Shatterpoint, in my experience, is one of those games I orbit like a curious satellite, drawn in by proximity to someone who collects it, intrigued enough to play from time to time, but still waiting for that Force-tinged spark to pull me fully into the gravity well. I’ve danced around the edge of commitment more times than I can count. I’ve even had Shatterpoint boxes in my cart at Alphaspel.se, but each time, I’ve backed out at the final checkout like Admiral Akbar sensing a trap.
Don’t get me wrong: the miniatures are phenomenal, arguably the finest Star Wars sculpts on the market. The scale is just right, and it hits that sweet spot of the galaxy far, far away: up-close and personal lightsaber clashes, blaster duels, and cinematic showdowns between iconic characters. It’s Star Wars at its most visceral. And Shatterpoint nails that vibe.
And yet… I hesitate.
This isn’t the only game that puts me in this strange force dyad of admiration and ambivalence. Take Marvel: Crisis Protocol, I love the Marvel universe, truly, and Crisis Protocol delivers some of the most stunning superhero miniatures I’ve ever seen, wrapped in a concept that practically screams “perfect game night.” Super squads brawling across a cityscape? That’s pure comic book gold. And still, I find myself asking the same uncomfortable question.
I love all things Marvel, I feel literal pain that I don’t own these miniatures, but for me, a miniature game has to be more than just nice miniatures. Collection and gameplay have to be inseparable partners that live side by side as equals.
Are these actually good games?
In today’s In Theory article, we’re zeroing in on Star Wars: Shatterpoint. I want to break down why I think it might be a great game… and also why I suspect it might not be. Let’s get into it!
Star Wars: Shatterpoint as a premise
When Star Wars: Shatterpoint was first announced, it landed at a time when the Star Wars tabletop scene was, let’s be honest, already more crowded than the Mos Eisley cantina on a Saturday night. I’d spent years navigating asteroid fields with X-Wing, commanding fleets in Armada, and my Legion core box was still sitting half-painted like a forgotten protocol droid in a junkyard. And don’t even get me started on Star Wars: Destiny, that game was my cardboard crack, I was blowing money on it like I won the lottery. It was just… a lot. Too much Star Wars plastic, too many dice, too many rules bouncing around my head.
So when Shatterpoint came along, I made a decision, a prequel-style “this is how democracy dies” kind of decision, to skip it. Not because I thought it looked bad, but because I had officially hit Star Wars saturation. My shelves were already groaning under the weight of the galaxy far, far away. Even my wife, god love her, whose tolerance for my bullshit is significantly higher than I imagine most wives, gave me the stank eye as I was scrolling Star Wars Shatterpoint mini’s on my iPad.
Star Wars Shatterpoint is absolutely gorgeous; there is absolutely nothing in the market today that can compete, in my opinion. From a visual aesthetic perspective, it’s worth collecting these miniatures just for collecting’s sake.
My decision did not discourage my local gaming crew; several of my friends dove in headfirst, and that gave me plenty of chances to test the game out. And not at all that surprising, my first impression of the game was that it was quite brilliant.
Not perfect, but brilliant.
The core concept of Shatterpoint is rock solid. It leans into what makes Star Wars great: iconic characters in dynamic, cinematic combat. Each unit is asymmetrically powered, meaning Obi-Wan doesn’t feel like Maul, and Maul sure as hell doesn’t feel like Ahsoka. The gameplay itself is objective-driven, fast-paced, and surprisingly smooth, no mid-battle rulebook diving, just action.
Even early on, it felt like there was a ton of room for variety and growth baked into the system, a wide-open hyperspace lane for future expansions, modes, and narrative twists. As a premise, Shatterpoint struck me as one of the most clever designs to come out of the Star Wars gaming space in years.
Even as the game’s initial impression had me grinning from ear to ear, reconsidering my decision to pass on it, I could not shake the feeling that something was both familiar and ever so slightly off.
A Lack of Drama
To understand my hesitation, you have to know a bit about my gaming history, and one of my more cockamamie theories about why I love miniature games in the first place. This is important because if you’re interested in Shatterpoint (or any miniature game), you should know what kind of gamer you are. It’s not always just about reviews and opinions; style and preference should always be considered first and foremost when considering a game for your collection.
So, Marvel: Crisis Protocol came out a few years before Shatterpoint, and the two games share more than a few mechanical similarities. In fact, you could argue they’re essentially the same game wearing different thematic costumes. I wouldn’t entirely sign off on that claim; they do have key differences that give each its own identity, but they clearly spring from the same design philosophy: objective-based gameplay first, theme and setting a distant second.
Star Wars X-Wing didn’t really have objectives, and when they were added later, they didn’t really matter that much, but that was ok because X-Wing just tapped into the Star Wars universe feel with perfection. Feel is a real thing, and when you play enough games, you just know it when it’s there, it sometimes really is just that simple with games.
And that, right there, is where my main issue lies.
To explain that issue properly, I need to be clear about what I value most in a miniatures game. For me, theme, setting, and feel come first, not balance, not clean mechanics, not elegant game loops. I see miniature games as an extension of roleplaying; they should feel like small, tactical stories unfolding on the tabletop. If a game can reflect and bring to life its setting through its mechanics, not just its art and models, that’s when I really connect with it.
I’m not sure that makes perfect sense, but basically: I’d rather a game be thematically authentic than mechanically perfect. I want it to feel like the world it’s portraying, even if that means it’s a little clunky or chaotic. The game should simulate the soul of its universe.
That’s probably why I love games like The Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game, Warhammer 40,000, Blood Bowl, BattleTech, and Star Wars: X-Wing. These games may not be celebrated for their balance or cutting-edge design, but they ooze theme. They play like the worlds they represent. On the other hand, critically acclaimed games like Infinity, Malifaux, or Moonstone, as clever and well-designed as they are, just don’t light that same fire in me. Some I’ve tried. Others I haven’t, because I already know they don’t scratch the same itch.
Take BattleTech, for example. I know it’s not a brilliant design. It’s slow, it’s random, and sometimes it falls apart under its own weight. But it gives me exactly what I want: a messy, explosive mech brawl where missiles fly, limbs get blown off, and heat sinks explode. It’s unpredictable and thematic, and determining a winner is not nearly as important as creating a great memory of that time when X or Y happened. It lives and breathes its world unapologetically, catering to fans of the genre and the story behind the game.
Battletech is an odd mixture so far as games go because the details on a battlemech’s character sheet go further than most RPGs, the rules are thick with unique weaponry and tactics, and the game itself can be excessively long. Yet from a core mechanic perspective, it’s basically a Yatzee dice chucker. You have very limited control over the outcomes of a game, a single missile can ignite an ammo store on your mech and blow you up and it’s game over.
Now enter Shatterpoint, and here’s where my core issue kicks in.
Shatterpoint plays more like a game of chess. Yes, the characters have distinct powers and abilities connected to the Star Wars Universe, but at the end of the day, their job is the same: stand on an objective, push enemies off, and score struggle points to win. It’s a positioning puzzle, a tactical game of movement. Victory isn’t about winning an awesome duel between Vader and Skywalker or taking out the enemy Bounty Hunter or some story arc in the Star Wars universe; it’s about board control, and it’s exclusively and only about that.
The one thing Shatterpoint does well that brings it closer to its theme and makes up for some of the other failures to bring Star Wars to life is the characters. Every character’s powers are distinctly unique and very in tune with their on-screen personas. I think Shatterpoint nailed it in this department.
And that creates a disconnect. It’s supposed to be a game about epic, cinematic duels between legendary characters (that’s on the tin!), but that sense of drama just isn’t there and is often even discouraged. Instead, you get a sterile, tactical experience where the theme takes a back seat.
You may be tempted, for example, to have Obi-Wan descend upon Darth Maul to let them have an epic duel out in the open field because it’s awesome, but everything about that from a gameplay perspective is a mistake. You fight only when it serves the objective, you certainly don’t leave an objective for someone else to grab and it’s far better to send someone less powerful to face Darth Maul to keep him busy, rather than simply fight him for awesome fighting’s sake. That sort of decision-making is not only common but almost mandatory for success. The game doesn’t encourage or reward doing the cool stuff or taking risks; it encourages smart tactical play that serves the purpose of scoring objective points so you can win the struggle.
That might be fine if the struggle had some meaning or story behind it, but unfortunately, that is not the case.
The struggle is a sort of nameless, faceless, inanimate “thing” left undefined beyond the mechanical purpose it serves in the game to determine a winner. You’re not trying to disable the Death Star’s power or blow up the shield generator; you’re trying to score X points before the opponent does. That’s the whole game, every mission is the same, all that changes is some minor thing like which objectives you can score on this round or some quirky special power you might get when drawing a shatter card.
The Struggle Tracker, don’t get me wrong, is a very clever mechanic that builds tension and makes your goals in the game very clear, but it just doesn’t really represent or depict anything. It’s just this abstract thing that’s there to remind you if you’re winning or losing.
Don’t get me wrong, the mechanics are sharp. The game is well-designed. It’s an interesting, engaging system. But the Star Wars theme doesn’t matter to the gameplay itself, nor do the circumstances of the battle have any meaning, being indistinct “brawls” for positional control. Even the objective carries no thematic weight; being nothing more than a “spot” on the field, you need to be within 2 inches to control. It’s all very pragmatic, absent of any meaning, story, or connection to the Star Wars universe. A terrible missed opportunity!
I bring up Marvel: Crisis Protocol in the same conversation because it suffers from the exact same issue. For all the cool miniatures and superhero flair, the gameplay doesn’t reflect the universe it’s based on in any meaningful way. It’s not a battle between Dr. Strange and a multiverse demon to control the book of Vishanti; it’s a contest of who can hold objective A or B long enough to score enough points before the round ends. It’s just absent of the flavor that makes the Marvel Universe, its history, and setting special and fun.
Marvel Crisis Protocol, in a way, is a worse offender in the absence of theme, setting, and story connection as a game. There is literally an unlimited amount of story material on which to build events, missions, and stories for the game. For them to settle on abstract objectives, completely disconnecting the game from this potential, is, I would argue, inexcusable.
Both games, I don’t want to say, feel soulless, but lack a certain commitment to simulating and supporting the theme and the cinematic spectacle you hope to discover when you play them. That’s a harsh critique, I know, but it’s the one thing that keeps me from diving into either of them; no matter how good the sculpts look or how tight the mechanics are, these games more or less boils down to a game of positioning. There is no story, induction of Star Wars or Marvel events, or a meaningful way in which the setting’s epicness comes to the surface.
Is it a fun game? Is it a good game?
Those are relative questions, and when it comes to Star Wars: Shatterpoint, the answer depends entirely on what you think makes a miniature game fun or good in the first place. There’s no objective measure here. It’s all a matter of personal taste, and that’s the exact crossroads where I find myself.
From my perspective, Shatterpoint is a well-designed game. It’s streamlined, it runs cleanly, and there’s very little rules ambiguity. The tactical puzzle is real and rewarding, especially if that’s the kind of game you enjoy. And if you’re the type who thrives on smart plays, tight decisions, and clever planning, then yes, it’s fun. In that regard, it delivers.
