"Ex Illis Beta...Early Review (Computers and minis)" Topic

I spent way less then I had planned this year at Gencon, and so I picked up the beta of Ex Illis. It is a new Fantasy combat game that uses a computer (or application that you download on your I-phone)to track the status of minis and determins how you win the battles.

The game is played on plastic square tiles (more about that later). When a unit is active you are given a screen that shows all the options it can do, you click on the one you like and what quare you want to move to. You then move the minis and click the screen and watch the action. Combat occurs like this, you are given icons for the number of models in a unit that flash bullseye (hit) or miss. When you click on the icon, you either hit or miss. The amount of damage you do causes a model to die, lose energy, or lower thier morale. The morale of a model determine thier abilites. For example my Pikemen, lost so many models they where only given the option to retreat.

When a model moves you move it to the coresponding square. The computer keeps track of initive and when a unit comes up you are to exchange it with your opponent. To be honest I was not to impressed on the gameplay. It is a computer game, but with minis. The game keeps track of everything and you could easily play with just the computer.

What sold me on the game was the minis…or more importantly the tiles the minis play on. You get 20+ plastic tiles that can be attached to form a 36x36 play surface. They are similar to the GW ones, but without the price tag. You also get 58 minis, with tons of bits. The quality is about that with what you would get with GW. They have lots of options and look real nice.

The retail is 170, the beta cost me 65. I am not sure if I will play the game or download the beta, but the minis and mat were perfect.
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Here are some pics

I totally agree Beowulf. I actually bought TWO of the beta!

They were only $65? Crap, I thought they were going for the full $170. USD Probably a good thing I didn't know…budget was getting kinda thin.

Thanks Beowulf- actually, your brief overview makes the game sound more appealing than what I have read on their site. 65 for that much stuff is a sweet deal. What do you think of the minis? Quality, casting, animation, etc.?

The minis are plastic, and to be honest they are on par with what GW is doing, but with less mold lines. The assembly seems pretty smooth and you have tons of options with the assembly. While the game does have a fantasy aspect, most of the infantry would work for historical Hundred Year War type battles. The demon type models are cute but do nothing for me. The sprues also have tons of extras like banners, fences, and other items.

A bit on the large size, the figures are in the 28mm range. I think they will paint up smooth with the dip method. Not sure if I am gonna do anything with them as I wanted tiles.

Interesting. Here's their web site, which has nothing …
en.ex-illis.com
… except links to their old web site which has some info about the game. Here's a picture of the gameboard from the starter kit, painted up: link

… 20+ plastic tiles that can be attached to form a 36x36 …

The picture shows them in a 5x4 layout, so I guess they are not square, 7x9" or something?

Hmmmmm. To re-purpose for Fantasy Battle or 40K or many similar games, you need a 72x48" surface (you'd rather have 96x48" for flexibility and larger games but never mind), or a 7x8 layout. That is … 56 tiles … we'd need 3 sets. Wow.

You also get 58 minis, with tons of bits. The quality is about that with what you would get with GW.

At the GenCon price that is certainly a steal. The web site says it is based on historical 13th Century Europe, so the figures could be expected to fit with GW or many other fantasy games.

Thanks for the post.

It's a steal at 65.

Can't say the same for the 170 full retail.

Maybe it's the photo but the tiles look nicely textured but without any real contours. They'll need to add rivers, hills etc to make it interesting. And rectangular tiles are less flexible.

And computer moderation turns me off the game system completely.

Still, it's very tempting at 65 bucks.

I really want to like this game, but the fact that you have to pay a service fee to trade off the miniatures drives me a little batty…..

I caught part of the demo. . . no not fully up to speed on it. But to be honest, what I saw did not impress me.

Kinda struck me as a minis/computer combo game where the computer played most of the actual game for you. You basically just told things were to go. Maybe there's more to it than that, but that didn't seem like a lot of fun to me.

This doesn't make me want to play this any more than when I first found out about the game. There are so many aspects about it that I don't like. Like have to register trades on their site, you really don't do much as the computer does it all, service fees, high retail price, and other stuff. That's all just more hassle than I want from my miniature games. I wish them luck but I have reservations on it's long term viability. The only thing that it has going for it in my book is that it has high quality miniatures.

Oh, after reading their site another big minus in my book is that each minaiture is "born" with a personality and these personalities have direct in game effects. Positive personalities have good effects on your game and negative ones have bad effects. I know I'd be pretty irritated if all my miniatures I just purchased wound up being "born" with negative personality traits. That's a definitely show stopper for me.