Greetings guys!
I hope you are having a Wonderful Wednesday!
After a month of waiting (mostly on customs), I finally received my copy of the WoT miniatures game. Here's my first impression overview of the physical incarnation of our beloved tank MMO.
A while back I wrote here that it was on 50-70% sale at the WG store. Well, here's my overview of the game now that I've actually played it! And I must say, well worth the 68,75 euros that the asking price was labeled at.
TL;DR – I love the game, it's simple and easy to learn, battles are usually 30-60 minutes; No board, 2D terrain, tabletop – every battle feels different and unique. Main problem is imbalance of the initiative mechanic and improper balance of some vehicles. 8.5/10
Warning: Long, picture-heavy overview ahead! Reader beware! Also, goes without saying, this isn't sponsored. I just love WoT and love board games, so I wanted to share my passion with you guys. 🙂
Let's start from the best of the best; The models themselves. They're highly detailed, painted and primed (unicolor, matching the in-game nation colours). Here's the ISU-152 for example, with a cricket lighter for scale:
The next thing I was pleasantly surprised with are the dice. I love the design:
You can, of course, play with normal dice too. Each six on a die is the WoT symbol, four and fives are the penetration symbol, and 1-3 are misses. But there's no denying it, these specialized dice look fancy.
There are loads of criticals (x32 crit cards in one starter set) with quotes from the in-game crew and various effects:
Some crits can be repaired, others can be blocked, while the rest are permanent. Adds quite a bit of variety.
Next up, the "map". Out of the box terrain is 2D. It's a decent enough quality cardboard that will last you some time. Here's everything mashed together in a typical battle:
In one starter set, you get: 2x forest (double-sided, other side is a hill); 4x wall (double-sided, mirrored); 4x house (double-sided, different house design). They're all pretty much top-down views of Prokhorovka's scenery in-game. What's great is that pretty much everything is double-sided. Movement tokens (treads with I, II or III indicating number of moves made that turn); Cap flags (one side green other side red), damage markers, etc.
Now, what I didn't like about the starter set, and it's a slight pet peeve of mine, are the damage markers' numbers. Take a look:
In case it isn't obvious at first glance – There is no "4 damage" marker! Personally, not a fan at all! Especially since out of the four tanks in the starter set, 3 have 4 HP and only the cromwell can withstand 4 hits (has 5 HP). That means that from the starter set, you won't even be able to use the 5 damage token as no cards upgrade HP in the base set.
Now, you can customize your vehicles with loads of different options with the upgrade cards. Ammo, Consumables, equipment, skills for crew… You name it. All in World of Tanks artwork. Here's an example:
I really like the game. It's quick, you get to play world of tanks offline with your buddies. Games with 4v4 tanks usually take 45 minutes, from placing the first terrain piece to firing the last shell. I'd recommend getting two copies, so you can have 12 dice (6 per player), 2 hills + 2 forests, and it's the cheapest way to get tanks and extra upgrade cards. Expansion packs come with 5 upgrade cards, 1 tank card and one tank, priced at 15 euros. With the starter set, you get 4 tanks and a bunch of upgrade cards plus all of the rest included for 40 euros.
Now I'll mention the cons.
- Initiative order rule: All tanks have a set initiative. Tanks with the lowest initiative move first and shoot last. This means the tanks with the highest initiative both move last – which means they can flank easier as they are the ones reacting to the enemy vehicles moving – and shoot first! Initiative is the whole shabang in this game. There's no "last shot". Once a tank is destroyed, it's out of the battle. Doesn't matter if it fired or not. This usually means tanks with the lowest initiative are focused and destroyed before they even get a single shot off.
- The base set vehicle selection: This issue is glaringly obvious in the base set. The cromwell has a movement of 3, and an initiative of 8 (2nd highest is 6, on T-34 and M4A1 Sherman). The cromwell, being the only tier VI vehicle, also gets 5 hitpoints while the rest get 4. This just means that the rest are flat out inferior. Especially the Panzer IV H with it's initiative of 5 (lowest). The number of times I lost my Pz. IV to the enemy cromwell because I got outflanked and destroyed before it even fired is way too much.
- The game gives you six dice. That's just not enough. Most combat requires 10. If you buy one set, please use some regular dice in stead of remembering hits or writing them down. There's a new version of the starter set coming out this fall, with higher tier vehicles – one of them being the Maus. Maus has a firepower of 7 which means it rolls 7 attack dice. But the starter set will still contain 6 dice (???!!!).
There are ways to counter the initiative problem. For example, the ISU-152 with the BL-9S has 6 attack dice and hits like a truck; but it's initiative is only 2. Twice I had it destroyed before I even fired once. However, I spiced it up with some extra cards (crew card safe stowage, gun rammer and EGLD), boosted my shooting-phase-initiative to 6, and managed to oneshot quite a few tanks because it instantly started shooting second when I had the 'advantage' token.
All in all, the game's great. It's easy to get in to, interesting to master. Requires some thought in assembling your tank fleet. Despite the issues, I can only wholeheartedly recommend it. My rating of it is 8.5/10.
Full rules are avaliable at the following link:
Oh and if you're in the UK – it's cheaper to just buy it from GaleForce9. If you're in Germany, it's also cheaper in physical stores that have the game than through Wargaming's store. Plus, Wargaming's store is lacking a lot of vehicles that have come out.
If you made it this far, thank you very much for reading. Do you have the game; How do you like it? Do you want it? Were you thinking about getting it and if so did this overview help you decide for or against buying it yourself?
Let me know down in the comments!
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldofTanks/comments/15yxl9i/wot_miniatures_game_overview/
