When I was previewing the
Mutant Chronicles miniatures game, I went over pretty much every aspect of the game's system. Considering that, when it came time to do this review, I had to approach it from another angle, an angle that I got to have some fun with. There is only so much you can say about a game when all you have access to is the starter box, 6 miniatures, and a bunch of cardboard cutouts that you use to represent minis that could be. However, recently I was able to get into the full
Mutant Chronicles experience, starters, expansions, community and all, and I was pleased to find out that
Mutant Chronicles lives up to the hype I created for myself (and hopefully for you guys out there in TCGplayer land) in every way.
Let's start with a little bit of backstory.
Mutant Chronicles started as a meager little pencil and paper role playing system, until someone got the big idea to start expanding it, and when I say expanding it I mean giant red sun swallowing up the earth type expanding. The one RPG eventually spawned TCGs, movies, comics, board games, novels, video games, and if you were geeky enough, tiny little collectible mugs and glasses that you made yourself. I'm not even saying it spawned one of each of these, no no no. There are MULTIPLE
Mutant Chronicles board games, novels, and so on. So I mean a miniatures game was really only natural. There are only so many areas of the geek world that one franchise can expand into and beyond making an official
Mutant Chronicles dice bag, who knows, may have actually been done, they really don't have that many more areas to expand into.
So the question really isn't how does the multiplatform franchise size up to its other releases, the question is how does the
Mutant Chronicles miniatures game compare to other mini's games on the market, and that is a question that has some depth. Minis games are actually really big right now, and
Mutant Chronicles is coming into a world where it is facing tough competition. Even so there are still a few things that make
Mutant Chronicles shine as a game in its own right.
For example, just take a look at the miniatures themselves (and if you can't, take a look at our provided images). The first thing that Jeremy Stomberg of Fantasy Flight games ever told me about
Mutant Chronicles is that it was pretty. I mean he said it in more eloquent words than that stating “We want
Mutant Chronicles miniatures to be on par with hand painted miniatures.” Of course, as a long time Miniatures gamer I was skeptical because pre-printed plastics always have tons of paint overlap and use very few colors and... well I mean I can rant about my pretentious standards of miniature painting till the cows come home but plainly enough pre-painted miniatures always seemed to fail in comparison to hand painted ones.
So when I opened up my first package of
Mutant Chronicles miniatures, I fully expected “as good as hand painted miniatures” to be a behind the back half true advertising line but it really wasn't. All the tiny cracks and crevices of each miniature were painted with the same care that I would have taken... actually no wait I'm not that great of a painter... they were painted with the same care someone that cares much much more than me would have taken. In fact, the miniatures were so pretty, I didn't really want to play with them at all. Luckily however I didn't have to worry because these miniatures are freakin indestructible. They may bend a little in a gumby like fashion, however they will never break. The bases are sturdy, and the miniatures themselves can survive a cinder block falling on them... trust me I tried... don't ask.
However, you out there in TCGplayer land don't really want to know about how nice the game looks. I mean you do, but if you are anything like me and you are so stop lying you probably care more about how the game plays. A good looking game will get you to buy it, but a game that plays badly gets returned. So how does
Mutant Chronicles play now that we get to see many different miniatures in action. Well definitely better than it plays with placeholders that's for sure, and that's important because the real fun in
Mutant Chronicles comes from games of the ludicrously huge variety.
While I was playtesting
Mutant Chronicles I was able to play games of small skirmish varieties which have armies of roughly three, and standard games which have armies of roughly ten. In the instructions there were rules for epic games which go up to armies that are around 100 units large. Psssh I thought to myself, who would want to play a game that huge. Well, the other day over at Neutral Ground I was able to find someone who was willing to draw from an immense communal pool of miniatures and do one big epic game, and honestly epic size is now the only size I want to play
Mutant Chronicles in.
The reason why epic size games are so much fun is because it allows each unit to be used to their full ability. See in
Mutant Chronicles, moving and attacking from range is quite easy. Considering that your movement is always about 4 spaces, and that you can attack at ANY range as long as you have line of sight (though the further away you are the harder it is to hit) it's very easy to dodge around enemy units and avoid getting up close and personal with them. However, many units have abilities that work from an “up close and personal” stand point.
