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Huh never seen that before

http://www.miniaturemarket.com/table-top-miniatures/arcane-legions.html

Lots of cheap stuff there. I think I sort of heard of the game before but not too much. Googling gets me a lot of news entries from 2009. I'm guessing Arcane Legions flopped? How is it for those that played it?

I got the same news entries for 2009... here's a video of the gameplay, doesn't look all that interesting to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZiHbJ2P9MWI

The models are quite small, and perhaps pre-painted? But I agree, it looks like it flopped, and so is discounted pretty massively... I don't know if it's worth it even at the prices listed, though.

RiTides wrote:I got the same news entries for 2009... here's a video of the gameplay, doesn't look all that interesting to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZiHbJ2P9MWI

The models are quite small, and perhaps pre-painted? But I agree, it looks like it flopped, and so is discounted pretty massively... I don't know if it's worth it even at the prices listed, though.

Only the "boosters"(Characters and special units) and Web Store Exclusives(Dragons, Ballistae, and the sold out Sphinxes) are pre-painted, the regular units in the army packs are unpainted.

The figures aren't bad for their size detail wise, but the prepaints look a little Mage Knight era quality wise. Except the larger pre-paints. The Dragons actually look really good, and size wise, they're nearly comparable to the smaller of the L5R dragons(if you've seen those).

Can't comment on how it plays, cause I've yet to get a game in despite another member of my group owning stuff, too.

Ah, Arcane Legions. Not a bad game as long as you didn't allow folks to build their own units; and since that was one of their biggest selling points for their game.....

Game play goes like this: each side is given a set amount of action points. Actions consist of movement, shooting, spells, melee or redressing ranks. A large base unit took 2 actions to move/melee/shoot while a small base only took 1 action. Each unit has a formation card that goes onto a base. In the formation there are markers that tell you what a particular model can do like give bonus movement, give the unit a save, melee, shoot, spells, etc. Everything is measured with the bases which come in two sizes. They are notched on all 4 sides and the notches, combined with the movement tool allow you to move your forces. There were a lot of cool things you could do with a unit's maneuver with the tool and it was probably the best thing about the game.

Melee and ranged attacks were simple to perform - count the number of dice you get on the formation template and roll them. The defender then counts up their defense dice for the unit and rolls saves. Units remove models equal to the number of unsaved hits. Cavalry and some other units had 2, 3, or even 4 hits so if you didn't do enough damage to remove an entire figure you did nothing. As the unit takes damage it's performance suffers as you lose models out of particular areas that grant movement or attack/defense dice.

During your turn you could push a unit once to allow it to repeat an action (move again, fire/melee again.) The penalty was the loss of one model. Not bad if you're playing a lot of 1 peg bases but a killer if you're using lots of 3 or 4 peg units that only have 3 or 4 models to start with.

As stated before, the big sell point was that you could create your own units and there was a free card builder that you could download. Unfortunately it was so open to abuse it made every army look the same for a particular faction and some factions simply got the shaft as they had no easy way to get some of the uber abilities. Ranged attacks were powerful (the running argument throughout the life of the game was that it was too powerful) and the game generally degenerated into who could bring the most small bases worth of archers or spell casters that had the flaming ability (extra damage to the unit if you caused any wounds.) I was going to participate in the Gen Con tourney they ran. I didn't but I did see the lists that won and was glad I hadn't played. Most lists looked exactly the same and were almost all ranged/heal combos meant for pushing a unit and then healing back the guy lost for the push. It was a power gamer's dream.

The other thing that killed AL was the way units were purchased. I had two starter sets and bought a case of boosters and a single unit of cavalry. This was more than I would EVER need and there really was no reason to purchase any more than this - ever (buying a case of boosters guaranteed you one of each special unit.) unless there was a particular unit you wanted your entire force to be - and then good luck since individual booster boxes were completely random. A lot of folks bought only one starter and then traded away units they didn't want/need which means even less product was sold than I think they expected. This lead to no funds for new sets and the first expansion being cancelled. This sealed the end of the game.


Looking at mini market's pricing I'd say it's worth dropping the cash on a 2 player starter, one box of cavalry for each faction (I love the Roman Bear cavalry) and a booster box or two (maybe even spring for a brick) of each faction. It would be a good way to get younger kids into gaming as the rules are really simple and the pieces are nigh indestructable. If you stay away from the card builder you can have some really interesting games with small forces (you won't have enough archers with the starter and a box or two of boosters to wreck the game.)

Cool to hear from someone who knows so much about the game! It's pretty clear why it failed, the way you describe it.

Arcane Legions, loved it when it first came out, it was big at my store for about 6 months.

It had fun mechanics.

Where it failed was poor quality minis (hero clix quality) Though I could over look on the quality issue as they were cheap and not advertised as high quality minis for display, just game pieces.

Minis that were either unpainted or painted (pick one or the other) Later they eventually released fully painted armies and a higher cost.

Piss poor company support. They had not short term or long term plans for the game other than their legion program. People asked about expansions, all they said if the game sold well enough. Basic economics and logic that you can't produce more product if your older product does not sell, but the company gave a bad vibe in the fact they put no energy into any ideas for future product. "We're not going to put any more effort until X happens".

$150 for everything I'll ever need to play, I may go ahead and grab that set they're offering.

Platuan4th wrote:$150 for everything I'll ever need to play, I may go ahead and grab that set they're offering.

I took the leap and bought that set. Maybe I can get my 8 year old to give it a go with me or have my non-miniature gaming friends try this.

IndyGamer wrote:

Platuan4th wrote:$150 for everything I'll ever need to play, I may go ahead and grab that set they're offering.

I took the leap and bought that set. Maybe I can get my 8 year old to give it a go with me or have my non-miniature gaming friends try this.

Fun and easy enough.

If you can count and have eye and hand coordination you can get the gist of the game. There are core rules to remember that give you advantages to remember, like pushing a unit.

Make sure to place a number of terrain pieces in the middle to prevent archery over powering the game.

I own that castle thingy, highly recommend it!

Thanks for posting this. IIRC, though, they are an odd scale. The company calls them 25mm, but they use the sole of foot to top of helmet mesurement.

Actually they were in between the scale of 1/72 (20mm) historicals and 25mm figs. If using traditional wargaming measurements of sole to eye they're around 22mm. Still I know some folks used them for 20mm gaming as they were only a bit taller and the sculplts are proportioned similarly (non-heroic) to other 20mm plastic sets.