:strip_icc()/pic2054005.jpg)
/pic984281.jpg)
Here's a summary of the upcoming games that WizKids Games had on display at the show:
The most eye-catching thing you could see at the WizKids stand was this dragon figure, one of three to be included in the Dungeons & Dragons: Attack Wing starter set. The other two dragons don't have quite the wingspan of this one, but they're each larger than the ships included in Star Trek: Attack Wing, so expect the DDAW starter set to come in a larger — or at least deeper — box to accommodate them.
For a look at most of the components in the starter set, here's an overview video that Elliott Miller recorded at Origins 2014:
As in Star Trek: Attack Wing, with D&D Attack Wing you can play with the material in the starter set or you can add expansion packs to create "squads" that add up to a certain point total. ("Squads" and "squadron points" are the STAW terms; not sure what they'll be called in DDAW.) Figures have point values as do add-on items like various breath weapons, as shown below:
:strip_icc()/pic2054006.jpg)
Non-final components
Breath weapons work in various ways, but you can imagine a cone originating at a dragon's mouth and spreading outwards across the battlefield. What's more, DDAW has two levels of play — ground and air — so the dragons in the air can battle one another while also trying to lay waste to forces on the ground, with those forces battling one another while also aiming skyward. What are those forces? Here's a list of the first seven expansions in Wave 1 of DDAW releases, all due out October 1, 2014 along with the starter set:
-----—Dwarven Ballista Expansion Pack
-----—Frost Giant Expansion Pack
-----—Green Dragon Expansion Pack
-----—Hobgoblin Troop Expansion Pack
-----—Sun Elf Guard Expansion Pack
-----—Sun Elf Wizard Expansion Pack
-----—Wraith Expansion Pack
And the much smaller Wave 2 due out November 5, 2014:
-----—Aarakocra Troop Expansion Pack
-----—Black Shadow Dragon Expansion Pack
-----—Movanic Deva Angel Expansion Pack
Three additional expansions are scheduled to follow each month to introduce new troops and dragons. The expansions range from $15-$25, and each includes 1-6 pre-painted miniatures on stands with maneuver dials, along with cards and tokens specific to those characters. WizKids Games plans to hold demo games of DDAW at Gen Con 2014.
:strip_icc()/pic2054477.jpg)
Participation prizes for WizKids Games' "MDM AvX Storyline Organized Play Series",
with the "Phoenix Force" card and die being given to winners of these events
I saw many games of Marvel Dice Masters: Avengers vs. X-Men being played at Origins 2014, but WizKids had little of the game to show at Origins due to it shipping all copies previously reserved for Origins events into the distribution system to try to keep up with demands for the game — trying but not even coming close to succeeding, however, due to the incredible demand for this game. As previously noted on BGGN, "a reprint of AvX boosters is due out in July 2014, with the second reprint of starters not arriving until the end of August", but how did WizKids wind up so short of product in the first place?
I wrote about this situation in my preview of MDM: AvX on BGGN with a summary of the situation being that anticipation and desire for the game escalated long after WizKids had placed production orders in December 2013. At Origins 2014, WizKids' Scott d'Agostino shared a bit more information with me, noting that WizKids had received preorders prior to production equal to X, but due to their faith in the game and their belief that preorders were low compared to what would actually sell, it decided to produce 10X — but by the time the game launched in April 2014, the actual order numbers being placed with WizKids and distributors were approximately 40X.
Try to absorb that thought for a moment: WizKids felt that it would more than cover demand by producing ten times what was initially ordered, far beyond the cushion that most game publishers would create, yet it ended up with only one-quarter of what was needed on the day that the game hit the market, not to mention having no product on hand for reorders and conventions. As I wrote on BGGN in mid-May 2014, "I can understand the frustration of not being able to get [the MDM:AvX starter set], but I can also appreciate the desire of a company not to risk its existence by ordering far more goods than it expects to sell within a reasonable time period. WizKids guessed wrong, but I'm sure that I (or most people) couldn't have done better."
