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rjderouin
May 21, 2007
By the way I don't have search, checked the back five pages did not see anything about this.

Krosmaster Arena / Wakfu / Dofus



Useful Links

http://www.krosmaster.com/en – try the game for free and learn how to play with the base characters
http://www.wakfu.com/en/mmorpg
http://www.dofus.com/en
http://www.netflix.com - Wakfu

What is this game?
From their website... “Figurines that move from your hand to your screen to take part in titanic battles...Virtual avatars that you collect on krosmaster.com and in the games DOFUS and WAKFU...
102 heroes from across the ages, ready to fight on the same battlefield... Find all this and more in Krosmaster! Group your figurines according to their strengths, put together a team that rocks and fight your way onto the winners' podium in Krosmaster Arena, online and in a real-life board game! There are 102 real figurines that you can find in shops or at special events. With them, you can play whenever, wherever, whether it's at home on a real game board, or online using the codes that come with each figurine! Each virtual figurine is playable online and can be unlocked using the codes provided in the blind boxes your real figurines come in. But you can also buy them in the Krosmaster Shop, or obtain them for free in the DOFUS and WAKFU MMORPGs!”




The text from the site is a bit Engrish and so is some of the game so warning on that upfront. This is an orthogonal (no diagonal movement or range) board game / miniatures game from a French company that normally produces MMORPGs (Dofus and Wakfu) however the transition is pretty smooth and generally plays like Final Fantasy Tactics. Each character comes with a rule card so it feels little like Warmachine if you are a fan of traditional table tops otherwise if you are just a video gamer don't be intimidated.

What is the story about?

The story of the game is based on the Wakfu / Dofus universe which is a kind of an anime feeling fantasy world where every living organism has Wakfu energy infused into them and it feeds their powers or abilities. I don't know that much about it outside of the TV show that is on Netflix which I found to be very entertaining (dubbing aside, watch the original French with subtitles). Essentially the game takes place in an alternate reality where the characters from the shows and games battle against each other for the favor of Shushus (demons) that command them to fight.

What is the game play like?



Like I said before the game plays a lot like Final Fantasy Tactics. Characters have movement points, action points which they spend every turn to attack, use abilities, purchase items and activate power ups and health points which are self explanatory. The base mechanics of the game are very simple and easy to learn, its understanding the interactions of the more than 100 figures in the game that make it complicated. Each player before a game starts builds a 12 point team, each figure having a point cost associated with them on their card. This point cost is also the key end game mechanic for the game. Each player begins the game with 6 GG or Gallons of Glory and each time a hero is slain that player loses as much GG as the hero costs. Thus high cost characters are more powerful but more risky, low cost characters are less powerful less risky. Every turn there is a chance for both players to lose GG thus creating tension and making sure stale mates don't happen.



What else is cool about it?

Other than Skylanders its the only game I know to have a consistent real life to virtual element. I originally found the game when I owned a comic book store and I had a demo copy shipped to me. It came with a code in the back that led me to the online website where I proceeded to waste a lot of time playing ranked matchmaking and ranked tournaments. I found it addictive in the same way I find MOBAs addictive.



The figures for the physical game are really beautiful and surprisingly detailed, the competitive meta is pretty defined each seasons though I think this is unavoidable with an internet game.

Why am I posting on the internet?

I have never heard anyone mention this game on Something Awful which is surprisingto me so I was more just curious to see if anyone else played it or has heard of it. If you do play my username is rjderouin / rderouin, I would love to play with goons sometime and try out new lists because season 2 just released otherwise give the game a try. I don't consider myself to have awful taste so I definitely recommend it. Its not perfect far from it but I think its a lot of fun and has a lot of potential. If you do play and end up getting smashed by the more competitive lists just remember that the base characters are like a Magic intro deck of course they are going to lose to stream lined and tuned lists.

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LordAba
Oct 22, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
The models are cool, the Anime is great (French anime is the best anime), and the game is fun to play. Too bad I'm not interested in the computer game.

I really want the team from the cartoon. Is the only way to get the models currently ebay?

S.J.
May 19, 2008

Just who the hell do you think we are?