In skirmishes where you only have 3 units each, you barely ever get to use melee range powers. In larger games, you may get to once or twice, but you have to fight for it, chasing down the enemy's unit with your own. However in epic games, the map is absolutely littered with units, and you have to really think about what strategy you are going to use ahead of time. Snipers fill in the back ranks of your army, while sword wielders take up the front, and that is how the game should be played. Units have to pass by each other in melee range simply out of necessity due to lack of space, while snipers have to work to stay behind their own friendly units. In addition, flying units which can pass over other units get a large advantage, as they should.
The other thing I like about
Mutant Chronicles is that its system runs smooth enough to support epic games. Hitting and damaging an enemy is all one roll, and the statistics of each unit are printed in plain to see visual format, showing what dice they roll and when. Abilities are also easy to understand and rarely take any more time to use than a normal action. The only thing that gets a little hard to understand is the command token system which allows units to use 1, 2, or 3 actions per turn. And since some “actions” take up more than one action provided by a command token (and there is not another word other than action in the rules to describe it) actually understanding how actions work can get a bit cludgy.
That's beside the point however. Most miniatures games have a rulebook that takes ages to study before you can play the game, but
Mutant Chronicles is easy to get into and the confusing actions are still way less confusing than the rules system of most other miniatures games I have played. That is why I think the
Mutant Chronicles system is one to check out. You see
Mutant Chronicles walks a fine line. It is complicated enough to be called a serious miniatures game, but it is simple enough to be understood quickly and effectively. In addition it is just complicated enough to keep it out of the realm of “oversimplified” which is a problem lots of pre-painted miniatures games have. As a miniatures gamier I can say honestly that I like a certain degree of complication in my gaming life.
Which leads me to my next point, the rules. Thankfully, Fantasy Flight decided to make the rules large and full color, something that games should adopt. It makes it an awesome reference book. How many times have you guys gone to a miniatures gaming night and found some guy bragging that his unit under new errata simply kills all of yours. For me it is one too many. Thankfully, using both the Fantasy Flight website and the official
Mutant Chronicles rules booklet is VERY easy to do, severely minimizing the amount of rules-lawyers you will see in this game.
Overall
Mutant Chronicles does kinda play like other miniatures games out there. It's your basic move, attack, defend, and capture points of power format that has worked in so many miniatures games before. It's just that
Mutant Chronicles does it very very well. The miniatures are great, the system is streamlined, and overall its just an enjoyable experience. Now would be about the time when I mention what the
Mutant Chronicles community is like, but I'll be frank, there isn't one
yet. By that I mean there is no large following for this new miniatures game yet, and that is a good thing. It means that by playing the game you are helping to create the community. Of course, there has always been a
Mutant Chronicles community since the RPG first came out, and they are taking to this game like flies to artificial sweetener so even though you won't find
Mutant Chronicles playgroups out there this moment, there will be no shortage of people to play
Mutant Chronicles with.
In conclusion, I think that
Mutant Chronicles is a good game for just about every miniature gamer out there. Long time veterans will enjoy its unique take on the initiative system (with command tokens) and newcomers will enjoy the ease of learning the game. Not to mention the starter comes with cards that represent nearly every released miniature so if you are tight on cash, a starter is all you need. Make some cardboard tokens to stand in for minis and now you have access to every miniature in the game. That's more than most miniatures games do for you.
Should you pick up a
Mutant Chronicles starter pack? Well that depends.
Mutant Chronicles isn't the smash blockbuster game of the season that will convert non-believers to the glorious light of the miniatures gaming world, but its still pretty damn good. My advice, find a group of friends that is vaguely interested, split the cost, and then play an epic game with proxies. If you like it, start buying expansions and enjoy the game the way it is meant to be played.
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Presentation Rating = 8.9
I don't know how many times I can say it but the miniatures are beautiful. The cards that include miniatures stats actually have the pictures of the miniatures on them, so it is beautiful twice over.
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Gameplay Rating = 8.5
The system is easy to learn but complicated enough to stay interesting. Epic games are a blast.
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Support Rating = 8.0
The game is still young so it's hard to really judge this accurately, but the online support and out of game support has been pretty good thus far. Let's hope Fantasy Flight keeps it up, and if they do, Mutant Chronicles may be one of the big up and coming miniatures games of our time.
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Innovation Rating = 7.3
Though the command token and one roll system are pretty interesting, the game is still the basic miniatures game “shoot, kill, get victory points” formula. But it's the same formula done quite well.
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