Paul Grogan dit:DAY 15: The Wrath of Khan.
I couldn’t resist it. In a move that probably upsets every Mage Knight player out there, this was too good an opportunity to miss. I don’t care what anyone else says, but Star Trek II is still the best Trek film ever, so as soon as I read that the Orcs in this game belong to a group known as the Orc Khan faction, I knew I’d be quoting the film at some point.
These Marauding Orcs are known as Rampaging Enemies. There are special rules for rampaging enemies (as you would expect). Whilst these guys don’t actually move around the board, they do exert an ‘area of control’ to all adjacent spaces. You can move into or out of one of those spaces safely, but if you move from one of those spaces to another…. Well, the Orcs don’t like that and they come to try and beat you up. This is known as Provoking the Orcs.
The other way to fight them is to Challenge them. To do this, you end your movement on a space adjacent to them and declare a Challenge.
Either way, you fight the Orcs. This counts as your one and only Action for the turn. If you defeat them, your reputation increases by 1 as the locals like you ridding the countryside of this menace.
So, let’s have a look at some.
The Orc Prowlers are one of the easiest enemies in the game, which is why defeating them is only worth 2 Fame points (the number in the red flag at the bottom of the token). The number on the left is the strength of their Attack (4) , the icon behind the number shows the element of that attack (in this case Physical). The number at the top is their Armour value. (3)
So, going over the combat rules again, you first have an opportunity to kill the Orcs with Ranged or Siege Attacks. If you play Ranged or Siege Attacks totalling 3 or more, the Orcs are defeated before they get to you and the fight is over.
If not, they are going to try and hit you with 4 points of a Physical Attack. You probably should try and Block this, so you will need 4 points of Block. Any Block will do, be it regular Block, Fire Block or Ice Block. Against a Physical Attack, all blocks are fully effective.
If you don’t Block it fully (remember that partial blocks are a waste of time), it deals you 4 points of damage. Assuming you have no Units at this stage and you are Level 1 (with 2 points of Armour), this means you take 2 Wounds to your hand.
Finally, you get to hit it back. Again, you need to equal or exceed it’s Armour value of 3, but this time you can play any type of attack; Ranged, Siege or Regular. And any card played sideways is Regular Attack 1.
Next up, some Wolf Riders. These dudes zoom around on their trained wolves. They have the Swift ability (as indicated by the white bow and arrow icon on the right). Swift means that the enemy is harder to Block. Twice as hard in fact. So, in order to Block the Wolf Riders, you actually need 6 points of Block. However, if you don’t Block it, it still only deals 3 damage. Sometimes it is just too hard to Block an enemy with the Swift ability and you may be better just taking the Wounds and then hitting it back.
Finally, the mighty Orc Ironclads. Toughest of the Orcs, these are worth 4 Fame points when defeated. They have the same Armour value as the Prowlers, but look at the small icon next to the Armour value. These guys have Physical Resistance. So any Physical attack (anything that doesn't say Fire Attack or Ice Attack) against them is halved. And there you were thinking you could just get rid of them with one Swiftness card and one white mana. Think again. But that’s not all. What’s that nasty red skull on the right hand side; that can’t mean anything good can it?
A red skull on the right means the enemy has the Brutal ability. It will still cost the normal amount of Block to prevent this guy from hurting you (4). But if you don’t Block it… Double damage I’m afraid. So if you don’t block this guy, that’s 8 Damage. Ouch!
Paul Grogan dit:DAY 16 - More Enemies
With the rulebook imminent, I'm showing a few more of these than I had planned. The rulebook contains a full breakdown of all the tokens in the game and of course, all of the rules.
Another Orc first. Special ability of this guy is on the left, not the right. Why is that? Well, he doesnt actually attack you himself. He summons another enemy to do that for him. These guys are pretty tricky. The brown enemy tokens that he summons are more dangerous than the green ones. But also, you dont get to see what the token is until after Phase 1 of combat. So, you still get a change to kill it first in the Ranged and Siege Attacks phase, but if you dont, it then summons a random brown enemy for you to fight.