And I do enjoy it, at least to a degree. There’s something undeniably satisfying about seeing iconic Star Wars characters brought to life on the tabletop. I’m not completely opposed to brainy, tactical games either. Shatterpoint challenges you to think ahead, adapt, and outmaneuver. It’s a solid mental workout.
But for me, the experience falls short in one crucial area: the connection between game and setting.
Yes, the game has objectives, but they are abstract, disconnected from the world they’re supposed to represent. I love a good mission-driven game, but only if those missions feel rooted in the narrative. If Shatterpoint had objectives that tied into iconic Star Wars moments or scenarios, or even just leaned harder into the drama of its duels, I think it would go from an “interesting game” to a great experience.
Instead, it stops just short. It teases greatness, but doesn’t quite land it. It’s missing something vital, and tragically, that something happens to be the only thing that truly matters to me. The one and pretty much only thing I care about when I play a miniature game.
A good story.
And so ends the anxiety over whether or not I will buy into Shatterpoint.
Over the past year, I’ve scribbled my fair share of articles about the world of miniature gaming, dissecting battlelines, praising plastic warriors, and waxing poetic about the clash of dice and destiny. Most of these musings were met with nods of agreement and the occasional slow clap. But one article in particular, Miniature Game Theory: Picking The Right Game For You, drew a bit of well-deserved ire and blood.
You see, amidst my ramblings on tactical titans and strategic skirmishes, I made one glaring, unforgivable, pitch-cleat-to-the-face omission.
I forgot Blood Bowl.
Now, before the angry mobs of orc coaches and elf cheerleaders throw me into the dugout pit, let me offer a half-decent defense.
To me, miniature gaming has always meant clashing armies, measured movement, and the kind of tactical geometry that gives you flashbacks to high school math class. Blood Bowl, on the other hand, always felt like something… different. It straddles the line between board game and miniatures skirmish, with equal parts playbook planning and pure, glorious chaos. And let’s not forget, it’s a sports game. A violent, foul-heavy, ref-bribing sports game, but a sports game nonetheless.
Still, none of that excuses the omission. The critics were right. Blood Bowl deserves a seat at the table, preferably next to the Apothecary and the guy with the chainsaw. And that’s what we’re going to fix today.
So strap on your spiked shoulder pads, roll for kickoff, and prepare to finally give the neckbeards favorite pastime the column inches it deserves.
What Is Blood Bowl
Blood Bowl, for the uninitiated (or recently resurrected), is best described as a tactical miniatures game that takes the bones of American Football and Rugby, grinds them up, and feeds them to a Chaos Ogre. Then it tosses in a generous helping of gladiatorial carnage and calls it a sport. It’s a game where bribery is encouraged, fouls are strategic, and fatalities are not only possible, they’re frequent. And frankly, it’s glorious.
Blood Bowl is not your typical miniature game, in fact, there is nothing out there quite like it so when I describe it to people I don’t have that “its like X game” option.
But beneath the splattered turf and broken helmets lies something more: a legacy game in disguise. That’s right, while Blood Bowl thrives on short-term brutality, it’s also built for long-term storytelling. Using a term borrowed from the board game world, Blood Bowl has legacy elements baked in from the very start. The core design encourages players to form leagues where teams grow, change, and suffer (often hilariously) over time. A broken arm in Game 1 becomes a permanent stat penalty in Game 2. That rookie Goblin who miraculously scored a touchdown? He might become a local legend, until a Minotaur eats him.
Each coach manages a team roster, complete with gold to spend and experience to earn. You can hire new players, upgrade existing ones, or blow your hard-earned winnings on apothecaries, cheerleaders, assistant coaches, rerolls, and, let’s be honest, illegal enhancements. Managing a Blood Bowl team is as much about off-the-field decisions as it is about on-the-pitch mayhem.
And it’s this long-form play, the drama, the rivalries, the heartbreak of losing your star player to a troll’s critical hit, that gives Blood Bowl its soul. It’s also what fuels the thriving community around the game. Thanks to excellent digital versions of Blood Bowl (complete with online leagues and tournaments), the connection between tabletop and digital play is stronger than a Black Orc on protein powder. Online play allows coaches to test builds, strategies, and teams before diving into physical leagues, and sometimes, it even helps keep local scenes alive between game nights.
These days Blood Bowl is more commonly known as a PC game rather than a table-top game, but even the PC game is essentially a perfect replication of the table-top game.
Blood Bowl originally hit the pitch back in the mid-1980s, and while there was a brief two-decade hiatus in official support, the game is now back in full swing. Games Workshop has returned to the sport with renewed vigor, offering modern rules, fresh miniatures, and a starter box that’s actually worth its weight in warpstone.
One of the most charming aspects of Blood Bowl is its timeless design. Believe it or not, if you bought a team back in 1988, be it Elves, Dwarves, or Undead, you can still field them today. Try saying that about your 6th Edition Bretonnians. The rules are also mostly unchanged, amounting to minor improvements at best.
Like many of Games Workshop titles, its origin story takes us back to the 80’s when miniatures were more comedic and less detailed. Unlike most of of GW’s other titles, collecting classic Blood Bowl miniatures is considered prestigious. These guys hold a higher value than modern released versions, they are collectables.
Games Workshop offers a fantastic line of new miniatures (and they look great), and the barrier to entry remains blessedly low. In most cases, all you need is a team box and a willingness to watch your star player trip over his own feet in front of the endzone. It’s affordable, accessible, and hilarious, even when it hurts, which is a lot more than you can say about most miniature games.
Does Classic Mean Old?
When it comes to the preservation of classic tabletop games, think Dungeons & Dragons, Battletech, and other old-school titans, you’ll often find that the rules carry the unmistakable scent of their era: crunchy, clunky, and sometimes downright arcane. And hey, there’s charm in that… for some.
Take Battletech, for instance. A glorious monument to heat sinks and hex maps, sure, but its ruleset has remained largely untouched since the ’80s, and it shows. For modern gamers raised on sleek mechanics and intuitive design, jumping into Battletech can feel a bit like learning a programming language written on punch cards. There’s depth, yes, but also baggage. I would best describe it as fun, but slow and inefficient. It’s not the sort of game that someone would design and release today.
I love my Battletech! But despite the modern miniatures updates that give the game the appearance of a new game, these old rules have not held up particularly well.
Now here’s where Blood Bowl laces up its cleats and punts expectations right off the pitch.
Despite its age, Blood Bowl was surprisingly streamlined even in its earliest incarnations. The rules were (and still are) built for speed and clarity. Sure, a few tweaks and refinements have improved component handling and smoothed out some edges, but the core mechanics have endured with little change, and they still hold up. In fact, if Blood Bowl: Season 2 (the latest edition) dropped today with no prior legacy attached, most gamers would likely assume it was a brand-new design. That’s how ahead of its time it was.
Where many games of its era are now museum pieces dusted off by nostalgics in denim jackets, Blood Bowl feels fully at home on the modern tabletop. It’s not a crusty relic propped up by rose-tinted memories. It’s a lean, mean, dice-fueled machine that still delivers tight gameplay and absurd fun.
That said… who’s it actually for?
Well, not everyone, I think.
I wouldn’t say Blood Bowl is for the “typical miniature gamer”, especially not the ones who take their grimdark lore and optimized builds very seriously. This isn’t a game about carefully measured movement and flawless tactical control. Blood Bowl is a chaotic, violence-riddled sports comedy with rules, where Nuffle (the in-game god of dice) laughs at your plans and your best-laid strategies are one skull roll away from disaster.
It’s a game that knows it’s silly, and leans hard into it, but it’s also definitely a sports game and loving competative sports, especially any variation on football, is kind of a must.
Yes, long-time coaches will rightly tell you that there’s deep strategy involved. And they’re not wrong. But that strategy is built on risk management, not total control. Blood Bowl is as much about gambling as it is about game theory. You’re constantly calculating odds: “Should I go for it on a 2+ with a reroll?” “Is that 33% dodge worth it to get the ball loose?” Every turn is a little bet, a tiny act of defiance against the statistical gods.
Blood Bowl Leagues are serious business for fans, there are leagues that have been ongoing for years to such a degree that some of them had to introduce character ages to force star players to retire. There is a lot of love that goes into these things.
The critical mechanic of this game, The Turnover, is why these calculations are so critical. You have to know your odds because a single failed roll during your turn can results in your turn ending and being turned over to your opponent. This unpredictable element is key to the game and what makes it such a chaotic and unpredictable monster players struggle to wrangle in. It’s in part, a push your luck game.
This is part of what makes the game so addictive. It creates a shared language among coaches, a constant mental flowchart of odds, modifiers, and dice probabilities. It’s part sports simulator, part board game, part bad day at the office for your troll. This is also what makes it such a niche product that isn’t comparable to anything else out there. You can’t say that Blood Bowl is like X or Y game, there is no equivalent, the only way to know if Blood Bowl will work for you is to play it a few times and see.
Blood Bowls blend of humor, stats, and drama is why the community around Blood Bowl is so strong, and so enduring. Despite being a niche within a niche, it boasts one of the most active organized play scenes in all of miniature gaming. Leagues flourish, tournaments abound (both online and offline), and new players are constantly drawn into the mayhem.
To put it plainly: Blood Bowl isn’t some dusty throwback clung to by aging grognards in spiked shoulder pads. It’s a vibrant, living game that continues to thrive because it’s fun, smart, and brutally entertaining.
Getting Into The Game
Like most miniature games, the best way to get into Blood Bowl is the old-fashioned way: find a friend who already plays. Nothing beats seeing two fully painted teams clash on the pitch, dice flying and players dying, while someone explains the rules mid-chaos. A quick exhibition match on a proper tabletop is still the most natural, and frankly, the most Blood Bowlian, way to get started.
Now, technically, there’s another option: the digital version.
And while I admit it’s tempting, especially when it’s sitting right there on Steam, promising instant games and zero glue fumes, I do not recommend starting your Blood Bowl journey digitally.
Here’s why.
There’s nothing more damaging to the tabletop experience than discovering the ultimate life-hack shortcut: a fully automated app that plays the game for you. Suddenly, you start asking dangerous questions like, “Why would I buy a $100 box set, spend hours assembling miniatures, then weeks painting them, just to play something I can click through in five minutes?”
The new starter set revitalized Blood Bowl as a table top game, but the digital version (Blood Bowl 3) is still considered the premiere way to run leagues with a larger audience.
And just like that, the magic dies.
For me, trying a game digitally before ever touching it physically almost always kills my interest in buying in. I can’t explain it entirely, but something about the immediacy, the convenience, the cleanliness of digital versions just flattens the anticipation and wonder that comes with setting up a real tabletop game.
That said, and here’s the kicker, Blood Bowl’s digital version is fantastic.
Blood Bowl 3, the latest digital edition, is a faithful, pitch-perfect adaptation of the tabletop experience. Every rule, every team, every hilarious misstep is there. Team management? Yep. League play? Absolutely. Injuries, star player points, stat tracking? All of it. It’s not a watered-down spin-off, it’s the same game, just rendered in shiny 3D with animations that let you see a goblin get punted halfway across the pitch.
