"My First look at Arcane Legions" Topic

I dropped by the FLGS and right up front there was a demo copy of Arcane Legions
Company Link here: arcanelegions.com

Disclaimer for fairness:
1. The light was dim
2. Didn't have my reading/painting glasses
3. I didn't have time to really give a good look

I didn't have time to play or read the rules, I will try and go back for that. But I did check at the figures.

It seems hero/leader figures are Pre-paints. Rank n file are unpainted plastic. I was a little disappointed with the size as they are on the small side, closer to 25mm then 28mm. GW, Reaper, SST figures would all dwarf them very badly.

On the bright side I felt the detail was pretty good and the plastic not too bendy. If I get time I will try and pop in with a camera and some GW figs for comparison.

Cheers, Xin

Wouldn't it be smarter to pre-paint the rank and file? Why would they take what could be the most exciting figs and pre-paint them and not the rest?

It is because this game is created by the same group of people who made Mage Knight and Mechwarrior. Correct me if I am wrong.

Yes, you are correct, Weissman is involved…the "Gary Gygax" of the CMG world :D

I had heard the scale was best likened to 1/72. At first I said, "meh", but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea that it could be compatable with the scads of 1/72 plastics out there.

Yeah, seems odd they wouldn't do even simple paint aps to the rank & file; to get the novice by and/or form a good jumping off point for enthusiests who would put more time into a more thorough job. As long as the existing paint job didn't "set you back" as did many of the old MK minis.

but the idea of only pre-painting the heroes and leaving the chore of painting the rest to the players really is a brain-fart of marketing, or so i believe. i could also be extremely wrong and no one will paint the figures anyway and just talk about how great the heroe ands monsters look. yes, probably that will be the way it will go.

The rank and file are a softer plastic, and have, in some cases, shields that need to be attached. The shields ARE painted, but the idea of needing to move friction-mounted dudes around on the unit base to vary the unit's attack vs defense vs hustle is going to conflict with the fragility of multi-part pieces.

The rules look decent, but the "toy" feel could betray it.

I think one reason the R&F are unpainted is that this is a mass-battle game. Since an infantry element is something like a dozen figures, having those all come pre-painted would serious increase the price point. So the bulk units that you'll need a bunch of come unpainted, but commanders and elite units come painted.

One thing the did right, at least from the gamer perspective, was to separate the core units from the specialists in your purchase. No need to buy the random cheese-ball units if you are looking for the specialty units. Will it help to sell product? That's to be seen.

I see no reason to paint any of the figures. If the point is to produce an inexpensive, semi-collectible game, then they should just stick with unpainted.

Those who just want to play the game will be able to get in cheaper, and buy boosters cheaper.

Those who want to paint their own will be painting over the pre-painted leaders anyway, and grumble about how they paid extra for a paint job they don't want.

I don't see many folks who would fall in between, and think it was cool the leaders are painted, but leave the army figures alone.

And lets face it, having 5 figures already painted, and needing to paint the other 50 yourself, you didn't really save any time.

So really, they should have just left them all unpainted and gone with as low a pricepoint for the game as possible.

I don't see this game selling well myself. Even though it may be a nice game "stand along", so many folks buy figures to use in other games with other rules. And those other games and minis are mostly 28mm "plus sizes" these days. SO the secondary market for this game is quite limited.

IMHO of course.

As I mentioned in another topic, I suspect this game will function as a gateway. Unfortunately, that gateway will be to FoG or WFB/WAB…

If the idea is for players not to paint the rank and file figures, they missed a trick by not having the different factions in different colors of plastic.

Each faction has it's own board, so maybe the boards have their own faction color.

The painted Hero, or whatever they are, just makes them special. If you're a kid just playing the game it makes them stand out.

If you're one of us, then it doesn't matter since you're going to repaint them anyway.

And if you work at/hang out at the store where some kids are 'just playing the game', you can help point them in the direction you want.

I'm not totally sold on the concept (frankly, they turned me off big-time with that 'collectible' word), but anything that gets people playing and thinking about painting is a good thing.

The Arcane Legions website has been updated, and images of the figures can be found under Game Play -> Figures & Units.

The human figures range from meh to decent. Some of the monsters are pretty weak though.

Most of the pre-paints look pretty aweful, and they will need to be re-worked.

- Eric

Seen this in person at Origins. I was not impressed.

The figures are small (1/72).

I was very interested in this before Origins, but lost interest when I saw the qaulity of the figures. The game concept is somewhat interesting, but the figures where so underwhelming I did not even go through a full demo.

The production release is using a harder plastic than the demo kits did, so one of my concerns may be taken care of.

Picked up a copy last night. Haven't had time to unpack all the contents yet, but have taken a look at the book and the figs. They are 1/72 scale which is 25mm to the top of the head for a 6' tall man. Not 25mm to the eye that I would expect when a product is toted as 25mm. However since most of my ancients are 1/72 plastics anyway, this is quite nice.

Now to reverse engineer the pointing system, so I can field my Spartans! :)

Saw this at the weekend, asked to look inside the box, saw the figures and put me off. I'd consider it if I saw it cheap enough, and I could replace the figures with better 1:72nd stuff. Plastic looked fairly bendy, the 'heroes' or whatever they are that are pre-painted looked horrendous unfortunately. Even by PPP standards.