Also, the summoned enemy only hangs around long enough to hit YOU. And then it disappears. You dont get to hit it back at all, because once it has attacked you, it is the original summoner who you have to kill. This means that if you draw a particularly nasty brown token worth a lot of fame, tough luck, because you do not get the game for the brown enemy summoned - because it disappears before you get to hit it back.
Next up, the Crypt Worm. Sorry, I was in a rush and did the image the wrong way around. The Crypt Worm is a brown enemy, and right away just be the bigger numbers you can see it is going to be harder to kill.
It also has a little stone tower token next to his Armour value. This means he is fortified. We've covered this before in previous updates. Enemies that are fortified are immune to Ranged Attacks. You would need to play Siege Attacks to hit it in Phase 1 of combat. 6 Points of Siege attack near the start of the game - no chance.
Enemy number 3 - The Ice Golem is a violet enemy - such as one you will find in a mage tower (covered on Thursday). This is the first enemy we see with an elemental attack. Only 2, surely this must be easy?
Well, it is 2 points of Ice damage. This means that only Fire Block is fully effective. If you want to block this attack with normal Block or Ice Block, you need to use twice as much. If you dont block it though, it is still only 2 points of damage, which isnt too bad. However...... we have a little statue icon on the right hand side. This indicates that this enemy has Paralyzation.
If you take a Wound card to your hand from an attack by the Ice Golem, you have to discard all non-Wound cards from your hand immediately. Which means unless you have some other tricks up your sleeve, hitting it back is going to be tricky.
And when you do hit it back, it has Physical and Ice Resistance.
Of course, if you come across this in a mage tower and you happen to have Siege Fire Attack 4, then you have nothing to worry about at all.
Sorry this was a bit rushed, got to leave in 10 minutes and not dressed yet!
DAY 17 - Final enemies
Today we have the last sneak preview enemy tokens. These will be the last I will be showing as the rulebook contains a full breakdown of the ones included in the game, and I will have covered all the icons.
Monks
First up, another violet token that you might find in a mage tower. These monks might look like a bit of a pushover with their non-special physical attack and no resistances. However, when they wound you, it stings. The rules for poison attacks are fairly simple. Whenever you take a Wound card to your hand, you place a second one in your discard pile. This means that would is going to come back later, since ones in your discard pile cannot be healed by healing effects.
Altem Mages
Ok, its getting serious now. These mages are white tokens. You find these in the cities that you find later on in the game. We've already covered all the icons on this guy. He's fortified, resistant to physical attacks, and has a poisonous and brutal attack. The one thing which is new is his attack type. So far, we have covered Physical, Fire and Ice attack forms. This one is known as Cold Fire. Before anyone starts thinking this is getting a bit complicated, this is the last thing we need to cover, so I always leave it until the end. In fact, you might not even need to explain this at all in your first game as it might not come up.
Cold Fire is a special form of attack only found on enemies later on in the game. It is a combination of both Fire and Ice, but that doesnt mean that either Fire or Ice can Block it. In fact, Cold Fire is so special that only Cold Fire Blocks are fully effective. Any other type of Block is inefficient, and therefore halved.
High Dragon
The High Dragon is one of the Draconum. Worth 9 Fame, it is one of the toughest monsters in the game. It has 6 points of Cold Fire attack. Assuming you dont have any Cold Fire Blocks (which are extremely rare), then you're going to need 12 points of other Block to stop it hurting you (since all other blocks are half strength). And if you dont block it, thats 12 points of damage. If something is resistant to both Fire and Ice however, it is also resistant to Cold Fire, but still 12 damage is a lot.
Draconum on the map operate the same way as the Orcs, they are rampaging enemies and are face up on the map, exerting an area of control around them. They are provoked and challenged in the same way as the Orcs, but are worth 2 reputation if you defeat them.
That's it for enemies: You've now seen all the special icons, we've covered elemental Attacks, elemental Blocks and resistances. In fact, we've probably covered all of the combat rules over the last 2 weeks, except for your recruited Units fit into it all. Since combat is the most complex thing in the game, anyone who is following things so far has a large chunk of the rules already sorted.
C’est fou, c’est le jeu que j’attendais !
Je pris tous les soirs pour une french édition !!!
On peu y croire vu que c’est un Chvatil, pensez vous ?