Most miniature games wish they had a digital version this good. Many don’t have one at all, or rely on awkward virtual tabletops that take hours to set up and feel like spreadsheets with dice rollers.
But even with Blood Bowl 3 being that good, I still say: don’t start there.
Why? Because you only get one “first” experience. And Blood Bowl is a game meant to be played in-person, across a board, preferably while yelling at your opponent and shaking your dice like they owe you money. Once you’ve played the real thing, the digital version becomes a brilliant complement, letting you dive into more matches, meet other coaches, and explore league play without sacrificing the charm of the tabletop.
So where should you start?
The Season Two Starter Set. Yeah, it’s a cliché answer, but clichés exist for a reason.
Games Workshop nailed it with this one. The box includes two excellent beginner-friendly teams: the tough-as-nails Orcs and the well-rounded Imperial Nobility. You also get a high-quality cardboard pitch, all the templates and tokens you need, a full set of dice, and most importantly, the hardcover core rulebook, which alone is worth more than half the price of the box.
These aren’t watered-down beginner teams, either. Ask any Blood Bowl veteran what teams are great for new coaches, and these two will come up nearly every time.
What makes Blood Bowl especially refreshing is that unlike most miniatures games, you’re usually one or two purchases away from a full collection. A single team box is, in most cases, all you need. No sprawling codex collections. No dozens of units. No plastic terrain filling your closet like you’re prepping for diorama doomsday. Just a team, a pitch, and some dice.
Yes, there are extras you can buy, alternate star players, fancy dice, deluxe pitches, custom dugouts, but they’re exactly that: extras. Optional bling. The hobby equivalent of end-zone dances. You don’t need them to enjoy the game.
Lets Talk About The Game
Okay, weird header, I know. I’ve spent most of this article already raving about Blood Bowl’s rules, gameplay, and culture. But now I want to get a bit more practical. Let’s talk about the experience: what actually happens when you sit down to play? What should a new coach expect?
Blood Bowl is a game drenched in chaos, yes, but beyond the fumbled balls and crushed skulls, there are some real-world considerations players always ask about:
How long does it take?
How complex is it?
Is it balanced?
How often do the rules change?
Let’s tackle those one by one, starting with the most common question:
How Long Does a Game of Blood Bowl Take?
Simple question. Not-so-simple answer.
On average, a game takes around 2 to 2.5 hours. A fast match between experienced coaches might clock in at 90 minutes, while a slow-paced or rule-heavy game (especially with new players or heavy league play) can stretch up to 4 hours.
Why the wide range? Blame it on one of Blood Bowl’s most iconic mechanics: the Turnover rule.
In Blood Bowl, each player gets 8 turns per half, 16 total. But here’s the twist, your turn ends the moment you fail a key action. That failed dodge, botched handoff, or mistimed block? Boom. Turn over. Your opponent’s turn starts immediately.
This is pretty much everything you need to play. Two teams, the pitch and some dice. The modern starter set comes with various cheat sheets, templates and of course the book which just makes the game easier to manage on the table, but even these things most would consider unnecessary extras, bonus bling!
That means some turns might see a coach moving and acting with every player on their team, setting up clever plays and scoring touchdowns. Other turns might end after the very first roll. So the game’s pace is wildly variable, equal parts strategy, suspense, and slapstick comedy.
You don’t always have to play every turn.
In casual games, especially one-off exhibition matches, it’s common to call the game early if the score’s out of reach and the outcome is inevitable. This isn’t something you’d do in a league (where every touchdown and casualty could affect the standings or your team’s progression), but for friendly matches, early concessions can easily shave an hour off the game.
Blood Bowl isn’t exactly a “quick lunchtime skirmish” kind of game, but for what you get, the time investment is more than worth it. Every game is a full-blown story, packed with dramatic comebacks, heartbreaking dice rolls, and more than a few moments of “Did that really just happen?”
Complexity
From the perspective of your average miniature wargamer, Blood Bowl sits comfortably in the low to mid-range of complexity, depending entirely on how deep you dive.
If you’re just dabbling, grabbing some stock teams and playing casual one-off exhibition matches, then Blood Bowl is a low-complexity game. The core rules are intuitive, clearly written, and easy to pick up. Most players find that after a single match, they no longer need to reference the rulebook for basic play. It’s a streamlined, fast-flowing system that gets out of your way and lets the carnage happen.
But if you step into league play, where Blood Bowl truly shines, then complexity ramps up over time.
As your players gain experience, develop new skills, suffer injuries, and maybe even get maimed or eaten, the rules begin to expand. You’ll deal with special abilities, team development strategies, inducements, sponsorships, star players, and more, all layered on top of the core mechanics. The gameplay stays fast, but your decisions off the pitch start to carry more weight.
To be clear: this isn’t complexity for complexity’s sake. This is earned depth, the kind of slow-burn growth that makes you feel invested in your team. It’s part RPG, part sports sim, part beautiful mess.
Complexity is a judgement call, but by any standards that I’m aware, Blood Bowl is a relatively simple game. Most of the complexity of Blood Bowl is optional.
And even then, if you break it down, most of the advanced rules are tucked neatly into team management and league play. If you’re just playing a one-off match? You’re using maybe 30–40% of the full rulebook, tops. The rest lives in the realm of long-term campaign play, where the true flavor of Blood Bowl emerges.
Is The Game Balanced?
It’s a widely accepted consensus that Blood Bowl is the most balanced game in Games Workshop’s arsenal, but, as with most things, this comes with a few caveats. Some aspects that may initially appear as imbalances tend to fade as player knowledge and experience increase.
The first thing to understand about balance in Blood Bowl is that teams are definitively not “equal” to each other, but that’s by design. The game doesn’t aim for symmetry. Instead, it uses mechanics to compensate for inequality between teams.
When two teams meet for a match, they compare Team Value (TV), a number that reflects the total value of the team, including players, rerolls, staff, and other assets. The team with the lower TV receives inducement gold, which can be spent on temporary, one-match bonuses.
These inducements can include:
Star Players (mercenaries who join just for the match)
Bribes to influence referees
Wizards who cast spells from the stands
Extra coaching staff
Additional rerolls
And other quirky, strategic upgrades
This system is intentionally designed to level the playing field when teams of different strengths clash, especially in long-term leagues where team values diverge.
However, inducements are only as effective as the player using them. Knowing your team’s strengths and understanding your opponent’s weaknesses is critical to making the most of these one-off advantages. This kind of strategic decision-making can’t be “balanced” in the traditional sense, player skill is always a factor, and as expected, more experienced coaches tend to win regardless of built-in mechanics.
Another layer of balance comes from team design itself. While you might hear arguments that Team A is “better” than Team B, the reality is more nuanced. Every team in Blood Bowl has distinct strengths and weaknesses:
Some teams excel are running the ball, others passing, some use gimmicks and tricks, while others still go for pure brutality. Their various hybrids as well.
There are currently 24 teams in Blood Bowl, so there is more than a fair share to collect and most Blood Bowl players are not satisfied to simply own one team. The nice thing about Blood Bowl is that’s its one of those games where you don’t have to build armies. Any team box comes with pretty much everything you need.
There are many teams in the game, and each has its own internal logic and playstyle. Part of the strategic depth of Blood Bowl is learning how to counter those styles, choose the right players for the matchup, and build your team to thrive over time.
In league play, things get even more dynamic. As teams grow, injuries mount, and players improve, team values can vary wildly. It’s not uncommon to see dominant teams rise and others falter, but that’s part of the point. Leagues are about long-term management as much as on-the-pitch performance. Winning the league isn’t just about winning individual matches, it’s about managing your team’s growth, budget, and roster across the whole season.
Leagues usually start with an even playing field, but as they progress, natural rises and falls occur, and that ebb and flow is a core part of the Blood Bowl experience.
Rules Changes and Errata
As mentioned already, Games Workshop has largely maintained a consistent ruleset since the original release of the game. Barring an occasional rules addition, clarification or minor streamlining the game remains pretty much the same.
Most Errata comes in the form of rules clarifications, actual rules changes are quite rare. This is a game that if you learned it 5 years ago, is not going to feel different today. You might come across some minor adaptation to a team here and there, but this is mostly done out of community demand or as a response to things that transpire at major Blood Bowl events to help improve the play experience.
In short, rules changes are quite rare, additions are more common, new star players for example.
Conclusion
Personally, I think Blood Bowl is one of those unique staple games that I love having in my collection. I tend to play it most often with friends who are sports fans and dabble in tabletop gaming, people who appreciate the chaos and strategy but might not be full-time wargamers. In a way, I think it’s a bit more niche than it deserves to be.
In my core gaming group, most folks lean more toward traditional miniature wargames than sports-themed games, and that’s totally fine. Blood Bowl has become something of a personal secret weapon in my collection. It doesn’t hit the table very often, and I mostly play it in online leagues these days, but when I do engage with it, I always have a blast.
It’s a fun, chaotic sports game with deep strategy and a sense of humor that’s uniquely Warhammer. It definitely earns its place in my collection, and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves American football in particular and wants a tabletop experience that captures that competitive, unpredictable energy with a twist.
Ok, I hope that is sufficient to quiet the trolls out there. Blood Bowl!
In the last year, I realized something about my gaming habits and preferences that perhaps I should have, but never did notice. I seem to be a bit of a gaming hipster!? I think…
When I think about the sorts of games I like, regardless of category or genre, I find my tastes are a bit unusual compared to pretty much anyone I know around me. In fact, it’s kind of a problem because I very rarely get to actually play the games I would play if it were exclusively just up to me. Part of this I think, has to do with my age, I have been playing games for nearly 4 decades at this point, at least 2-3 decades more than most of my peers, which might explain my tastes to some degree; nostalgia and all that.
Regardless, in the spirit of Hipsterism, I thought I would talk about my preferences a bit, which, by default, has produced a kind of Hipster list!
What I will do is choose a genre of gaming, and for each genre, I will assume that I have a gaming group raring to play this weekend. Which game would I choose!?
Role-Playing Game
I’m going to split Role-Playing into three sub-genres because I do see RPG’s as something of a quirk of mine and picking just one game just won’t do.
Fantasy – 1st Edition AD&D
The classics in their original form can still be enjoyed thanks to the Wizards of the Coast reprints.
Here’s the thing: I love fantasy RPG’s—truly. I could spend hours agonizing over a top 10 list, shuffling titles around, and second-guessing myself. But one thing is certain: Classic 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is one of the most robust and compelling RPG traditions ever created for fantasy storytelling. Hands down.
Note, I did not call 1st edition AD&D a game, because to me, it’s always been more than just that, nor would I exactly escribe it as an RPG by today’s standards. AD&D is unique, a game with a very special approach and essence which did not exist before it in any game and has not been replicated in any games since. Every version of D&D that followed lost sight of this hidden essence, that magic that exists between the game as a rule set and the tradition that was born in Gygax’s definitive work. AD&D as a gaming tradition, an activity, and a collaborative storytelling tool, far exceeded the presumed simplicity of being a rule system and a game. I don’t know that Gygax intended for this to be true about his game, quite to the contrary, I think he was trying to create just that, a definitive rule set with AD&D, but like any art form, happy accidents happen. That happy little accident would never again be repeated, and every edition of the game has tried but failed to recapture the magic of the original.