A buddy of mine has all of the sets for the board game that are regularly available. This game is pretty rad.

rjderouin
May 21, 2007

LordAba posted:

The models are cool, the Anime is great (French anime is the best anime), and the game is fun to play. Too bad I'm not interested in the computer game.

I really want the team from the cartoon. Is the only way to get the models currently ebay?

Its coming out as a box set soonish (brotherhood of the tofu). Will post some pictures tomorrow.

rjderouin
May 21, 2007
Some other cool stuff that is going to be coming out for the game. The dark heroes box set has a bunch of the villains or anti-heroes from the TV show in it.



The brotherhood of the tofu set has all of the main characters from the first season of the show.



They are also making a resin board that is pretty cool albeit expensive as hell.

Mr.Booger
Nov 13, 2004
At first this was a silly diversion, but the game is actually quite tactical and fun. We even started playing in the monthly tournament/league things they support with promo figures and tokens as prizes. I was suitably impressed.
That villains box will be mine.

rjderouin
May 21, 2007
Awesome, where do you play at store name and everything? I can make sure that they get some cool stuff.

LordAba
Oct 22, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
All the stuff you posted is awesome and I want it all.

For our groups it's more "we aren't playing 40K, let us try Krosmaster". Super fun game, though!

Mr.Booger
Nov 13, 2004
I play at Mayhem Comics and Games in Des Moines Iowa (https://www.mayhemcomics.com same place as the Mayhem cup for Warmachine, the Muse on Minis crew and such), we have a Sunday night league thing we do, had some great games last night. I played an all Old-Man team with all three enutrofs and grampy, it was pretty brutal :) -4 move is nasty if you hit it all on someones lvl 6 and then just stand out of range :)

edit: Thought of a follow up question. Is there a place to get more board layouts? I heard for the big tournaments in Europe the event will have a new board sometimes, looking to see if we can snag some of these, or images of them so we can play with them (if they are coming out as a sellable item then no need, but if not I would love to print some out or make a 3d version with my hirst arts moulds.)

Mr.Booger fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Nov 17, 2014

signalnoise
Mar 7, 2008

i was told my old av was distracting
This is one of those games that I looked at, thought it looked interesting, but couldn't find ANY information about. Could you elaborate on the physical game?

El Estrago Bonito
Dec 17, 2010

Scout Finch Bitch

signalnoise posted:

This is one of those games that I looked at, thought it looked interesting, but couldn't find ANY information about. Could you elaborate on the physical game?

It very much reminds me of games like Heroscape and Mage Knight but with better balance and more of a Final Fantasy Tactics bent. There is a Tabletop episode for it but they only play the basic version of the game, not the real big-boy version. If you like FFT, Tactics Ogre or Front Mission style games along with mini's games in vein of X-Wing or Heroscape then I'd say you should try it out. It's pretty affordable as well. I don't really play it that much because I own like ~3 Grand worth of Heroscape stuff and so if I want a cool grid based tactics game with prepainted minis I just play that, but it's a cool game.

Mr.Booger
Nov 13, 2004
That is a pretty good run down. We explain it as Final Fantasy Tactics - the board game. It is grid based, characters activate in initiative order, have movement and action point allowances to use abilities/attack. Terrain is important, and you collect money during the game to buy temp abilities or equipment, or straight up buy a VP from your opponent, but there is a limited amount of money and you have to use actions to pick it up, so knowing when and how to use it is also important.

Honestly there is quite abit to it, though it was easy to learn, as the basics are still FFtactics.

rjderouin
May 21, 2007
For anybody interested the company that manufacturers the game will be doing some Twitch streaming about the game tomorrow. They are also going to be doing an interview with one of the developers for League of Legends Ryan Scott. They posted information about it on their facebook. https://www.facebook.com/JapanimeGames

LordAba
Oct 22, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Picked up the Brotherhood heroes last weekend. Good stuff, minus Nox having a broken sword. Nothing a little super glue can't fix. It will probably be a while before I get to play them, though.

I still need to make a program for randomizing teams. It is easy enough when the start set comes with lvl 3 characters, but now I have a bunch of lvl 2s and a couple lvl 4s.