D'Agostino elaborated on the situation in a follow-up email: "It is important to consider that a company like WizKids Games starts product planning at least seven months before release, often before the product has been solicited. In the case of WizKids Games' release of Marvel Dice Masters, we were fortunate enough to have good intuition and started several pre-launch reprints (some of which are just hitting U.S. shores now). This is what makes games with plastic components so tricky, especially on a new product lines like Marvel Dice Masters. On an established product line (like WizKids' HeroClix product line) companies have a pretty good understanding of demand — but for something new that turns out to have such a phenomenal response like Marvel Dice Masters, companies can be caught off-guard and have extreme difficulty or even find it impossible to increase the scale and rate of production."
And increase the rate of production is exactly what WizKids has done, with d'Agostino suggesting at Origins 2014 that WizKids might now be the largest producer of dice in the world, with many millions of dice having been produced for the initial run of MDM:AvX and far more millions being produced as quickly as the manufacturers can.
:strip_icc()/pic2054007.jpg)
Speaking of which, here are sample dice — that is, not finished production-quality dice, but samples to review before going to production — from Marvel Dice Masters: Uncanny X-Men, which is due out in September 2014. Observant comic fans will note that not all of the dice depict X-Men characters on them, but such was the case with MDM:AvX as well. Each starter set can be played on its own, or they can be combined to provide more characters from which players can choose.
While WizKids will undoubtedly produce even more MDM:UX starter sets than it did for AvX, I'd still suggest that you preorder if you want a copy, just as I suggest that you preorder any game that you're sure you want to get. Those preorders, especially early ones by folks like you who spend time reading news about upcoming games, drive retail outlets to place preorders with distributors, which in turn gives publishers a more accurate picture of demand and helps them know how many of a game to produce. Admittedly many things can still go wrong with preorders, but the earlier you register your interest, the better things will be in the long run in terms of a game's availability.
:strip_icc()/pic2054008.jpg)
Note that the basic action dice in MDM:UX differ in color from those in MDM:AvX. D'Agostino said that while MDM:UX won't include rules for games with more than two players, WizKids recognizes that many people want to create their own formats for multiplayer games, and by having action dice in different colors, these people can more easily play with multiple actions in the game.
:strip_icc()/pic2054629.jpg)
The other new game being demoed by WizKids Games at Origins 2014 was Andrew Parks' Justice League Strategy Game, due out July 9, 2014. In this game for 3-5 players, one player controls Darkseid while everyone else controls one of four superheroes: Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman or Cyborg.
:strip_icc()/pic2054631.jpg)
Each player's goal is to score a target number of victory points. Darkseid does this by placing various crisis cards face-down on the board, which represents the world. As turns pass, he places time markers on these cards to advance them toward completion, and if they're finished, he scores points for them. Players can also score by knocking out the opponents and forcing them to retreat to their home area to recover.
:strip_icc()/pic2054630.jpg)
Naturally the superheroes don't want this to happen, so they move around the board to reveal crises and use their abilities to stop them. Players don't know what combination of their three ability traits — strength, agility, tech — will be required to complete a crisis, though, and these heroes all have different strengths. You don't need to provide all of the traits required for a crisis, but if you don't have enough, you either need to make a die roll to provide the difference — with the possibility of you failing and getting wounded — or bring in another hero to back you up.
Darkseid moves around the board as well, using a boom tube to teleport to various places while the heroes move more pedestrianly from one location to an adjacent one. While outside of Apokolips, Darkseid can be attacked be the superheroes.
:strip_icc()/pic2054632.jpg)
The actions available to both heroes and Darkseid are based on the character cards they hold, with each player starting with a hand of four cards — such as the ones above with a Batman logo in the center of them — with some cards being returned to your hand immediately after being played and others staying on the table until you return to either the Watchtower or Apokolips to regroup and refresh yourself. Over time, you can add more cards to your hand to diversify your abilities and the particular approach of your enemy.
D'Agostino notes that unlike in Batman: Gotham City Strategy Game, a 2013 release from WizKids in which players are villains confronting an A.I.-run Batman, Justice League Strategy Game presents a real challenge for the one player who controls Darkseid because in a way that player's choices drive everything else in the game. Ideally he'll be placing crises across the globe, scattering the JL forces and forcing them to guess wrong and waste time. That said, almost every game group has someone who likes playing the bad guy, so perhaps we'll all have someone to rise to that challenge...
:strip_icc()/pic2053708.jpg)
/pic1926145.jpg)
:strip_icc()/pic2048748.jpg)