Mind you, this is not for the lack of trying; in fact, I think most editions of the game have tried very hard to mirror the magic of AD&D, but the truth is that most designers even today can’t fully explain why this original version is different. I don’t think I could fully explain it either; it just is. An intangible quality exists in AD&D that is simply ineffable. As ineffable as it may be, I feel obligated to at least try to explain it, but I say this here and now, this is NOT about nostalgia.
Why do I gravitate toward this strange and inexplicable classic? Because I’ve always believed (as did Gygax) and still do that the most powerful, memorable role-playing happens when players don’t know the rules inside and out of how it’s done behind the screen. In the case of AD&D, it’s mostly because the rules are unknowable, thanks to the cryptic way in which they are described in what I consider the most important book in the RPG hobby ever written, the 1st edition AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide.
The 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide is one of the most unique books ever written. It doesn’t just guide you through the process of creating worlds for players to live in, but it teaches you how to present that world in a way that will inspire players to believe in it.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a critique of AD&D. Every player, given the chance, will lean into what they know; it’s only natural that when you know the rules of a game, you start using those rules to your advantage as a game. True magic happens when players don’t know how the game works. The less they know, the more they have to trust their natural instincts at the table. Not knowing the rules activates your imagination, and players start acting like people living in a story rather than characters moving through a system. They make choices that feel right, because they don’t have the option to make sure their choices are mechanically sound. This is the magic of AD&D, it refuses you the foundation of rules upon which to make decisions, leaving you to your collaborative imaginations. Some (in fact, most) would argue this is bad game design, but I would argue that it’s perfect game design. It makes the act of role-playing the only avenue for all participants. There is no game here upon which to hang your hat.
And that’s where the magic happens.
Especially in fantasy, where gods walk the earth, monsters lurk in the dark, and magic bends the very fabric of reality. Not knowing how everything works is a feature, not a bug. It creates a sense of wonder, of discovery, of trying things to see what they do. Players aren’t just learning about the world, they’re learning how its very physics of the world operates.
There were many versions of Dungeons and Dragons, both official and unofficial, but every book that followed 1st edition AD&D strived to be a rulebook first, presenting the game as a mechanical architecture for creating a game at the table that everyone, especially players, could understand. Only 1st edition AD&D saw itself as a creative toolkit for collaborative storytelling, targeting the DM as its master.
For me, 1st Edition AD&D will always be my first love and for that it can be easy to write it off as nostalgia and often with old school games this is the case with me, but not so with AD&D. If I had the chance, I’d run a classic game exactly as I believe it was always meant to be played: with a little mystery, a lot of imagination, and just enough chaos to keep everyone guessing.
Science-Fiction – Alternity
I was this close to picking The Aliens RPG by Free League Games. It’s a fantastic system for intense, edge-of-your-seat one-shots. But let’s be honest: once the xenomorphs are out in the open, the mystery that is the Alien movies vanishes, and with it, a lot of the drama. It’s hard to stretch that tension into a long-term campaign without it wearing thin, despite the fantastic game design that went into the Aliens RPG. I love it, but a good foundation for a long term RPG campaign – it’s not. It is a one-shot, nothing more, nothing less.
If Gygax is the pioneer of fantasy RPG’s, there is no question that Bill Slaviscek and Richard Baker were the pioneers of science-fiction RPG’s. Alternity is a master class in how science fiction should be approached as a storytelling game.
So in the end, it came down to a real heavyweight match: Star Wars RPG by West End Games versus Alternity by TSR/Wizards of the Coast. And while both hold their own with style and substance, I give the edge to Alternity for one reason only: The Stardrive campaign setting.
The setting designed by Richard Baker, one of the sharpest minds in the business, pushed Alternity over the top for me. It’s original, ambitious, and packed with the kind of rich lore that inspires long-term storytelling.
The Stardrive campaign setting is an epic tale of humanity’s rise to the stars, and despite being written in the late 90’s, the history of this setting rings more true today than it did back then. It’s a fascinating read, almost as if it’s a prediction.
But Alternity as a system is more than just a great way to bring a setting to life. It’s the unsung pioneer of the d20 era. Before 3rd Edition D&D made the mechanic mainstream, Alternity was already out there, blending class-based progression with skill-based freedom in a way that felt sleek and forward-thinking. It wasn’t just a set of rules, it was a toolkit for building any kind of science fiction world you could dream up. It’s the tragedy of the 21st century that Wizards of the Coast would take the d20 system invented with such perfection and completely botch it over the course of 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition D&D. They had the perfect model for a perfect system and decided to foolishly ignore it, but I digress.
Need spacefaring starships, cybernetic upgrades, rogue AIs, mutant powers, alien civilizations..the list goes on and on! It’s all there. Not just as a flavor, but with clean, well-designed mechanics that make it all sing at the table. There is no science-fiction setting that has ever been or ever will be created that you can’t replicate with perfection with the Alternity RPG.
I still believe that West End Games take on Star Wars is the best version of a Star Wars RPG to date. In effect, it makes Star Wars feel more hard science fiction, unlike the movies that pushed the setting into science fantasy.
Alternity gave us a framework where science fiction didn’t just feel possible, it felt limitless. That’s why, for me, it’s the gold standard for sci-fi roleplaying.
If I was going to run a science-fiction game today, there is no question it would be Alternity. The only exception I would make is for Star Wars, in that case, it would be the West End version of the game.
Other – Mage The Ascension
Over the past thirty years, I’ve run World of Darkness chronicles more times than I can count, and every single one stands out in my memory. There’s something about this universe that sticks with you. It comes in many shades: vampires brooding in neon-lit alleys, werewolves howling at the edge of the apocalypse, and wraiths lost in their own sorrow. But the default flavor has always been Vampire: The Masquerade.
And don’t get me wrong, Vampire deserves its fame. It’s probably the most iconic and approachable entry in the World of Darkness line, and for good reason. But if you came to me right now and said, “Run a World of Darkness game,” I know exactly what I’d pick: Mage: The Ascension.
Like Vampire, Mage puts players in the shoes of powerful supernatural beings. But where Vampire centers on politics, survival, and control over the mortal underworld, something players can more easily connect with, Mage reaches for something far more abstract and far more profound.
One of the big burdens of Mage The Ascension is that it’s focused on a wide range of unique takes on belief systems. It’s one of those RPG’s where everyone needs to read it cover to cover to really understand it, it’s difficult to present it as a GM. White Wolf games require a lot of self-reading because so much of the games storytelling is buried in the details of the setting and aesthetic backdrops, but nowhere is this more true than Mage.
In Mage, your faction isn’t just a club or a bloodline, it’s a belief system. A worldview. And the war isn’t over turf or influence, it’s over control of reality itself.
The Technocracy reigns in the modern age, shaping the world through science, reason, and the rigid laws of physics. But the twist is that, this version of reality is just another kind of magic, one that’s been accepted by consensus. Other mages, the ones who Awaken to alternate truths (the players), fight back not with bullets or blades but with paradigm-shattering ideas. The conflict is philosophical, spiritual, and metaphysical; the journey I can only describe as a mind-bending acid trip.
When you run Mage, you’re telling a story about characters who don’t just cast magic, they reshape the fabric of existence. And the more they push, the more the world pushes back. It’s a game where players don’t just feel powerful, they begin to believe in the power of belief itself.
To this day, I’ve never had the chance to run a full Mage chronicle—and I’ve been itching to do so for years. I love this setting. I ache for the chance to guide a group through its mysteries. If the opportunity ever came up? Let’s just say I’d be all in.
Boardgames
When it comes to board games, the number of categories is ridiculous, and I could make a solid argument for any of them. If, however, you forced me to pick three, forsaking all others, I think this would be the list.
Lifestyle Games – Twilight Imperium
Without question, the single best boardgame ever designed…period.
If I could conjure up a dedicated group of Twilight Imperium fans with the snap of my fingers, I’d be running a weekly game in a heartbeat, and I doubt I’d ever get tired of it. I know because I once had that, and it was and still is to this day, the best boardgaming experience I have ever had. It’s an irreplaceable memory that I will always chase because, in my view, Twilight Imperium is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.
Twilight Imperium isn’t just a board game. It’s a commitment, a journey, and for those willing to invest the time, it becomes something greater: a lifestyle. This is a game with layers on top of layers. What looks at first like a complex 4X space opera transforms into an ever-evolving, deeply human drama of ambition, alliances, betrayals, and vision.
Yes, it’s long. But that time investment isn’t a drawback it’s what allows the story to breathe. The game unfolds like an epic saga, each session an emergent narrative shaped by the choices, fears, and aspirations of the players around the table. It’s a game that brings out raw human drama, both imagined and real at the table. I have seen how passionate players can get about this game and I thirst for those experiences.
On the surface, Twilight Imperium is a combination of a civilization builder and war game, filled with rich lore, factions with asymmetric powers, and galactic conquest. But dig deeper, and you’ll find a game of psychology, political maneuvering, negotiation, and strategic bluffing. As I like to call it, the real game behind the mechanical one. Every move is loaded with meaning. Every word spoken a ploy. Every silence held can shift the balance of power.
You don’t just play Twilight Imperium, you live it for the duration of the game. You embody your faction’s ethos. You forge uneasy alliances, backstab former friends, and navigate the ever-turbulent currents of the Galactic Council. You calculate every vote, every trade, every fleet deployment with a mix of tactical precision and raw gut instinct.
With two dozen unique factions, dynamic objectives, modular galaxy maps, and endless human variables, Twilight Imperium offers infinite replayability. It’s a true modern masterpiece, an epic that’s far too often overlooked because of its scale and length. But for those who make the leap, the rewards are unmatched.
This used to be a game I played all the time and I can’t think of any gaming experience I miss more, it’s right up there with 1st edition AD&D and Battletech!
Tactical Games – Battletech
Its a cross between boardgaming, miniature gaming and role-playing.
Some might call BattleTech a miniatures game and sure, technically it is. But to me? It’s always been a dice-chucker board game disguised as a tactical miniature game, dressed up in pewter and plastic, pretending to be part of the miniatures crowd while doing its own brilliant thing as a role-playing game. It’s a strange mixture but it works.
BattleTech is incredible for three big reasons.
First, the lore. It’s a sprawling, obsessively detailed tapestry of interstellar warfare, dynasties, betrayals, and battle mechs the size of small buildings. You can trace the fictional design history of a single ‘Mech model, who built it, where it was deployed, how it evolved with more depth and nuance than many real-world war machines. We’re talking more lore than Warhammer 40k, and I don’t say that lightly. If you’re a story-driven gamer like me, this universe is an absolute goldmine of narrative potential. It’s a robust setting that rivals most role-playing games.
