Mage Knight - Design

Design

Unlike other miniatures wargames, Mage Knight eliminates the need for reference to rulebooks and tables by integrating a dial into each figure that contains its current combat statistics - movement rate, attack and defense values, combat damage, and special abilities. While this system lacks the versatility of other miniatures games, mainly because players cannot customize their figures, it makes up for this by facilitating rapid gameplay and by having a large number of distinctive figures. The system, called the combat dial, has proved to be highly popular and is used in WizKids's other games, including Heroclix and MechWarrior. The dial allows a figure's displayed statistics to change as it takes damage.

All miniatures, called warriors, come pre-painted and are pre-assigned point costs based upon their abilities. These costs range between 3 points (only the limited edition goblin volunteer Podo has achieved a point value this low) to over 500 points (for the tanks and the Apocalypse Dragon). To play a game, players will generally agree upon a point cost total, and then design their armies to maximize their strategic capabilities within the specified point cost total. Each player is allowed to take a number of actions per turn equal to the point cost total divided by 100. These actions include movement, combat, or the use of special abilities such as Regeneration and Necromancy. Game play is typically rapid, but often highly strategic, both in terms of traditional maneuvering and combat common to miniatures games and because of the unusual combinations of unit special abilities that make every army unique.

Each Mage Knight figure belongs to a specific faction. The factions in the initial release included the Atlantis Guild, the Elemental League, the Black Powder Rebels, the Draconum, The Knights Immortal, the Orc Raiders, and the Necropolis Sect. Other factions were added later. Each faction had its own strengths and weaknesses; for example the Atlantis Guild had many figures with powerful ranged attacks, but it lacked healers. A player could combine figures of different factions in their army at will, but only figures of the same faction could move in a formation together. Using formation rules, a player could move three to five adjacent figures while using only one action. A formation combat action could also be taken in which multiple adjacent figures of the same faction attack and increase the chances of successfully hitting the target. Since the limited number of actions per turn is one of the most important strategic considerations in the game, a player making his army would have to balance the advantages of formation movement and formation combat against the desire to have the versatility of figures from different factions.