MageKnight Advanced: An Introduction
Welcome to the sane Introduction page. On this page I'll lay out the basic premise for MageKnight Advanced in a nice, clear, logical manner. I'll outline the aims of the "Project", as well as the perceived pros and cons of MageKnight. Finally, there will be a discussion of how I intend to fix the various cons of MageKnight. So, onwards then.
Aims:
The basic aim of this project is to "de-crapify" MageKnight. This is an admittedly difficult task, since a good 2/3 of the game really is very very crap. Nevertheless, I've got some time to spare, and it's not as though I'm writing my own unique wargaming rules system, so the amount of work required won't actually be too incredible. Once the rules are in a nice state I will attempt to infiltrate them into the online MageKnight community, via the forums on websites like MK Realms. Hopefully this endeavour will be successful and I'll soon have the whole MageKnight community turning up its nose at Wizkids' shite rules. Or maybe not. Either way, maybe I can stir things up some. After all, they sure as hell have opened themselves up for it...
Pros of MageKnight:
- Plays quickly
- Easy to learn
- Skirmish-level game, which means that every mini means something...
- Initial monetary outlay low
- Pre-painted miniatures
Cons of MageKnight:
- Stop-Start style of play due to turn structure of rules system. Feels very artificial...
- Rules system overly simply
- Special Abilities system encourages ufair combo-based play(Look for info about the Black Summer of Magic in 1996 for another example of this...)
- Skirmish-level game with NO wargear system at all. Makes forces seem very bland and samey.
- Unique(Ie Hero) figures overly dominant due to unbalanced design
- No guidelines present for customising the rules system
- Scenario-based play not encouraged
- Long-term monetary outlay high, due to a Magic-style purchase system
- Pre-painted miniatures are painted really baddly
What I Can Do:
- Alter the rules system to make the game play in a more fluid fashion
- Devise a Wargear system that gives each mini it's own unique options. This will be a WYSIWYG wargear system that will favour non-Unique models.
- Alter most, if not all, of the Special Abilities with three aims in mind. One, to reduce the power of Unique models. Two, to improve many of the lesser models in the game, making them usable. Three, to introduce a highler level of complexity into the game.
What I Can't Do:
- Scrap the booster system and force Wizkids to sell people models in a Pick-And-Choose manner. This can be done via Third Party dealers, however.
- Force people to play Scenrio-based games. This is unfortunately up to the players. I can resent some scenario ideas however...
- Fix the baddly painted miniatures. This can only be done with a great deal of careful work involving the stripping of paint from the miniatures. This is a difficult task, as most paint strippers dissolve plastic miniatures. However, there are solutions that have been put up on the web by other people, which I will link to.
- Fix the poorly modelled miniatures. The only suggestion I can give here is for players to convert miniatures from other games for use with this one, something which many people probably already do...