Merci pour ce moubourrage que j’aurais été tres triste de passer à coté…* 
Le problème c’est que Wizkids/NECA ne se préoccupe pas trop de faire des partenariats pour traduire ses jeux…
Quarriors qui est pourtant un excellent jeu n’a pas de VF prévue à ma connaissance, les nouveautés Clix non plus (les lord of the ring et autres Nazguls) ni même leur prochaine tentative sur le pré-peint : Pathfinder Battles.
Je pense donc qu’à moins qu’un éditeur francophone soit très très motivé il n’y que très peu de chance de voir débarquer une VF. j’espère me tromper, bien sûr 
En plus Mage Knight est un peu un symbole de Wizkids, et l’image du jeu est indissociable de celle de l’éditeur. Wizkids voudra-t-il céder les droits de sa licence phare et ainsi la voire associée à un autre éditeur en Europe? … Pas sûr surtout que Wizkids est en pleine reconstruction de son capital sympathie, de son attrait auprès des joueurs, de son image de marque donc (oui encore ce mot )
Atanaheim dit:ni même leur prochaine tentative sur le pré-peint : Pathfinder Battles.
Tiens, je n'avais pas encore vu cela. Voilà qui va me permettre de customiser quelques figurines MK
Et qu'est-ce que le système Pathfinder ?Je pense donc qu'à moins qu'un éditeur francophone soit très très motivé il n'y que très peu de chance de voir débarquer une VF. j'espère me tromper, bien sûr
Je n'y crois plus guère : Wizkids a déjà eu ses produits traduits en français, mais cela avait fini en eau de boudin. Or, les produits Wizkids n'ont plus ici le vent en poupe pour pouvoir une boîte française à s'y remettre.
Don Lopertuis
Don Lopertuis dit:Atanaheim dit:ni même leur prochaine tentative sur le pré-peint : Pathfinder Battles.
Tiens, je n'avais pas encore vu cela. Voilà qui va me permettre de customiser quelques figurines MK
Pathfinder c'est un RPG de Paizo super connu et qui possède de nombreuses extensions. Dans les boîtes de base Paizo fournit des pions colorés mais pour allez encore plus loin dans l'immersion, ils ont demandé à Wizkids de leur faire des figurines pré-peintes. Reaper Miniature faisait déjà des figurines en métal, non peintes, pour Pathfinder.
Le partenariat avec Wizkids a commencé lorsque Paizo a créé sa Beginner Box pour Pathfinder (une sorte de kit de démarrage). Pour accompagner cette sortie, Paizo a demandé à Wizkids de faire un Beginner Box Heroes Set contenant 4 figurines de héros pré-peintes :
Merisiel (Female Elf Rogue), Ezren (Male Human Wizard), Valeros (Male Human Fighter), Kyra (Female Human Cleric)
Ce set sera dispo en Octobre 2011 normalement et il était censé être un one shot : en théorie le partenariat ne portait que sur un seul et unique set de figurines...
Mais comme le résultat a plu à Paizo, un nouveau set appelé Heroes & Monsters verra le jour en décembre. Il inclura 40 figurines issues de l'univers de Pathfinder. Contrairement au premier set, le contenu de celui-ci sera aléatoire...
Voici quelques exemples des figurines que l'on pourra y trouver :
Mais ce n'est pas tout! D'autres sets devraient suivre en 2012 et encore plus tard dont un set appelé Rise of the Runelords contenant 60 figurines et prévu pour juin (2012 donc).
Mais revenons à nos moutons ou à nos “chevaliers-mages” (tiens ça me fait penser à l’excellentissime diptyque de Gene Wolfe que je ne peut que vous conseiller de lire) :
Paul Grogan dit:DAY 18 - Getting help from the locals
It’s time to start showing some of the Units, and we’re going to start with two that you may see right from the start of your tutorial game.
Units are not Deed cards. Only Deed cards go in your deck. Cards that are Deed cards:
Basic Action cards
Advanced Action cards
Spell cards
Artifact cards
Units have a different card back. There are 4 levels of Units. Levels I & II are Regular Units, and have a silver back. Levels III & IV have a gold back and are Elite Units.