Second, the game itself. The core mechanics of BattleTech have remained remarkably intact for over 40 years. In a world where games are constantly rebooted, patched, streamlined, or gutted for new editions and marketing cycles, BattleTech is a white elephant. Buy a rulebook or a miniature in the ‘80s, and your game is still valid today. Still playable. Still awesome. That kind of long-term commitment to players and collectors is practically unheard of in the tabletop world. And here’s the kicker: as of 2025, BattleTech is the third-highest-grossing miniatures game in the world. Proof positive that you don’t need to screw over your fanbase with constant reinvention for a cash grab to make a living in the industry.
But honestly, those first two reasons are just icing on the cake. The real reason you should play BattleTech is this:
It’s a glorious, chaotic, beer-and-pretzels dice chucking tactical slugfest. A crunchy, customizable, story-driven war game where everything that can go wrong probably will — and that’s the fun of it. Yes, there’s tactical play, but this isn’t chess. This is a cinematic, slow-motion trainwreck of overheating engines, ammo explosions, critical hits, and desperate Hail Mary maneuvers. It’s a game where you feel the damage, as your mech gets carved apart limb by limb in a ballet of ballistic fire and reactor meltdowns.
Only one other game I’ve played, Warmachine, gets anywhere near the same granular feel of mechanized combat. Unfortunately, like most miniature games, the constant rule changes, reboots, and updates completely ruined Warmachine. Battletech has stayed the course and remains all about managing your loadout, balancing your heat, and watching as your prized war machine limps across the battlefield, missing an arm and trailing smoke. That’s peak drama. That’s BattleTech.
I love this game. Always have. It’s one of the few on my shelf where pieces I bought in the ‘80s can legitimately still hit the table, no updates needed, no strings attached.
Sadly, like many of my hipster gaming passions, BattleTech isn’t exactly mainstream in my circles. I rarely get to play these days. But if someone asked me to drop everything for a match?
Hell yes. I’d be there in a heartbeat.
Event Games – Western Empire (Advanced Civilization)
The original Avalon Hill version of this game was quite ugly, like many games back then, they lived in your imagination which was kind of the point of table top gaming in general.
If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you already know War Room is one of my favorite event games. It doesn’t make the hipster list, though, mostly because I actually get to play it and I believe it to be a well-designed modern game, there is nothing hipster about it. My friends are kind enough to indulge me once a year (usually around my birthday), and while it’s big, bold, and unique, at the end of the day, it’s still an Axis & Allies descendant.
Now Western Empires, or as I still instinctively call it, Advanced Civilization, is hipster gaming royalty.
Shut up and sit down, I think did the best and most honest review of this game I have ever seen, flaws and all, but they their is one observation that they sort of failed to make which is that what they saw as flaws in the game from a gamers perspective are very intentionally designed features. It’s sort of like accusing Star Wars of having too many lightsabers.
I’ve talked about this game plenty before, and for good reason. It’s a sprawling, epic beast of a board game. Designed for a minimum of five players, though let’s be honest, it really wants nine (yeah you heard that right). Clocking in at a cool 12 to 15 hours, it’s less a game and more a full-day historical event. It is, without exaggeration, one of the hardest games to actually get to the table.
To put it in perspective, I haven’t played a live game of Advanced Civilization in over 20 years. Two decades. And yet, I’ve always kept a copy on my shelf. Just in case. Always hopeful that one day this one will get its moment in the sun.
At its core, Western Empires is a game of historical empire-building and economic maneuvering. There’s trading. There’s a touch of area control. Sometimes, it even pretends to be a war game. But really, it’s about managing the wild, unpredictable chaos of history. You stretch your reach, you push your luck, and you try to outmaneuver your rivals not with brute force, but with sharp wits and sharper tongues.
One of the biggest reasons this game rarely hits the table, aside from the sheer time investment and player count requirements, is that modern gamers often expect strategy games to reward clever, clean moves. Western Empires doesn’t care about your strategic brilliance. This is not a game of perfectly calculated efficiency. It’s a game of negotiation, adaptability, and psychological warfare. The best players aren’t the ones with the most optimal city placement, unit movement or strategic planning. They’re the ones who can read a room, spin a trade, and deliver a betrayal with a smile while staying the course of the inevitable and uncontrollable ups and downs of the game’s natural ebb and flow.
You don’t play the game, you play the players. That’s where the real magic is.
There’s really nothing else quite like it. The closest modern comparison might be Small World, and that’s a real stretch for a comparison, as it matches only some of the subtle nuances of mechanics. Western Empires occupies a weird, wonderful niche all on its own.
And that’s why it’s here, on the hipster list. I know full well this kind of game isn’t for everyone. Hell, it’s barely for anyone. Finding eight other souls who are all willing to commit an entire day to a relic of the 80s is an impossible task in most gaming circles. But if I ever found the right group, you better believe I’d make this a yearly tradition, right up there with War Room.
Quirky, chaotic, and criminally underplayed. That’s what the hipster list is all about.
Euro Games –
Miniature Games
When it comes to miniature games I would argue there are also quite a few different ways these games can be categorized, but I think a simple way to do it would be to split it between casual games and competitive games. It’s a broad, but it’s easy to distinguish way to do it. I would only add one third category, which I would call semi-miniature games, in which I would place miniature games that don’t have a miniature painting hobby component at all.
Casual – Warhammer 40k
40k is an all-encompassing hobby, stretching far beyond simply playing the game, and that is kind of the point of it. It’s a bit like loving Star Wars.
Ironically, in 2025, playing the most popular miniature game in the world might be the most hipster thing you can do.
Why? Because the moment Warhammer 40k comes up in conversation, it’s almost guaranteed someone will start rattling off a list of games that are “better in every way” and listing all the things that are wrong with 40k. And they’re not wrong, there are more balanced, more strategic, more thoughtfully designed games out there, lots of them. But sticking with something you know could be objectively replaced by a dozen superior alternatives? That’s peak hipster energy!
But let’s talk about the most fascinating part of the 40k experience: the community.
Across the globe, the Warhammer 40k community treats the game like a competitive titan, and to be fair, it is the largest and most active competitive tournament scene in all of tabletop gaming, by a long shot. The sheer scale of organized play is staggering.
And yet… Games Workshop, the company behind 40k, doesn’t seem to agree. At all.
To GW, Warhammer 40k is primarily a miniature line, secondarily a source of lore and novels, and somewhere far down the list, it’s technically a game. Their support for competitive play feels more like a reluctant nod to what the community chooses to do with their game, than a purposeful commitment or intent for it. The rules are often unbalanced, the game systems are regularly reworked or mismanaged, and it’s clear that game design is not what drives the brand. What we have here is a competitive community built on a system that was never meant to bear the weight of serious play. And somehow… it thrives on that very thing.
In a word, I would argue that Warhammer 40k is not a great competitive game, and when people trash-talk it, that’s really what they are talking about. But it’s a fantastic hobby and a super fun, casual experience, aka, exactly what it’s designed to be.
It’s a beer-and-pretzels dice-chucker in a gothic sci-fi shell, where the real joy comes from painting your army, crafting your own narrative, and then putting it all on the table to roll some dice and blow stuff up. The rules are often clunky, the strategy is there only to a point, but largely buried under layers of “smoke and mirrors.” Winning isn’t about mastering a perfect system, it usually comes down to how well you roll the dice.
And despite all that? I love it.
The mission system is genuinely dynamic, with flavorful objectives and varied scenarios that keep the game feeling fresh. The list-building is wide open, full of creative options and wild combos. But at its core, this is a casual game through and through, one that thrives on the atmosphere around the table and the lore on which it’s based, not in the pursuit of perfection of its gameplay.
Warhammer 40k is about collecting and painting miniatures, swapping war stories, and diving into the endless supply of pulpy, over-the-top lore of a universe where everything is grim, dark, and somehow still gloriously silly.
It’s a hobby. A vibe. A lifestyle, even. Flaws and all, I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.
Competative – Songs of Ice and Fire
I would argue that Songs of Ice and Fire the miniature game is the only rank and file miniature game ever made that actually works well as a game rather than a terrible history lesson about how boring war on the battlefield actually is.
I’ll be the first to admit: I don’t play A Song of Ice & Fire much these days. It’s had a rough road, marred by some truly questionable management decisions over the years and plagued with availability problems. But even with all that baggage, I still consider it one of the most compelling competitive miniature games out there.
This is very much a game that lives in the “I wish” category. I wish it had been better supported, wish it had stuck the landing in balance and they did it all much faster, and wish it still had a place at my table. There’s a part of me that’s still hopeful it’ll stabilize and find its footing again, maybe even make a comeback in my group.
I went in deep on this one. Despite its flaws, I found A Song of Ice & Fire to be one of the most engaging strategy games to hit the miniature scene since Star Wars: Armada. At its core is a genuinely smart design, layered list-building, unique unit interactions, and some fascinating sub-war game mechanics like the NCU board and tactical card play. When it clicked, it really clicked.
Except when it didn’t.
To be fair, most of the problems I ran into weren’t with the design itself — they were with the balance. And yes, you could argue that design and balance go hand in hand (and you wouldn’t be wrong), but I still think there’s a meaningful distinction. A game can be brilliantly designed but hampered by poor balancing decisions, one can be fine-tuned, the other is just a flaw. That’s A Song of Ice & Fire in a nutshell: great foundation, uneven execution.
Now, I haven’t kept up with the latest updates, so maybe things are better these days. But in my local scene, the damage was done, people moved on, and getting a game back into circulation after a group loses faith in it is no small feat.
And then, there’s the personal hurdle: painting.
This one’s tough for me. Being a mass army game, ASOIAF demands batch painting. Lots of similar models, unit after unit, rank after rank. And repetitive painting is my kryptonite. I just can’t stay motivated painting the same miniature ten times in a row. It sucks the joy out of the hobby for me, and ASOIAF is particularly brutal in that regard with no list building avoidance some games offer.
All that said? I still think this is a fantastic game. It deserves recognition. It’s competitive, it’s clever, and when it’s running smoothly, it offers a rich tactical experience that not many miniature games can match. That’s why it earns a spot on the hipster list, a flawed gem that still shines when the light hits just right.
That said… its time may be running out. Modern miniature design is evolving fast, and with games like Warcrow on the horizon, strong contenders are lining up to take this slot permanently.
The Most Fun – Star Wars: X-Wing
In my mind, Star Wars X-Wing is still one of the best miniature games ever made. PERIOD.
When talking about the miniature game hobby, there’s always one title that sparks debate, some say it barely qualifies as a miniatures game at all. I’m talking about X-Wing. And frankly, I don’t buy the skepticism. Slap those sleek ships onto a sprue and suddenly there’d be no doubt where it belongs.
Yes, it’s pre-painted. Yes, it’s more accessible than most. But that doesn’t disqualify it, it redefines the space. X-Wing was designed to walk the tightrope between a serious competitive game and a relaxed casual experience, and it succeeded. Brilliantly. This game brought three key advantages to the table that most miniature games either ignore or fail to execute well. And those three factors are why X-Wing stood tall in the market for years, even managing to shake Games Workshop out of its golden-era complacency.
