Warhammer Diskwars unboxing and review from Fantasy Flight games

Time to take a look at a board game version of a tabletop miniatures game, well it used to be until Games Workshop decided they would like to kill it and the 30 odd years of wonderful background and stories set in the world.  This then is the ideal way to dive back into the world without hundreds of models and many more hundreds of pounds spent on them.

“The world is littered with the detritus of a hundred thousand battles. The bones of the dead lie scattered in shallow graves.”
    –Warhammer, “The Years of Conflict”

Armies of Orcs, Chaos Daemons, High Elves, and the Empire collide. Heroes spur their regiments into battle. Soldiers die. Lesser armies are obliterated. Victorious commanders become legends.

Set amid the constant warfare of the Old World, Warhammer: Diskwars is a game of ferocious, fast-paced tabletop battles for two to four players.

 So lets take a look at what you get in the box, and how it plays.........

 

 so you get a pack of cards, a range ruler, some dice and a rulebook, but under that lurks.....

 These.... sheets of tokens, with the disks for your units and wound counters, and all sorts of gubbins that FFG like. You will be punching these out for a while.  Yes, that is terrain you can see, it is 2d, but its still super cool there is any at all. so im really happy about that.

 The disks re beautiful quality with great art, so will certainly stand up to plenty of play.

 

 The Terrain is excellent looking, and will add to the games aesthetics nicely.

 The rulebook is full colour, with plenty of easy to follow diagrams.

 It also has some scenarios in the book, which is always a bonus for me.

 Your dice are nice and simple to follow, but we shall come to that later

 The deployment cards will provide plenty of variety as you and your opponent draft them from a selection causing plenty of chances to try something new.

 The art on the order cards just drips with theme and atmosphere, they have captured the world perfectly. these are used to dictate order of play, and some of them have some pretty nifty effects too.

 With Terrain cards it will always provide a varied battlefield as you draw randomly to see what you will be fighting on.

 Now... how does it play?

Fast, Fun, and Brutal Combat

Based upon the original Diskwars game design by Christian T. Petersen and Tom Jolly, Warhammer: Diskwars features a fast-moving combat system that allows players to setup and resolve full, hard-hitting, tactical battles in an hour or less. The game has been updated for its new setting within the Warhammer world and features flexible rules for hero-centric army-building. Additionally, whereas the original Diskwars was a collectible game, Warhammer: Diskwars has moved away from the blind buy model, and the Core Set includes everything necessary for two to four players to play the game.

At the heart of the game’s conflicts are its disks, which represent heroes and units from across the Old World. During the game, you activate these disks, flipping them end over end to move them across the battlefield and position them to attack.

In Warhammer: Diskwars, players move units by flipping their disks end over end.

If a disk flips in such a way that it covers up another disk, the disk on top is considered to be “pinning” the disk below it. This prevents the pinned disk from activating, and at the end of the round, overlapping disks must fight each other.

Here, Karl Fanz is shown pinning two different Orc units.

When two disks fight, any disk that is pinning its foe deals damage equal to its Attack Strength, and any disk that is pinned deals damage equal to its Counter Strength to the disk that has pinned it. If a disk suffers an amount of damage equal to or greater than its Toughness, it takes a wound. If the disk has no Life Value, it is destroyed; otherwise, it suffers one wound, which reduces its total remaining Life.

The information collected on each disk makes it easy to remember how your units will interact with others as the battles rage on!

While you seek to maneuver your disks across the battlefield, you also want to pay attention to each disk’s keywords and combat abilities. Some disks feature the ability to make ranged attacks. Some can use magic to destroy their foes at a distance. Disks with the “Impact” keyword cause immediate damage when they crash into their foes, and some disks are resistant, or even immune, to different types of damage. To win, you’ll want to take full advantage of these different abilities.

When a unit makes a ranged attack, its owner rolls a number of the custom battle dice, which indicate whether the attack scores any hits or critical hits, scatters, or falls prey to some other effect influenced by Chaos!

Then, by selectively pinning your opponent’s units and picking them apart, you can seize control of the battlefield and march toward victory!

Important Decisions in the Heat of Battle

From the first step in setup until the last unit falls in battle, Warhammer: Diskwars challenges you to make important decisions while the sounds of warfare echo all around you.

In setup, you’ll draft terrain cards and draw an objective card. Each terrain card indicates two different options, so you’ll want to be certain to select the elements that grant you the greatest advantage against your foe. Meanwhile, your objective card dictates your victory condition, and you keep this hidden from your opponents. Because each player in Warhammer: Diskwars seeks to meet his secret objective, this rewards tactical flexibility, and because objectives all encourage players to clash early and often, they keep the game’s focus squarely on combat of the utmost intensity.

As you launch headlong into game rounds, you and your opponents must try to outflank each other by winning initiative and activating units through the play of command cards. Each command card has a strategy which players use to determine the order in which they resolve their activations. The four strategies are Bold, Steady, Devious, and Cautious. Players resolve Bold cards before Steady cards, Steady cards before Devious cards, and Devious cards before Bold cards. Slow cards are resolved last.

Furthermore, command cards indicate the number of units you activate, and many introduce other game effects that can dramatically alter the outcome of the round’s combat.

As your forces draw close to each other, you’ll want to win the first meaningful charge or fire the first lethal shot. Learning how to lure your opponent into a vulnerable position is critical, and you’ll want to play your cards in such an order that you can reveal the right strategy at the right time!

Infinite Armies

With twenty-four command cards, five terrain cards, five scenario cards, and more than sixty disks, the Warhammer: Diskwars Core Set includes everything two to four players need to field a wide range of different armies for the game’s four races.

Heroes stand at the front and center of each army in Warhammer: Diskwars. Before a game, you and your opponents decide how many heroes you will each bring to battle. Each hero is effectively “free,” and all heroes indicate a number of recruitment points that you can then spend to recruit its regiment. They also indicate a number of command cards that you can add to your command hand. While heroes may not recruit units from a race other than their own, you can explore alliances between the game’s races by pairing the forces of Chaos with the Orc hordes, or by partnering a High Elf hero with one from the Empire. You cannot, however, pair the forces of Order with those of Destruction.

These army building rules allow you to easily recruit your forces and experiment with different strategies and synergies. You can focus on offense, defense, or mobility. You can try to focus on ranged attacks, or build armies full of cavalry units ready to charge at their foes. You can explore the strengths hidden in different keywords, and you can expand your creative options with multiple Core Sets, as well as expansions, which introduce new units, command cards, and terrain.

Conquer the Old World

Are you ready for battle? The armies of the Old World are looking for heroes to lead them. Dive into the fast-paced conflicts of Warhammer: Diskwars, and rise to glory!

Its a great looking system, with minimal set up and take down time, certainly compared to the miniatures game.  It plays fast and the rules are simple and easy to follow so you can get a couple of games in each session.  It look great!, check some battle reports to see in the future, they ARE coming!  Overall, a big thumbs up from me and Olivia, simple, tactical, and  full of theme and fun we love it.