pack was infamous. I remember when I saw the wave 4 Gladiatrons and Blastatrons at Toys R Us in 2007 and thought that meant they'd be easy to get forever. That was the last time I saw them in a store! I won a Aquilla's Alliance (last large unit expansion) in a tournament once and gave it to a friend since I already had one. Then it was worth over $100 dollars a couple years later!

I wish I would have picked up even more Wave 9 when I saw a ton of them in a Door County, WI Walmart shortly after its release, and the only Wave 4 Greeks & Vipers I ever got the chance to pick up in the wild was from a New Orleans area Target. Luckily I had enough funds to order AA and 3x TJ online as I don't think I ever saw either of those in stores.

$20 is pushing the boundary of impulse buy, but I'll take that over "waves" that had separate packs being cherry picked, then forced to hunt high and low just to complete it, as you both have so recently mentioned.

It would be great to at least show us the general contents instead of the two Planeswalkers. All the other ephemera next to them (cards, glyphs, dice,etc) are bits from the base game.
I don't need spell lists, just how many squads and other things to expect in it.
If its being released in January then this is already set in stone at the publication level.

They need rumor control quick to shut down those who are predisposed to complain about the product and who are highly vocal on forums. Otherwise, the Negatrons from negalopolis are seen as "right" by the casual viewer, despite the negatrons lack of factual basis for their opinions.
All because they leave so much to be inferred.

I am ok with two new planeswalkers, if we get more squads. Two or three planeswalker expansions and two to three squad expansions a year and I would be very happy.

White needs a boost, badly.

Had the opportunity to try this over the weekend. Played 3 games. First 2 were 3 player, last was four player teams.

Impressions-
1. It's not better than heroscape at all. It's a cousin with crappier components.
2. If you want to enjoy this at all plan on buying all of it, because the starter... even embellished with HS squads and terrain won't get you too far. So if you are going to dip into it be prepared to commit. If it has legs we are talking $1,000.00 you can expect drop on it over next 7 years.
3. No need at all to get 2 of base set. Squads are unique.
4. The board already started to fray at jigsaw puzzle edges. The unpainted squads do NOTHING to help immerse you into the game like HS painted ones did.
5. As Sag already stated... Blue/Jace is not fun to play against. He just undoes stuff. Nothing more fun than having your guys unsummoned.
6. Don't play kill 'em all scenarios, play board control stuff. We tried some Nexus Ops type rules where you got VP for controlling glyphs. If you do play kill 'em all then draft Green or Blue. They have solid ranged attacks. You can just turtle and snipe the game away. The archers ability to move, fire, retreat is almost broken.
7. Red was the one color everyone agreed seemed hardest to play/win with. Glass Jaw... weak defense.
8. Black planeswalker's special ability to snuff out any squad member with a wound is awesome.
9. The white rhino guys... keep them in triangle formation... cast all white buffs on them. Hard to kill.

All in all a mixed review. It's nowhere near Heroscape. Even if they release 10 more waves of stuff, the drop off in component quality is huge. Worse thing that happens to you is you try it and like it.... then you are going to be spending much of your future gaming budget collecting it. On the plus side, storage should be 1/2 of what it takes to store a HS collection. The blue spells really soured me on it. I do like that they limit each deck to 12 spells and when you've gone through them you don't refresh. 12 or so rounds is perfect game length.

toyland.gizmodo.com/the-magic-the-gather...3?utm_source=taboola

Necro thread time! The link above details some fun bits about the first (?) expansion. Purple, tentacles, whatever....

Odd choice, I think it will work well, but what am I going to do with two of them?

I saw the new expansion at a local game store today. I should have snapped a pic of the back of the box. One of the summonable miniatures looks like it fell out of a Cthulhu Wars box. If I hadn't just bought 2 X-Wing ships yesterday I would have bought the base game and that expansion right there.

Here's hoping that this game lasts awhile and gets some solid expansions.

Sounds like eldrazi. hope the expansion balances the game a bit. Chandra is OP. Jace is super good too

Only 2 painted guys this time. We are being weened slowly off paint. I said weened....hehe.





Magic: The Gathering – Arena of the Planeswalkers – Battle for Zendikar

Introduces 2 additional Planeswalkers, including the first multi-color Planeswalker, Kiora, who can field both green and blue colored creatures and spells.

Includes the first 3 hero creatures, including the terrifying Eldrazi Ruiner. The Eldrazi are colorless creatures and can be summoned by a Planeswalker of any color.

Includes 1 player vs. many battlefield scenario in which players fight against the massive Eldrazi Ruiner to save Zendikar.

Includes 2 Planeswalker figures, 3 hero figures, 11 squad figures, 15 spell cards, 9 army cards, Battle for Zendikar Board Game Expansion Pack Guide.



From what I have read the Eldrazi are colorless for mana purposes (like MTG)