Warhammer age of sigmar: Champions

So the latest game to hit the console market from the behemoth that is games workshop is Warhammer age of sigmar: champions, as I am sure a few of you will realise this is a port of the PC/mobile game on to console and all the accounts whether they be PC, mobile or switch are all cross platform and can be linked up.

The game was released in digital format back in Feb and is from the developers at Play Fusion with the switch release only being more recent. Along side this there is also a table top trading card game with physical cards that you can play, the up side of this is if you already have a deck you can scan it in and use it in the digital game meaning you are able to stick to what you know with regards to you deck layout.

So, when you start up Warhammer age of sigmar: champions you receive your first deck to start off the tutorial which is the Order alliance deck there are other alliances that you can play as but I will come to those later. The game has a few tutorials matches it takes you through and it does hold your hand quite well so even if you are new to this style of game you will be able to get to grips with it easy enough.

There are different unit styles such as creatures, blessings, spells, action and champions which are all covered along with the basics of how to play the game enough so that you can competently get stuck into a few games and unlock some more decks and cards. Which brings me to the alliances there are 4 in the game Order (sigmar), Death (undead), Chaos (speaks for itself) and Destruction (orks). Each of them has there own abilities and there own ways of winning and will take some play testing to get to grips with what style suits you, if you have played the other versions of the game then you will know what you want other wise it will take some time. They do give you pre-made decks in each alliance as you move through but you are able to change these or create your own from scratch via the library as there is plenty of boosters that get dropped as you move through the early missions.

Sadly as is the case with all games like this that are free to download and play there is always going to be a mass of microtransactions attached and every day you log in it tells you what card is on offer today. So the booster packs will set you back around 75-100 gems (£1.99 for 100 gems) or you can buy for 1000 in game currency that you earn but it is a slow grind. If you want to by a warband bundle then you will be looking around 500 gems and there is no in game cash options for these so as you can imagine you will spend a lot of time cracking boosters in the hopes you get what you need, so if you have ever played MTG or Yu-gi-oh you will know the pain that comes with this and the amount of fluff you will get you don’t want (they will let you sell your cards you don’t want to get gems tho). There is a large number of gem packs to buy in the game with the ‘best value’ so the game tells you setting you back a whopping £99.99 for 6260 gems.

So, onto the game play, as I said it takes you through how to play the game and shows you the ropes, so you know what your doing. What it won’t do is take you through the finer rules of the game and for that you will need to have a read up in the menu to find out the small things that cards do and how they can work. Especially with the lane mechanics so you can make the most of the champions and card abilities in your hand, so make sure you take time to read up on it if you decide the game is for you as you will find things a lot easier if you know how this works.

The game is a turn-based card game where you summon creatures of spells using your action points each turn that you have 2 of, the only way if you can draw cards as well is to have unused action points at the end of your turn. The aim is to get you opponent down to 0 health and depending on you set up you have any think up to a max of 35 health points so the build of your deck will affect how much life you start the game with. There are extra powers that you can use rather than cards that you will get from boosters as you progress through the game allowing you to do some cheeky damage or healing that your opponent won’t see coming.

The game play in Warhammer age of sigmar: Champions is not exactly a fast card game and a lot of the animations of cards being laid and removed etc does take up a lot of time on screen so don’t expect to snatch a quick game here and there.  Don’t get me wrong it is fun but I am feeling like my decks are very under powered now and I am struggling and I don’t want to put my own money in to the game moving forward, so the grind to get a powerful deck is starting to feel very real (god it’s like I am playing MTG all over again).

So, the next question is should you get the game, it is free so why not give it a try. If you like trading card style games then you will prob enjoy it, I advise you play it in handheld mode though as it make it so much faster to play then clunking around with a controller as the touch screen makes life 100% easier! A trick I kept in mind from when I played this game a little while back on my laptop.

So overall, I give the game a 5/10.

I want to give it more as I love most games that come from games workshop, but I just can’t. Its another run of the mill card game which seem to be popping up everywhere now, my big issue is the amount of microtransactions it tried to get you to buy. My advice is if you want seriously to get into this game and you want to get boosters buy into the physical game as at least you have something to show for it and you can just scan them in anyway and if you pull cards you don’t want you can always sell them on to make some money back but that is just from my experiences with other games of this style in the past.