Funso Banjo
Dec 22, 2003

I doubt anyone cares, but an iPad game is currently in beta. I can't post pics without getting in trouble, although some are available on BGG. Online play is in and should be out in the next 3-4 months. Not implemented at the minute, but you will be able to use your physical figures in the iPad version.

Vlaada Chvatil
Sep 23, 2014

Bunny bunny moose moose
College Slice
I received a copy of the Krosmaster board game for Christmas this year, but only finally got a chance to play it recently. I was pleasantly surprised at what a fun little game it was. The last time I had a board game night, I kept finding people over in the corner pawing through all the high production value pieces and wanting to play.

For anyone who owns the game and plays it regularly, can you suggest which expansions/unit boxes to purchase? I'm less concerned with building ideal tournament teams, and more with increasing my play options with units that have interesting abilities. My fear is that I'll get an expansion with units that have non-3 costs, and suddenly the unit draft doesn't work because there's only one cost-5 unit and no cost-1s to balance it out.

Also, do the additional boards (Frigost and the mine expansion) add much? It's just different placement for your trees/shrubs/crates, and no actual mechanical differences, correct?

Mr.Booger
Nov 13, 2004
For boards it is nice to have variety, All are pretty nice with various additions, the sliding of blocks on frigost makes for new tactics. But for the money, Not Mines was a great pick up, you can get it fairly cheap (14-16 $ online) and they are double sided with different maps. the mine carts can also open up angles and such like the ice blocks.

If you purely want 3s for your collection to keep it simple most of the 4 pack boxes are not quite where you want to go as I think each box is 12 pts, but usually a variety of values among the 4 models. There are alot of 3s around though, so maybe hit ebay for people's extras, etc. Though there are rules for mis-matched points values (which we have done before and worked out pretty well).

Most of the boxes have something I have liked quite abit, so hard to narrow down one or two that would be best. I might suggest hitting krosmaster arena online to get a look at all the models and their cards (so you can see all the threes) and then see which ones have the most you want.

Vlaada Chvatil
Sep 23, 2014

Bunny bunny moose moose
College Slice

Mr.Booger posted:

For boards it is nice to have variety, All are pretty nice with various additions, the sliding of blocks on frigost makes for new tactics. But for the money, Not Mines was a great pick up, you can get it fairly cheap (14-16 $ online) and they are double sided with different maps. the mine carts can also open up angles and such like the ice blocks.

If you purely want 3s for your collection to keep it simple most of the 4 pack boxes are not quite where you want to go as I think each box is 12 pts, but usually a variety of values among the 4 models. There are alot of 3s around though, so maybe hit ebay for people's extras, etc. Though there are rules for mis-matched points values (which we have done before and worked out pretty well).

Most of the boxes have something I have liked quite abit, so hard to narrow down one or two that would be best. I might suggest hitting krosmaster arena online to get a look at all the models and their cards (so you can see all the threes) and then see which ones have the most you want.

Thanks for the tips. I think I'll grab the Not Mines and try it out, since it's fairly cheap.

Incidentally, I liked Japanime Games on Facebook just in time for them to post an article about how to start expanding your collection.

Shrike41
Jan 7, 2011
I just saw one of the expansions in my FLGS and it got me and my son interested. Figures look cool and we already semi-collect skylanders, disney infinity and ammibos.

Is the Krosmaster Arena the initial core/starter set? What about the Frigo or Quest sets for a first purchase?

Diosamblet
Oct 9, 2004

Me and my shadow

Sapper2CRNA posted:

I just saw one of the expansions in my FLGS and it got me and my son interested. Figures look cool and we already semi-collect skylanders, disney infinity and ammibos.

Is the Krosmaster Arena the initial core/starter set? What about the Frigo or Quest sets for a first purchase?

Krosmaster Arena and Krosmaster Junior are the starting points for the arena combat version of the game. Frigost is an expansion only, and is overpriced for what it is - if you get really into the game, it's fine because it does open up some more varied options, but doesn't actually include what most people and kids like about the game (more adorable characters).

Quest isn't out yet, but it will be another starting point for a different style of game using the existing line of characters. I don't think anybody knows if it will be any good yet, they haven't exactly been forthcoming with actual gameplay details.