Each Unit deck is shuffled seperately at the start of the game. You only need the Regular units until later in the game. The Unit offer is made up of a number of Units equal to the number of players +2. Deal these from the top of the deck.
The offer does not replenish when someone takes a Unit. It only replenishes at the end of a Round.
And the number of Units that you may command is equal to the number of Command tokens you have; you start with 1 and gain extra ones as you Level up (1 more at level 3,5,7,9). You may recruit over an existing Unit, which is sometimes useful when the old Unit is already Wounded and spent.
As a quick recap, lets have a look at what we see on the card.
The top left is the Influence required to recruit the unit.
Top right shows the ‘level’ of the Unit (I,II,III or IV). This indicates how many VP (Fame) this is worth at the end of the game, and how hard it is to heal.
Middle left is a series of icons showing where the unit can be recruited. The peasants can only be found in villages, whereas the Crossbowmen can also be recruited in keeps.
Middle right is the units armour value. Neither of these units have any resistances, so any amount of damage done to them will wound them. (The armour just then tells you how much you reduce the strength of the attack by AFTER they have been wounded)
Below the name of the unit, we have it’s abilities. Each of these Units has more than one ability. To use it, you move the unit’s command token from above the card and place it on the unit.
The horizontal lines are dividers of different abilities, and you can only use one of these, which ‘spends’ the unit. It will ready at the end of the Round (not the turn), or if you play another ability which readies a unit.
So… The Peasants are all round general helpers. They do a bit of everything. They can give you Move 2, Influence 2, Attack 2 or Block 2. And yes, if you use them for Influence, you can do this as soon as you recruit them.
For example: You have 8 Influence. you use 4 of it to recruit the Peasants. You then activate the Peasants for Influence 2 giving you now 6 Influence. You can then recruit the Crossbowmen too.
The Crossbowmen are nice. Ranged attack is always welcome.
DAY 19 - Better than Peasants
Yesterday we covered all the main rules for Units. Today, we have two more level II units to show you. Personally, I think the choice to go with Roman numerals in the top right is the right choice. I think it is important to differentiate between the level and the other values. Level is restricted from I to IV, whereas the other values could be any number. Anyway, thats just my opinion…
Onto the units themselves.
The Guardian Golems can be recruited in mage towers and keeps. They have 3 Armour, but they have Physical Resistance. What this means is that if you assign damage to them of 3 points or less, they absorb it without getting wounded. Normally, a Unit always gets Wounded, no matter what the Armour value is, and then the Armour just reduces the strength of the attack - this is different.
To explain further, lets see what happens when we assign the following damage points to the unit.
Assign 1-3 Damage to the Golems: No effect.
Assign 4-6 Damage to the Golems: 3 points is soaked up by resistance, the 4th point damages the Unit. No damage remains.
Assign 7+ Damage to the Golems: Same as above, but then there is damage left over.
Again, I found this a bit confusing at first, but quickly got the hang of it and it works well.
However… You have to assign damage to Units first, before you. And if you have 2 Golems and have to assign 6 damage, you can’t say “3 on each”. You have to say “I’m assigning damage to the Golem, is soaked up, then it is wounded and the remaining 3 is then reduced to zero by the Armour”.
But, if you had 9 points of damage to assign, you could say “I’m assigning damage to the Golem”. All 9 is assigned, 6 is used up as above, and then you choose where the other 3 go - you choose the second Golem, which doesnt get Wounded.
The abilities of the Golem are pretty cool, but the Fire Block and Ice Block need mana to power them.
Onto the Illusionists. These guys are very different from a lot of other Units. They aren’t much help in Attacking and Blocking, but they help in many other ways. Influence 4 is very nice, and in my last game, I recruited them and then straight away used them to recruit another unit.
The middle ability can save your bacon. It means the enemy doesnt attack you. You still have to kill it to get the fame (or just leave it). Illusionists are good at putting up some kind of illusionary foliage for you to hide in.
The final ability is very simple, use them to gain a white crystal.
Personnellement je suis conquis, j’espère que c’est votre cas aussi
Les illus sont jolies, le système de jeu a l’air assez intéressant. Après Quarriors, Wizkids s’apprêterait-il à nous livrer un second excellent jeu?