First, the pacing. X-Wing matches are quick, typically 45 minutes. That’s practically warp speed in miniature gaming terms. It made the game ideal for tournaments and casual nights. You could run multiple matches in an evening, try out a bunch of new lists, and still have time to argue about who really shot first. There’s no hour-long rules refresh or setup slog—just “Hey, want to play?” and you’re in. That kind of approachability is rare in the hobby.
Second, it’s Star Wars. That’s not just thematic dressing—it’s a gateway. The brand brings in people who’ve never even looked twice at a miniature game. You don’t have to explain the appeal of piloting an X-Wing. You show someone the TIE Fighters screaming across the table, and they’re already halfway sold. I’ve never seen a non-gamer pick up Warhammer 40K on a whim. But X-Wing? That’s the one that brings in the curious, the casual, the movie fans, the dads and uncles and kids who just want to fly the Falcon.
Third, and maybe most importantly, X-Wing made high-level tactical play accessible. The rules were simple on the surface, but the depth was staggering. Movement planning, arc dodging, list synergies, action economy, there was real meat on those bones. You didn’t have to learn 200 pages of codex lore to be competitive. But if you wanted to go deep, the game rewarded you. It hit that perfect balance: easy to learn, hard to master.
X-Wing wasn’t just another miniatures game. It was a lightning-in-a-bottle moment in the hobby. It opened the door to a new audience, streamlined what was possible in design, and reminded the rest of the industry that a game could be both fast and deep, fun and tactical, cinematic and competitive.
Whether you play it today or remember it from its heyday, X-Wing deserves its place in the conversation, not just as a miniature game, but as one of the best games to ever grace a tabletop. In my personal opinion, its the single best miniature game that we have gotten in the 4 decades of I’ve been around.
Best Design – Star Wars Armada
When first announced, everyone thought that this would be X-Wing but with capital ships. It certainly looks the part, but Star Wars Armada is an entirely different and far heavier game that demanded a lot more from its audiance.
One final entry I’d like to sneak onto the hipster list—and I say this with as much objectivity as a subjective opinion can carry—is my pick for the best-designed miniature game out there.
To take this crown, a game has to meet a singular, uncompromising criterion: skill must reign supreme. Like chess, where grandmasters fall only to their peers, this kind of game leaves no room for chance to decide the victor. It must be a pure contest of mastery, where the dice are just accessories, not arbiters of fate. And in the world of miniatures, that game is Star Wars: Armada.
Sure, there are dice. But make no mistake, those little cubes only matter when two evenly matched minds clash. In Armada, outcomes are forged not by luck, but by foresight, precision, and relentless practice. It’s a game that rewards not just play, but study. The kind of study that turns casual fans into hardened tacticians.
But here’s where it gets really compelling: Armada doesn’t just test you on the battlefield. It demands mastery before the first ship even hits the table. The list-building is deep, nuanced, and packed with options that will make your head spin if you’re not ready for it. Understanding the shifting meta, anticipating counter-play, these are not fringe skills, they’re the bedrock of victory. The game is highly deterministic, which means your preparation matters as much, if not more, than your moment-to-moment decision-making at the table.
That it’s set in the Star Wars universe, with massive capital ships slugging it out in glorious slow-motion ballet? That’s just the sweet, sweet icing on a very dense, very intimidating cake. But fair warning: Armada is not a casual fling. It’s a demanding, often unforgiving beast that can feel downright brutal if you approach it half-heartedly. You don’t play Armada, you train for it, like a chess grandmaster gearing up for the championship board.
After a month of being neck-deep in all things Warcrow, from the lore to the miniatures and everything in between, it’s finally time to bring it all together and deliver the final verdict. I knew from the get-go that reviewing a full miniature game would be a monumental undertaking, and it turns out… I was absolutely right. But here we are, finally at the end in the final article, and if you have been following along with Warcrow March Madness, I hope you found it informative and useful. I’m genuinely satisfied with the result.
To recap, we’ve already published two dedicated reviews among a series of other articles: one diving into the rich and immersive Warcrow lore, and another focused entirely on the miniatures—both crucial aspects of any tabletop wargame. But let’s be honest: when most people think “miniature game review,” what they really want to know is, “How does it actually play?”
That’s exactly what we’re going to cover today. The gameplay, the mechanics, the experience at the table- this is where Warcrow truly proves itself.
So, settle in. This one’s going to be a bit of a deep dive with a few side tracks.
Overview
Warcrow, at its core, is a tactical skirmish wargame that represents the next generation of miniature gaming design. It stands out for its commitment to streamlined mechanics, unambiguous rules, and a clear focus on balance, hallmarks of a system designed for both competitive integrity and ease of play.
Warcrow excels as a game that zooms in on the battlefield, focusing on the unique individuals that make up your units. Each warrior, mage, hero, and villain is defined by unique abilities and roles that contribute to a broad range of tactical options and unique dynamic gameplay. These elements interact in a cohesive system that rewards strategic planning and synergy without being bogged down by excessive complexity or overburdening you with complex list building.
One of the game’s most notable strengths is the clarity and structure of its mechanics. There are virtually no exception-based rules or ambiguous interactions. What’s outlined in the core rulebook is exactly how the game plays, providing a reliable and consistent experience from one match to the next. There is no “eye-balling it” in this game.
As mentioned in the lore review, there is a strong narrative integration between the game’s setting and the mechanics. The spells, weapons, and abilities, and characters used in gameplay reflect the world’s rich high fantasy background, resulting in a game that feels both tactical and cinematic. Every action on the table contributes to the story being told, as well as the action being resolved.
The design space itself is impressively robust. Even at this early stage, it’s clear that Corvus Belli has created a flexible foundation capable of supporting a wide range of future content. As additional factions are released, the depth and complexity of the game will continue to expand. We are only beginning to see what the full scope of the system can deliver.
Even with the current roster of factions, Warcrow offers compelling choices. It is intellectually engaging, well-balanced, and rich in tactical decision-making.
In short, Warcrow delivers a refined and thoughtful gameplay experience, built on a foundation that supports competitive play, narrative immersion, and long-term growth. It is already a standout in the miniature skirmish genre, in my view, with much more still to come.
There are three questions I aim to answer in this review, three important and relevant questions I think any miniature war game fan would ask.
First and foremost, how does it compare to games we are already playing? For many, if not most, Warcrow won’t be your first rodeo and you are no doubt already spending gobs of money elsewhere and want to know how this game compares to the games you already love and play. Taking on a new miniature game is always a bad financial decision; everyone knows this. For many, doing so means giving something else up so I understand the relevance of this all-important question.
The second is, who is this game for? Who is the audience this game targets, and how does it do so? Miniature war games have many sub-genres and playstyles, so identifying where Warcrow lands is critical as we all have our own personal tastes, and this is often not reflected in the quality of a game but rather based on the design. This means a game can be great but not a good fit for you , nonetheless. Proper categorization is important.
The natural assumption when making comparisons to Warcrow is to choose the most popular fantasy miniature game out there, which might be Age of Sigmar, but just because a game is fantasy doesn’t mean we are comparing apples to apples. Genres, plastyles, and design intention are far more important than themes.
Finally, I will talk about my personal tilt, answering the questions for myself. As a miniature game fan with a dozen games on my shelf and an ungodly amount of money already spent on miniature games, I think my personal take counts for something. I believe firmly that gamers love to hear from other gamers, their unfiltered opinions and you will definitly get that before this review is done.
The Depth Of Interaction
If there’s one thing that truly stands out in Warcrow’s design, it’s how incredibly dynamic the game’s interactions are. Especially when it comes to the diverse unit abilities and their impact on the battlefield.
Each unit is crafted with purpose, clearly defined, and easy to grasp, making it intuitive to deploy them in the heat of combat. But as you dive deeper into how these abilities play out across various matchups, it becomes clear that there’s more beneath the surface. While every unit has a core design intent, their versatility shines differently depending on your opponent. Many units boast multiple abilities, some of which might seem underwhelming against certain armies or army lists, yet prove devastating against others. Even something as simple as a unit’s speed or attack type can suddenly become a critical advantage or a glaring weakness, all based on who you’re facing. This built-in layered dynamic means you don’t just think “this unit is good at X,” but rather evaluate its value based on the unique conditions of each battle. No two encounters feel the same as a result, even when using the same army list.
It’s a subtle but brilliant piece of game design that doesn’t reveal itself right away. You need to play through several matchups with the same list to fully appreciate it, but once you do, it becomes impossible to ignore.
The card profiles can seem complex at first and arguably are complex, but the game is intuitive, turning this complexity into a worthwhile architecture to learn. You get used to it, and once you do, you will appreciate the genius of it.
To me, all great miniature games have this design effect, and when it’s absent, it’s very noticeable. I’m reminded of games like Star Wars Armada and Star Wars X-Wing, which also had this great dynamic effect where any single unit could be used in a dozen different roles depending on the sort of upgrades you put on it. The nice thing with Warcrow is that you don’t have to fuss with the extra complexity of matching upgrades with a unit to get this effect; it’s sort of built-in.
Warcrow reminds me a great deal of the reasons why I love Star Wars: X Wing. Each unit had value in a wide range of lists with lots of different uses, creating this exploration effect where you would try out different approaches. Finding a unique way to use a unit and surprise your opponent with a new, unexpected tactic is an extremely gratifying experience.
This makes the entire list-building process a whole lot simpler, yet this depth of interaction is left uncompromised. I think it’s my favorite part of Warcrow because I think, no matter who you are, you are going to appreciate this aspect of Warcrow. It’s a universal benefit and a product of great game design.
Pacing, Activation, and Initiative
If there’s one common flaw across most miniature games, it’s that they almost all, without exception, suffer from pacing issues, usually tied directly to how activation and initiative are handled.
Take Warhammer 40k, for instance, where players take alternate turns, executing every action for their entire army before the opponent gets a chance to respond. This often results in entire units being wiped off the board before they can even act.
Or look at Star Wars: Armada, where having more ships grants you more activations—a significant advantage that lets you stall and outmaneuver your opponent simply by doing more, later.
The initiative wheel is a bonus here because not only is it great for tracking effects, initiative, and turn order, but it plays into the design by allowing the game to have timed effects, which is something that I suspect will be liberally used in the future as more narrative scenarios are introduced.
I could rattle off a dozen more examples where initiative and activation create balance problems, leading to all kinds of pacing breakdowns, list building shinaningans, and other problems that bog down gameplay. Any experienced miniature wargamer knows exactly what I’m talking about here.
Warcrow, on the other hand, is one of the rare games that completely sidesteps this issue, and it does so with one elegantly simple rule: each round, both players get exactly five activations. That’s it. It doesn’t matter who has more units or who goes first, nothing messes with this flow of play.
In fact, it’s the first game I’ve played where going first or second doesn’t feel like a default advantage or disadvantage, nor how many more units you have or any other decision made during list building.
This mechanic liberates list-building since you’re not pressured by activation math or outnumbering tricks.
The result is a game with brilliant pacing, where matches move quickly, decisions feel meaningful, every activation carries weight, and none of can be broken by any means.
Power Plays & Other Big Moves
When you play a miniature game, there’s often a strange contradiction at play, we want to feel powerful, to pull off epic moves and dramatic power plays, but ironically, those moments don’t always translate into a fun or balanced experience at the table for everyone.
