Angry Miniatures: was Awesome!

I'm really excited to bring you this news. Friday my brothers and I played a game of Angry Miniatures. This would be its first playtest outside of a game I ran solo just to see if the numbers balanced out.

I was afraid that it would be a boring fantasy miniatures game grindfest, but actually played very smooth and was quite memorable. One of my biggest fears was my brothers wouldn't get it when it came up to making up your own perks and flaws, but that turned out to be the best part. Making those up created these personalities for you figures like you would get with your own character in a roleplaying game. Because of this you would instinctively find your strategies suited their playstyle.

Think of it like a quick skirmish game where your force consisted of 3 player characters from a silly game of DnD.

It really did add a role-playing element to a tabletop wargame. I will be going over each player's forces and you will see that personality show through on their small character sheets, but big deeds.

We decided to do the random bucket route. Each player did a blind-grab of 3 minis from my big bucket-o-pre-painted-dnd-minis. Then without too much explanation or guidance, they statted them up to make the following:

James Swenson's team: B.D.S.M. (Blunt Dense Slow and Moronic)

Sargon the Sadist

• Body 2
• Mind 2
• Spirit 5
• Health 3
• Speed 6
• Magic Attack 5
• Distance 5
• Perk: Masochistic Tendencies: +1 to defense against melee attacks
• Flaw: Ecstasy: -1 to movement when struck by an attack for your next turn
• Crit: Magic Heal

Sargon was hilariously flavored because James saw a Duergar (dark dwarf) with manacles and a branding iron. He said this guy loved to inflict pain and receive it, hence the perk and flaw. He met an end of pleasurable death by the dwarf from my group who hated his sickening screams.

Tellak

• Body 1
• Mind 3
• Spirit 5
• Health 3
• Speed 5
• Magic Attack 5
• Distance 6
• Perk: Mage in plate: +1 defense against melee attacks
• Flaw: Mage in plate: -1 to speed
• Crit: Magic Buff

Tellak was the last one standing at the end of the game, making James the winner. Twice did her crit activate to help her tremendously beat the rest of us down and the mere fact that magic had an AOE whiddled some of us down a little. We did let her buff herself with it once, which i think i'm going to change and not let happen. The perk and flaw were hilarious, in that this mage's strength was also her weakness.

Dave the Vicious Hobgoblin

• Body 5
• Mind 3
• Spirit 1
• Health: 5
• Speed: 4
• Melee Attack 7
• Perk: Mean little cuss: +1 to melee attacks
• Flaw: Stupidity: -1 defense vs magic attacks
• Crit: Commanding

This little guy turned out to be one of the more vicious and dangerous minis on the field. With some lucky dice rolls and the crit buff from Tellek, he slaughtered my dwarf while defending in a melee attack. James realized his crit didn't help him much because there really wasn't another melee on his team.

Jarom Swenson's team: The Splaztastics

Blood Scale

• Body 5
• Mind 2
• Spirit 2
• Health 5
• Speed 3
• Melee Attack 7
• Perk: Armored to the teeth: +1 defense against melee
• Flaw: Armor too big!: -1 to speed
• Crit: Regenerate

Blood Scale was the last to go down on Jarom's team, but held out pretty good with a decent defense, able to stick mostly on melee where he handles it best with some careful movement around terrain. But died in the end in the last 1 on 1 to Tellak. But the Regenerate crit saved his butt twice, healing him to full health each time.

Sheelob

• Body 2
• Mind 5
• Spirit 2
• Health 3
• Speed 4
• Range Attack 6
• Distance 7
• Perk: Creepy Crawly: Ignores hindering terrain for movement
• Flaw: "You're creepy!": -1 defense vs melee
• Crit: Poisonous Attack

This guy stood out merely for her ability to move around unhindered, which helped somewhat, but was Jarom's second to die. She was ranged because she spit her poison, apparently. That's the beauty of this game, what i would have though to be statted as a melee character could easily be given a different role if given a good enough reason.

Pfft*blup

• Body 3
• Mind 1
• Spirit 5
• Health 4
• Speed 6
• Magic Attack 4
• Distance 5
• Perk: Flammable Aura: 1 damage dealt to enemy after it uses magic within 1 square of Pfft*blup
• Flaw: Flammable Aura: 1 damage dealt to Pfft*blup after enemy uses magic within 1 square of Pfft*blup

• Crit: (made up and not from the list, but i wasn't going to say no) Silent but Deadly: After crit is resolved, the next opponent he attacked cannot defend until the start of his next turn

This was first blood of the game mostly because of some bad dice rolls which amounted to nil. But Jarom hilariously made sure it's back was turned toward each target of his 'magic' attacks. In case the hints are not getting through due to the name of the character, and the nature of his perks and flaws, he farts as his magic attacks. Yep, quality gaming here at our table. Fart jokes...

M. Jared Swenson's team: Yet Another Player Group
 
Dunhill

• Body 3
• Mind 3
• Spirit 3
• Health 4
• Speed 5
• Melee Attack 6
• Perk: Bearded: +1 to defense vs melee
• Flaw: Stubborn: must attack if able
• Crit: Tactician

This character is named after my favorite dnd dwarf character, and i sort of played him as such. At first glance the flaw may seem sort of gimp in that it really isn't much of a flaw, but it did end up being his death. Because of it he couldn't pass up attacking the Mean little cuss, Dave, (who was buffed by Tellak's Magic buff) which ultimately backfired as the defending player killed him. Such is the nature of melee.

Steele

• Body 4
• Mind 3
• Spirit 2
• Health 4
• Speed 3
• Melee Attack 6
• Perk: Grounded: +1 vs magic attacks
• Flaw: Lumbering: -1 to speed
• Crit: Skilled Defender

This armor golem moved very slowly around the table, i knew this would be so i gave him some decent defenses, and the crit luckily happened twice during his defense rolls. But he was slowly whittled down with a small health pool and slow speed.

xxDrizzatsxx

• Body 4
• Mind 4
• Spirit 1
• Health 3
• Speed 4
• Range Attack 6
• Distance 7
• Perk: Super Awesome Drizzt Clone: +1 to distance
• Flaw: Totally Lame Drizzt Clone: -1 health
• Crit: Surge

Every dnd group has one, a Drizzt clone. *sigh*, when i pulled this mini out of the bucket i knew EXACTLY how to flavor him, and did such. With a spirit score of 1 it made him very risky vs magic attacks, but each time he took a deadly fart from Jarom's Pfft*blup, luck was on his side and survived. I guess Drizzt clones are as super awesome as their player thinks they are. Especially since his crit 'Surge' made him very fast and mobile on the battlefield. Later my brothers pointed out to me that this mini is actually a female, but who cares. They're elves, they all look alike!

All in all we had a blast playing. One of the great things was the game didn't try hard to be balanced. Sure some of the perks could be too powerful, and some of the flaws didn't hinder the character enough, but when you really don't think about it, you just end up having a great time with your minor roleplaying that's forced to the surface.

Ever wished that your minis game had a little more flavor and personality without taking itself too seriously? Well this just may be the game for you.