Je l’espère. D’abord parce que j’aime posséder de bons jeux et y jouer et aussi parce que ça fera du bien à l’image de Wizkids qui est passablement entachée paraît-il.
non je ne suis pas conquis a vrai dire.
Qu’est-ce qui te gêne dans ce jeu?
A voir la quantité de texte réelle et la mécanique, mais ça a quand même pas mal d’allure vu d’ici.
C’est parce que c’est pas lui qui en a parlé…
Plus sérieusement, me tente bien moi…
allez la suite :
Paul Grogan dit:DAY 20 - Elite Units
Most of the rules for the Units have now been discussed, so it is time for more images and less writing from me.
The Amotep Gunners, which can be recruited in keeps and cities are great in combat. Ranged Fire Attack 6 comes in handy and their 6 Armour helps with taking lots of damage.
Remember though that Ranged Attacks do not work against fortified Units. That’s where the Ice Mages come in handy
Siege Attack is useful when fighting fortified enemies. However, if the enemy is double fortified (i.e an enemy with the fortifaction icon is in a keep, mage tower or city), not even Siege Attacks work.
And also remember that Ranged and Siege Attacks can be played as normal Attacks in phase 4 of combat.
Bonne nouvelle : le premier volume (sur 2) des règles est dispo : ici
Le 2e volume ne sera pas mis en ligne. Il contient des variantes et un résumé des règles.
Paul Grogan dit:DAY 20 - Altem who?
Today brings us the last of the Units I am going to show. It is the end of Week 3 already, with only a couple of days before Essenber (what I call October).
This also means that it is bonus sneak preview time later today when I get around to writing it. However with the rules now online, I’m going to have to find something else to spoil, since telling you about dungeons and monster dens isn’t going to be a surprise.
Anyway, on with the Units.
These two are the best Units in the game. They can only be recruited in cities for a start, but just look at their stats. Whilst Attack 5 on the Guardians might just seem ok, Block 8 with the power to nullify Swiftness is pretty good, and also the ability to give all your Units all resistances can come in very useful at the right time.
And whilst the Guardians are busy, erm, guarding.. The Mages pack a punch in attack. First of all Cold Fire. I briefly mentioned this before but didn’t go into much detail (If I did, sorry for repeating but BGG is down as I write this, so not 100% sure what I wrote before).
Cold Fire is a powerful combination of elements. The only Block that is fully effective against a Cold Fire Attack is a Cold Fire Block. So against that nasty High Dragon we saw earlier in the week with Cold Fire Attack 6, the Mages can really help us out. When we come to attack enemies though with Cold Fire Attacks, if they have either Fire Resistance or Ice Resistance, this is useless, we do full damage. But if they have Fire AND Ice Resistance, then they are also Resistant to Cold Fire (Attacks are halved).
END OF WEEK BONUS
I was going to show another Map Tile and explain more locations, but now that you have the rules, you know all how Dungeons, Monster Dens, etc. work. So, instead.....
A bit more about cities.
In the walkthrough scenario, you objective (as a team) is to find the city. When you do, the game ends shortly afterwards and the one with the most Fame wins. However, in the Full Conquest game, your objective is to conquer all the cities. There are a number of cities in the game equal to the number of players. This doesn’t mean you have to conquer one city each however, just as long as they are all conquered then the scenario is beaten. Either way, it is the one with the most Fame that wins. With the full co-op scenario, you simply have to defeat all cities in time or not, there is no individual player scoring.
Cities are tough to defeat. Depending on what level you set the city at (1-11), or you use the variant Megapolis rule (where you can have a city up to level 22). The level of the city determines the garrison, simply the number and type of tokens. For example, the White City on Level 4 (suggested for the Full Conquest game initially) contains 1 white enemy token and 2 brown. The more enemies there are, the harder the combat, but the more Fame. If you are playing co-op and want to beat your previous score, then increasing the city level will bring more Fame. Oh, and each city also has a special defensive ability that boosts all garrison tokens (Everything in the White City is +1 Armour, everything in the Green City has poison, etc)
There are also rules for cooperating with other players when assaulting cities, and you can use these rules even in the competitive games if you want to. In fact, with the harder city levels, heroes will have to make a temporary truce to accomplish their shared goal (and then stab each other in the back later)
Once a city is conquered, then any player can interact there. You can recruit Units in a city (like the Altem Units we saw earlier), but also each city has a special interaction option. In one, you can buy Artifacts, in another you can learn Advanced Actions, etc.