Take Warhammer 40k, for example. Blasting a tank off the board in one shot feels awesome. It’s cinematic, it’s impactful, and it shifts the momentum of the game instantly. But when you’re on the receiving end, watching a key unit disappear before it can do anything, that “wow” moment quickly becomes a “why bother” moment, especially when the entire outcome hinges on a single lucky die roll with no opportunity for countermeasures or reactive play.
I will say upfront and be honest that this does not bother me personally. I love big epic moments, but only where appropriate. Warhammer 40k is a war game, not a tactical miniature game. There is a difference, and we will talk more about that in a bit. There are also games like Battle of Middle-Earth Strategy game and Battletech, for example, that I also would consider exceptions to this rule, each for their own reasons. I know, however, that for many players out there, this can be a real deal breaker, and I get that.
Needless to say, a good game should make everyone at the table feel engaged, regardless of whether they’re winning or losing. It’s frustrating to have your match derailed by one overblown dice spike, especially if it removes any hope of a fair comeback.
Thankfully, Warcrow avoids this pitfall almost entirely. I won’t go so far as to say it never happens; this is still a dice game, after all, but overwhelmingly, matches tend to be far more stable and tactically driven, with few exploding situations.
I’d describe Warcrow as a game of attrition, where true breakthrough moments usually don’t occur until the final rounds. It’s rare that a single attack completely changes the game’s outcome. That’s because most units come equipped with tools, abilities, defenses and status effects that help mitigate or respond to threats. You are rarely left with no options for a reaction. The biggest factor here is the all-important stress resource.
Stress is a controllable resource; you typically only gain stress when you choose to. Usually, as long as you have not spent all your stress, you have options; those big breakthrough moments typically only happen at the end of a match because units have reached their stress limits and can’t respond.
And that’s not to say the game lacks big moments. Quite the opposite, every activation can feel like a big moment. But instead of “I rolled all sixes, game over,” it’s more like, “I just put real pressure on you for 3 activations in a row, and now you’re in real trouble on this flank because all of your units are stressed.” It’s dynamic without being volatile.
I have to confess that I never tried this game at a lower (starter) point count. My friends and I dove straight into the full game, so I’m not sure if this “stability effect” works with lower points, it might not.
Dice still matter, of course, but the odds are tight, and poor tactical decisions are far more likely to hurt you than bad luck. In our experience so far, most games are decided by a margin of just 1–2 points—and many end in a draw.
The result? A game that feels consistent and fair. Important decisions happen every round, and every activation matters, but those crushing “this game is over” moments are few and far between, typically delegated to the final rounds of the game. And that’s a beautiful thing, a direct result of fantastic game design.
Rules Density, Tracking Stuff and Components
I want to say Warcrow is simple to pick up and easy to play—and to a large extent, that’s true. The core rules density is quite manageable, and the game does a solid job of organizing effects with a relatively intuitive system for how abilities interact and inform your strategic decisions.
That said, I’m not sure everyone will feel that way right out of the gate. Warcrow includes several subsystems, each with its own timing quirks and layered effects. There are a lot of tokens that represent effects for a miniature game, not to mention a wide range of unique abilities across units and factions. While it’s not hard to track your own army, you’ve got the cards, the tokens, resources, and everything laid out in front of you, it’s a very different story when it comes to parsing on the fly what’s happening on your opponent’s side of the table.
This becomes even more obvious as you face a wider variety of factions and lists. In my games, I often found that when an opponent explained all the things their units could do, it barely registered into my strategy. There was just too much to take in. A constant stream of, “Oh, this guy can also do this,” and, “Don’t forget, he has this keyword that modifies that ability which affects this other unit’s timing,” can start to blur together. It’s already a challenge to internalize your own army’s suite of tools, and keeping track of your opponent’s full kit in real time can feel overwhelming.
Of course, that’s not unusual. In fact, it’s fairly standard for deep miniature games. Over time, you’ll naturally build familiarity by facing the same factions and units repeatedly. But Warcrow has so many dynamic interactions and layered mechanics that gaining true mastery will take a serious amount of play—and probably a good amount of study.
If Infinity, Corvus Belli’s other miniature game, is any indication of what is coming for Warcrow, we are going to see a lot of releases. The environment is going to get more and more complex with each release. I don’t think it’s fair to suggest that Warcrow is unfriendly to new players; that is not the case, but I think it is fair to say that Warcrow is a deep and complex game that targets players who love depth and complexity.
In a word, it’s easy to get started, simple enough of a game to learn, but it’s a deep and complex game under the surface, packed with unique abilities and intricate interplay. It’s clearly designed with the experienced miniatures gamer in mind. This isn’t a lightweight skirmish game, it’s built for seasoned players who enjoy absorbing the nuances of faction identity and unit synergy.
That’s not good or bad, it just is. It speaks more to the target audience. Much like Corvus Belli’s other title, Infinity, this game goes deep and rewards those willing to dive in with both feet. Casual gamers need not apply, this one is aimed squarely at the veteran gamers.
Comparing The Experianace
It’s only natural for players to ask the big question: how does this compare to X or Y game? A full breakdown could fill an entire article, but I can offer one piece of high-level guidance.
At its core, Warcrow is best understood as a tactical miniature game, not a war-scale miniatures game. That distinction matters. Many popular games, like Warhammer 40k, aim to simulate massive battles with sweeping movements and grand strategies. These games are about positioning large forces, making broad-stroke plays, and hoping your overall game plan holds together against the onslaught of buckets of dice that will be rolled over the course of a match.
In war-scale games, you attempt things with limited control and discover what happens. In tactical games like Warcrow, you plan things and execute decisions with a clearer understanding of likely outcomes. There are surprises sure, but things are considerably more controlled.
Perhaps a better comparison to Warcrow might be a game like Warhammer 40k: Kill Team. This, too is a skirmish tactical game, and while I would still argue they are quite different in their approach, the scale and size of the battle is part of what makes the difference between a miniature war game and a tactical miniature game.
Tactical games emphasize action-reaction mechanics, tighter resource economies, and fewer decisions—but each decision carries more weight. In Warcrow, with just 15 total activations per game, every move matters.
It’s a bit like the difference between playing Chess and playing RISK. Chess is tactical, you can anticipate counters, calculate your path, and react to threats with precision. RISK is strategic; you make plays and hope the dice and positioning go your way. There’s a reason it’s called RISK.
Again, I have to say that this is neither a positive or a negative thing, it just is, and it’s more about knowing what sort of game you prefer which takes me to the final and perhaps most important part of the review.
My Personal Tilt
I’ve been dreading this part of the review—and you’re about to understand why.
Warcrow is, without question, an excellent miniatures game. It’s razor-sharp in its design, beautifully produced, and brimming with smart mechanics. If you love tactical skirmish games, this one’s a homerun, especially if you’re drawn to competitive play. That’s my objective take, my assessment of the game with preference playing no role in it.
But subjectively? It’s not really my kind of game.
I come from the chaos-loving side of the hobby. My favorites are Battletech, Star Wars: X-Wing, and Warhammer 40k—games that thrive on wild dice rolls, hidden moves, and the kind of unpredictable madness that turns a game night into a story you’ll laugh about later. These games are messy, swingy, and not particularly balanced… and that’s exactly why I adore them.
Warcrow isn’t that. Like A Song of Ice and Fire or Star Wars: Armada, it rewards mastery, foresight, and discipline. Player skill trumps randomness. It’s elegant, structured, and built for those who want to study, refine, and win through pure tactical brilliance. In many ways, it’s an objectively better game than the ones I usually play.
But on any given Sunday ask me what I want to play and I’m far more likely to pick something like Battletech or Warhammer 40k than Warcrow.
Not because Warcrow does anything wrong, but because it asks more of you. It’s a game you can’t half-ass. You need to know your units, your synergies, your list and strategy etc.. etc.. That’s awesome if you’re ready to go deep, but less great if you’re just here to unwind with some dice and a drink.
Will I still play? Probably. If my group’s into it, I’d rather be part of the fun than sit out. And honestly, I do respect the hell out of the design. But for me, Warcrow doesn’t quite scratch the itch I’m usually looking to satisfy with minature games.
Final Verdict
Let’s keep this short and sharp, because Warcrow deserves that kind of clarity.
This is, without a doubt, one of the best-designed miniature games I’ve encountered in the past twenty years, going all the way back to the spark of the modern miniatures era with Mage Knight in 2000. It’s got the full package: a rich setting, stunning miniatures, and a rock-solid core ruleset that feels laser-focused on tactical excellence.
Mage Knight, the game that kicked off the HeroClix revolution, was the first to truly challenge the traditional mold of miniature wargames. It dared to ask, “What if we did things differently?”—and in doing so, it ignited a new era in miniature gaming.
This is a design space bursting with potential, and I firmly believe Warcrow has a bright future, especially in the competitive scene. But here’s my hope: that Corvus Belli doesn’t stop there. They’ve laid the groundwork for something bigger, and it would be a real shame not to build on the game’s narrative promise.
Look, I’ve seen this arc before. Star Wars: X-Wing began life as a tight, competitive, match-play system. But what kept me coming back were the scenarios, the cinematic moments, and the rich storytelling that emerged later. That’s what turned it from a good game into a beloved one. Warcrow is sitting at that same crossroads right now.
Yes, that’s personal preference, but objectively? This game is a triumph. Some may quibble about the plastic, but honestly, those concerns are minor and easily overshadowed by the strength of the design.
Warcrow has the mechanics where it matters most, the table, and more importantly, it has heart. Whether you’re a tournament grinder or a lore junkie looking for your next obsession, there’s something here worth watching… and worth playing.
The Verdict
Final Score: 4.5 out of 5 Stars!
Pros: Fantastic lore, miniatures and tactical gameplay. It is an example of how to produce a modern miniature game and a true stand-out in the miniature gaming market. The complete package.
Cons: While easy to learn, the game is deep and complex, making it a poor choice for casual play. Some negative quirks with plastic and lack of customization will turn off art-focused hobbyists who care less about the game and more about the tinkering.
Before diving into the models themselves, I want to make something clear: I love the hobby side of miniature gaming. There’s something genuinely satisfying about assembling tiny warriors, painting them up, and proudly showing them off to your friends like a dragon hoarding painted plastic instead of gold. It’s a core part of the tabletop experience for me.
That said, I’m not a perfectionist, and I’m certainly no artist. I don’t spend hours obsessing over paint blends or examining every tiny detail of a sculpt with a magnifying glass. I admire the craft, but I don’t approach it with a museum curator’s eye. If the miniatures look cool on the table and don’t fight me during assembly, I’m good.
In short, I’m a hobbyist of the “get it built, make it look nice, and play the game” variety. I want the journey from sprue to tabletop to be smooth, not soul-crushing. So when I talk about the models in Warcrow, it’s from that perspective—a practical hobbyist who values ease of assembly and visual appeal over technical perfection.
That said, I’m fully aware that a large part of the miniature gaming community loves customization, originality, and artistry, and though I may not count myself among them, I have no trouble looking out for their best interests. I know what this community is after.
