Minihans & Minibart: Empires Final Conclusions

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The Good

We think that Empires is a nice cross between a pure wargame and a boardgame. It can be played as a boardgame with the stuff you get in the box, or by buying miniatures and extending the map as a strategy war-game.

The rules work quite well and play fast, especially if you play the recruitment phase at the same time. What MiniBart found difficult to get used to is that the shooting and melee phases come before the movement phase. It works, but it is different from any wargame he has played.

The forces you get are quite evenly balanced, once you know how to use them. The Orcs have fast, cheap troops, so your goal is to attack before the Human player can build up his better-but-more-expensive troops.

One point to remember is control of the board. Your income depends on how many towns and villages you have, and how many areas you control.

The miniatures available for the game are very nice, but they are also quite expensive compared to other 15mm miniatures. However, since you can download the army lists from the website, you could use other miniatures (or buy Demonworld army-packs, which are better value for money).

The Bad

It would have been nice to have more troops or armies in the box, but that would probably have made the price too high for the German boardgame market.

As a boardgame with only the contents of the box, it can become quite stale after a number of plays. To keep it interesting, you will need to expand it.

And the Ugly

That would be us .