Shrike41
Jan 7, 2011

Diosamblet posted:

Krosmaster Arena and Krosmaster Junior are the starting points for the arena combat version of the game. Frigost is an expansion only, and is overpriced for what it is - if you get really into the game, it's fine because it does open up some more varied options, but doesn't actually include what most people and kids like about the game (more adorable characters).

Quest isn't out yet, but it will be another starting point for a different style of game using the existing line of characters. I don't think anybody knows if it will be any good yet, they haven't exactly been forthcoming with actual gameplay details.

Thanks, that cleared things up for me. Amazon prime is the bomb. It will be here Monday!

Mr.Booger
Nov 13, 2004
The season 3 stuff looks really nice. Our play group hasn't grown much, still 7-8 of us, but we have pretty good tournaments, with different people and different teams winning alot, good variety still.

Serenade
Nov 5, 2011

"I should really learn to fucking read"
The beta of the stand alone, 3d Krosmaster Arena just launched.

I've only just gotten though the tutorial and redeemed some mini's codes. It seems functional but there are still a few beta version qualities to it. Biggest downside is that you can't use Dark Heroes yet.

Vlaada Chvatil
Sep 23, 2014

Bunny bunny moose moose
College Slice
I got a chance to play a couple games of this again over the weekend. It's too bad it isn't very popular, it's a pretty fun tactical skirmish game. Did the online version ever happen?

Funso Banjo
Dec 22, 2003

This released on Steam this week.

Very nice implementation, though I think the tutorial could be much better. It walks you through the games themselves fairly well, but then doesn't cover the different abilities, buying new figures, or UI pretty much at all. The iPad version, if anyone cares, has hit snag after snag and it is going to be a fair bit later before seeing release.

While I like the game, I have my doubts about how popular this will be with the English speaking world. The sales are much higher in French regions right now. I can see this game being absolutely dead within a few months, sadly.

Funso Banjo fucked around with this message at 12:19 on Nov 12, 2015

Vlaada Chvatil
Sep 23, 2014

Bunny bunny moose moose
College Slice

Funso Banjo posted:

This released on Steam this week.

Very nice implementation, though I think the tutorial could be much better. It walks you through the games themselves fairly well, but then doesn't cover the different abilities, buying new figures, or UI pretty much at all. The iPad version, if anyone cares, has hit snag after snag and it is going to be a fair bit later before seeing release.

While I like the game, I have my doubts about how popular this will be with the English speaking world. The sales are much higher in French regions right now. I can see this game being absolutely dead within a few months, sadly.

I've been looking forward to this! I downloaded on Steam, and I'm hoping to give it a shot over the weekend. My biggest problem with Krosmaster is getting to play it often enough to really develop teams and strategies, so it'll be nice to have a convenient means to play pick up games.

LordAba
Oct 22, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
I know one of the stores in the Dayton, OH area has regular Krosmaster games. I might have to pick up a set to participate.

Otherwise, yeah. Not too popular, I don't think. I haven't seen anything big pushed since the kickstarters, so maybe it didn't take off beyond that.

Mr.Booger
Nov 13, 2004
The company has basically gone silent, without producing new models/content for the board game in awhile, along with not shipping their Quest kickstarter game even though it is supposedly done, the thought is the company ran out of money. They put up a new item for funding, but the comments are basically just people asking why they would give them money when they haven't shipped the first crowd funded game. It is a bit of a mess, and it kinda killed the game locally here.

Vlaada Chvatil
Sep 23, 2014

Bunny bunny moose moose
College Slice
On the plus side, they're trying to move inventory by offering huge discounts during the holidays. I'm hoping things get so bad that they'll sell me a resin board for >$100 (but then they rebound
and become successful after that)

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Hackjack
Apr 1, 2013
So I met rjderouin last GenCon, and he introduced me to this awesome game!

I'm looking to replace pieces in my set with resin terrain pieces because my cardboard tokens keep falling apart. And I'm also looking to get stuff like cloth playmats and organized play support for a potential league I want to run for myself and some friends.

Does anyone, like rjderouin, know what the best way to get component upgrade pieces is, or how to get started with getting prize support for a league?

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