The Sculpts
Let’s not kid ourselves; no one needs me to say this, but since this is a review, I’ll say it anyway: the sculpts are absolutely stunning. Honestly, they were one of the main reasons I was drawn to Warcrow in the first place. I might not fully grasp the arcane artistry that goes into sculpting miniatures, but I do know when a model looks jaw-droppingly cool, and these miniatures are showstoppers. Corvus Belli has poured fantasy, elegance, and dynamic energy into every pose and silhouette, and it shows.
The latest reveals from Corvus Belli show how they go beyond the call of duty here. The new Syenann miniatures are jaw-droppingly gorgeous.
That level of quality, though, comes with a certain intimidation factor. From the moment I opened the box, I felt a twinge of hobbyist anxiety, something I think many of us have experienced. You hold this gorgeous, hyper-detailed mini in your hand and think, I really don’t want to mess this up. And hovering somewhere in the back of your mind are the official paint jobs—those pristine, studio-quality masterpieces you know you’ll never replicate.
But that’s not the point, is it? For me, the goal is always progress. If my latest mini looks as good or better than my last one, then I’m doing just fine. Still, there’s that quiet moment before the first brushstroke, staring at a perfectly primed miniature, thinking: Okay… here we go. I hope I can pull this off.
And with models of this caliber, you want to do them justice. These aren’t the kind of minis you rush through. They’re the kind you linger over, pouring in time, patience, and every ounce of skill you’ve picked up along the way. Each one feels like a small piece of high fantasy art, practically begging you to bring its details to life. They’re exquisite, with no weak links, no lazy poses, no half-measures. Just captivating, characterful designs across the board. And painting them, while daunting, is an incredibly rewarding part of the Warcrow experience.
One of Warcrow’s biggest advantages—and something that really sets it apart—is that, with very few exceptions, every miniature you paint is a one-time deal. You’re not going to be painting duplicates. Each model brings its own unique sculpt, personality, and visual flair to your army.
One added bonus here is that a full Warcrow army amounts to around 15-20 miniatures, which in most other games would be like one or two units out of several dozen. You have fewer things to paint, so you can spend more time with what you have.
The Plastic
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no master builder, and I know even less about the nuanced world of miniature plastics. I couldn’t tell you the difference between polystyrene and PVC if you put them side by side. But I can tell you how the plastic feels to work with, and in Warcrow’s case, it’s… unique.
The best word I can come up with is “chippy”—and yes, I’m inventing that term for this review. What I mean is, you don’t really scrape mold lines, or clip excess plastic off these minis the way you might with traditional plastic kits. Filing doesn’t seem to do much, either. Instead, it’s all about precise cutting. When you hit the right spot with a sharp hobby knife or clippers, the excess plastic seems to just pop off cleanly, almost like there’s a natural break point baked into the model. The plastic, however, is quite brittle and easy to break, so if you apply too much pressure, it can and will snap, and the amount of pressure is less than you might expect.
This has its pros and cons. On the plus side, you can get very clean cuts with almost no residue, which is satisfying in a way that’s hard to explain unless you’ve done it. On the downside, if you’re even a little off, the knife might dig too deep, leaving behind a shiny scar where the plastic sheared. It’s not catastrophic, but it’s noticeable. You have to be deliberate and careful, being sure never to put too much pressure on the plastic.
Most of the miniatures are thick, well-constructed pieces that come together pretty easily. Building this commander was as simple as snapping two pieces together with a bit of glue.
Assembly-wise, the minis are mostly intuitive. Each piece has an obvious connection point, so even without instructions, you’ll rarely be left scratching your head. That said, the joints aren’t always as snug as you’d hope. I found myself shaving down some pegs or trimming the occasional edge just to get pieces to sit flush. It’s nothing major, but it does require a bit of attention.
I’d peg the overall assembly difficulty at a solid “light-medium.” There’s enough room for error that mistakes can happen, but nothing here is so fiddly that it’s frustrating. If you’ve put together any modern wargaming minis, you’ll feel right at home. In fact, compared to your average multipart sprue nightmare, Warcrow is practically a breeze.
In short, while the plastic might take a little getting used to, it’s ultimately a very workable material, especially for the average hobbyist who just wants to get models together and looking good without sweating every microscopic detail.
Units with elements that stick out like swords need to be handled carefully during the assembly processes. You don’t want to put too much pressure on the sword or anything that sticks out; it can snap very easily, as I discovered while putting this guy together.
These are mono-pose models, so your army is not going to look any different from anyone else’s other than the paint job, and I would argue there is not much room here for customization given the nature of the plastic. Especially since the way the pieces fit together aren’t split into natural joints. You don’t glue on arms, legs etc.. together. There are clean cuts that come together. For example, a torso piece with the head and part of the shoulder is glued onto the body.
Suffice to say, customization here is at the very least going to be difficult; for a hobbyist like me, I wouldn’t even attempt it. I worry and suspect that the wider hobby community, especially the kit-bashers and customizers, are going to find working with this plastic frustrating. It’s nature is to chip and break. It’s not something you want to drill, cut, or otherwise alter too much. I don’t want to say it’s impossible, but I would argue it’s not designed for it and probably not recommended.
Fragile Miniatures
I touched on this already, but it’s worth repeating: Warcrow miniatures are fragile. My gaming group and I found this out the hard way, and let me tell you: these minis do not pass the drop test. Not even close.
Now, to be fair, most miniatures aren’t exactly built to survive a tumble off the table. We all know the pain of watching a freshly painted model hit the floor. But here’s the difference: with most minis, a fall usually results in a joint popping loose—an arm comes off, a head rolls away- but it’s usually a clean fix. Just re-glue the part, and you’re back in business.
Not so with Warcrow.
Because of the somewhat brittle, “chippy” nature of the plastic, these minis don’t just separate at the glue points. Instead, they’re prone to snapping in unexpected places—mid-limb, across a weapon shaft, through delicate ornamentation. The break is likely to be clean, so fixing it, I suspect, won’t be too difficult, but obviously this can and will be a frustration players will have to contend with.
To me, this is one of the few real drawbacks of the material. The sculpting is beautiful, and the detail is incredible, but the cost of that elegance is durability. These are not minis you casually toss into a pile between games or let rattle around in a soft foam tray. They demand careful handling, thoughtful storage, and a little extra respect during transport.
In short, if you’re clumsy, have sausage fingers like me, or if your gaming table has a known gravitational anomaly, handle Warcrow miniatures like fragile relics, because they kind of are.
Missing Parts & Customer Service
Unfortunately, my Winds From the North set arrived with a small but noticeable issue: one of the miniatures was missing a hand. Now, I don’t consider this a deal-breaker. In any large-scale manufacturing and packing process, the occasional oversight is bound to happen. It’s not about whether problems arise; it’s how the company handles them that really counts.
And since I’m reviewing the product, it seemed like the perfect chance to see how Corvus Belli handles customer support.
They’ve got an online form specifically set up for missing or damaged parts, which I filled out on March 16th, 2025. The process was straightforward: describe the issue, attach a photo, and click submit. Within seconds, I received an automated confirmation email. So far, so good.
Missing parts in your toy box can let some of the wind out of your sails. The best feeling I know is when you have a problem and the customer service guys tell you, “Don’t worry, we are going to fix this for you right away.”
However, as of this writing, March 29th, a full 13 days later, I haven’t received any further communication. No follow-up, no confirmation of shipment, no “we’re on it” email. Just… silence.
I’m not here to make snap judgments, but I have to admit: I’m a bit disappointed. A simple acknowledgment or update would’ve gone a long way. At this point, I expected at least a “Hey, we’re sending out your replacement part” or some indication that the issue is being addressed.
It’s a small issue, but it left a dent in what was otherwise a very polished experience. Call me disappointed.
Painting The Miniatures
I’ll be upfront here: my motivation to paint these miniatures hasn’t quite kicked in yet. That’s not a knock on the game or the models themselves, it’s just the reality of hobby life. Painting miniatures is one of those deeply personal parts of the experience, and for me, it tends to come in waves. Sometimes, I’m painting every night like a man possessed, and other times… weeks go by with my brushes gathering dust. It mostly depends on what’s going on in my personal and work life.
That said, I did manage to get one miniature painted, which I think is enough to offer a few thoughts. To keep it simple: I had fun. And really, that’s the heart of it. Painting should be enjoyable, and this mini delivered on that front. There was nothing about these miniatures that hindered the experience, just nice, clean, easy-to-spot details and the excitement of seeing your miniature come alive with color.
I had hoped for this part of the review, I would have painted something new to show off, but I have been distracted a bit, and painting just hasn’t been in the cards, so here is my little orc I did a while back again. I think he came out great and illustrates how nice these mini look with some paint even in these novice hands.
The sculpts are highly detailed, and the quality is excellent, so there’s nothing to complain about. The miniature took paint beautifully, and I’m genuinely looking forward to diving into the rest of the army when the inspiration hits.
So while this part of the review is admittedly a bit surface-level, I’ll sum it up like this: These are great minis to paint, and when the mood strikes, I know I’ll be back at the painting table, happily working my way through them.
Conclusion
Warcrow miniatures are, without question, beautiful. They’re well-sculpted, easy to assemble, and practically beg to be painted. On visual design and accessibility alone, these models deserve a perfect score: a solid 5 out of 5.
I want to say this one more time for good measure. These miniatures are amazing, and if we are just talking aesthetics, to me, they are a perfect smash hit across the entire miniature line.
However, I feel it’s only fair to dock a few points due to one significant issue: the fragility of the plastic. The material used, while capable of capturing fine detail, is brittle and a bit too unforgiving. These are mono-pose miniatures with no alternate parts or customization options included, and it’s clear from handling them that they aren’t intended to be modified beyond the basic assembly.
Now, that’s fine for hobbyists like me—I tend to build miniatures as-is, straight from the box. But the wider miniature community thrives on creativity. Customization, kitbashing, and personal flair are not fringe aspects of the hobby; they’re central to it. And when a line of miniatures doesn’t leave room for that kind of expression, it excludes a part of the hobby that many people love.
To be clear, Warcrow is not alone in this approach; more and more companies are embracing mono-pose design and simplified builds, even giants like Games Workshop. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it and call it out for what it is: a reduction in options for customization. If we let customization quietly fade from the hobby space, we risk losing something valuable.
There was a time, not long ago, when you would buy a model kit and end up with a whole bunch of extra pieces. This is because optional construction was once a standard in miniature sets. More than that, kit-bashing and customization were just assumed to be part of the normal process of building miniatures.
That said, for those of us who just want to build our armies, get them painted, and get them on the table for a great game, Warcrow miniatures hit the mark. They look fantastic, they’re mostly easy to work with, and they bring a lot of character to the battlefield. They might not be for every type of hobbyist, but for many of us, they’re more than enough.
The Verdict
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5 Stars!
Pros: Gorgeous miniature with fantastic dynamic poses, simple assembly, and amazing attention to detail all combine to make Warcrow the miniature game a stand-out product.
Cons: Brittle plastic makes these miniatures very fragile, no customization options, not well suited for kit-bashing and custom work.
4.5 out of 5 Stars!
