Lone Wolf - Battle for Magnamund

Something a bit different today and something I was much more excited to receive than chocolate eggs that's for sure!

This not so little beauty (the parcel was huge and pleasingly heavy) was waiting for me when we got back from a very pleasant Easter weekend with the family. Yup - one of the Kick Starters I backed finally came good. Well almost.

Lone Wolf - The Battle for Magnamund was and still hopefully could be a really exciting table top game set in the world of Lone Wolf. Gary Chalk has produced some beautiful new illustrations for both the board pieces and the card miniatures and after a first glance at the rules, the game itself looks like it has plenty of potential.

Like a lot of Kick Starters this one has run into problems. For various reasons it ran over budget and backers have been asked to stump up extra delivery money. Having already bunged a fair bit of cash in already I took the plunge and stumped up. Thankfully the game turned up in good time and I've got to say I was more than happy with the finished product.

There were some extras included for free which go some way to making up for it - the extra board pieces mean that I have rather a large area to play bigger games on - dog included for scale purposes!

Shame there wasn't a river corner piece - if I'm nit-picky.

One reason it went over budget was that the board pieces ended up being printed on much thicker card than had been planned. Despite the extra costs and postage this caused, it has meant that they feel really sturdy and high quality.

I played through the opening scenario with the kids and they managed fine with a bit of help from me, although to be honest the tactical niceties of the game were a bit over their head! Rather than the usual to hit and wound tables, combat and shooting is worked out by comparing weapon types to armour, factoring in other conditions like the presence of heroes, attacking in the flank, etc and coming up with a percentage score to hit. Two D10's are rolled to get a D100 score with successful hits coming in under the necessary percentage. Sounds complicated but works well in the game with only one roll being needed - successful hits kill normal troops outright, whilst heroes and monsters get a wound table to roll on.

So far the card miniatures include Giaks and various evil heroes and wizards like Vonotar the Traitor and Ironhide the Gourgaz. The forces of good are represented by soldiers of Sommerland with familiar heroes like Prince Pelathar and Lone Wolf himself.

Anyone recognise the scene below from a certain Lone Wolf game book?

There was also a metal miniature of Lone Wolf produced which can be seen in the middle of the line up below. He scales up rather nicely with the old Citadel Lone Wolf preslottas.

All in all, I'm glad I backed this Kick Starter thanks to the great quality of the game and its components, although there are still a few products outstanding which will hopefully be fulfilled if and when funds become available...

In the meantime I'm looking forward to exploring the game further and playing through the rest of the introductory scenarios.