You’ll find the full rules for cities in the second part of the rulebook, available soon.
Paul Grogan dit:DAY 22: The Colour of Magic.
Week 4 already. How time has flown. We've covered basic and advanced action cards, enemies and units and now we're onto the Spells.
The game comes with 20 Spell cards. As described in the Walkthrough, for your first game, just shuffle the deck and leave it face down. You dont actually need the spells until the first mage tower is revealed, but in the full game, you reveal three of them as the Spell offer.
Like gaining other cards, when you gain a spell, you choose any one from the offer and put it on top of your deck. This means it will probably be there for you on your next turn.
All spells have 2 uses, and in fact two different spell names. The top half of a spell card shows the basic spell, which costs 1 mana. The bottom effect is more powerful and costs the same mana as the top half, but also 1 black mana. Since black mana is only used at night, this means you cant use the stronger effect of the card during the day.
Onto the card itself. There are plenty of spells that are fairly simple and just give you large amounts of Attack, either Ranged Fire or Siege Ice, etc. But I thought I'd show one a bit more interesting. THat's not to say that the Attack cards aren't useful - I normally grab them first
Tremor / Earthquake, as you can see reduces the armour of enemies. If used against just one, it reduces it more than if you use it against multiple enemies. Note that even if you are fighting more than one enemy, you can still play this spell and just target it against one of them.
Reducing an enemies armour is great, it means you need to do less Attack to kill it. In our last game, I managed to reduce one unit down to Armour 1. I then blocked its attack and simply played 1 card sideways to kill it in melee combat.
c’est moi ou a part le nom y a pas grand chose en raaport avec le jeu mage knight ?
je n’ai pas dit que ce jeu était mauvais hein
adel10 dit:c'est moi ou a part le nom y a pas grand chose en raaport avec le jeu mage knight ?
Si, les noms des persos font référence à des unités de MAge Knight. Seul hic, les illustrations sont plutôt éloignées de la charte graphique de MK2.0
Don Lopertuis
Effectivement les noms des unités rappellent celles du Mage Knight des origines… A part ça, c’est vrai, ce nouveaux Mage Knight n’a pas grand chose à voir avec ses prédécesseurs.
Pour ce qui est du changement de charte graphique, je trouve ça assez normal. Il faut voir ce nouvel opus comme un vrai reboot de la licence.
On remet tout au goût du jour : visuels, mécaniques, etc.
C’est une pratique assez courante des les jeux vidéo ou dans certaines séries télé. Cependant je dois reconnaître que c’est moins répandue dans le jeux de société. Il faut dire que c’est un loisir qui était peut-être jusque là un peu plus confidentiel que ceux suscités (il lui reste d’ailleurs encore pas mal de chemin pour les rattraper).
le truc qui me dérange est ele suivant je possède tout mage knight dongeon dalle et mur compris une grosse partie de mage knight quand kje voit le titre du jeu je même dit chic un complément et finalement non
ensuite bon c’est finalement un land crawl type prophecy , runebound et talisman
a part que les fig sont peinte qu’est ce que cela amène a un joueur de mage knight ou a quelqu’un qui a les jeu sus cité ( en fait plus encore)
attention je ne dit pas que le jeu est mauvais
Atanaheim dit:Pour ce qui est du changement de charte graphique, je trouve ça assez normal. Il faut voir ce nouvel opus comme un vrai reboot de la licence.
On remet tout au goût du jour : visuels, mécaniques, etc.
Mouais, mais de là à avoir quelque chose qui ne correspond plus au prédécesseur - si ce n'est par les noms - j'ai comme un doute. D'autant qu'il ne s'agit pas d'un vrai reboot de la licence, ce n'est qu'un plateau dans le monde de MK : je ne suis pas sûr que l'on verra le jeu de figs renaître de ses cendres.
Don Lopertuis