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We were too lazy to report on the World of Warcraft (WoW) miniatures game slated for release on November 11th when we heard about it many months ago, but Massively’s recent post on the release reminded us of the irony.

Warcraft has taken the opposite approach of its initial inspiration, Warhammer, by starting with video games and later moving on to miniature-based board games!

Massively’s reporting leaves something to be desired, as Warcraft is only partially based on Warhammer, and Warhammer isn’t a board game, it’s a tabletop wargame, as it doesn’t rely on the use of a board and pre-packaged elements at all, as armies are constructed from different packages. Nonetheless, Massively makes its point, in that WoW’s success prompted Blizzard to try their hand at miniature wargaming. This isn’t the same as Games Workshop bringing their Warhammer license to the MMOG space, however, because WoW’s miniature game won’t likely compete with Warhammer at all, since WoW’s miniature game is collectible.

Like Mage Knight before it, the WoW miniature game is based on purchasing a starter pack, and then booster packs to acquire new units for one’s army. The downside for buyers is that the boosters contain units that the buyer can’t see until they open the box, which makes collectible miniature games into the same type of enormous money-sink that collectible card games (CCGs) are. Warhammer, on the other hand, is not collectible in the same sense, as players directly buy the units they want to field in an army.

There are also other differences: Warhammer’s sculptures are of a higher quality than those of most (if not all) collectible miniature games, and most units do not come assembled, and are unpainted when purchased. This means that players spend considerable preparation time before having an army ready to field, but for most wargamers, that’s half the fun.

From what we can tell, the WoW miniatures game is designed to field very small armies (~5 units), whereas games like Warhammer excel at fielding many more, for a much more epic battle experience. So, rather than take Warhammer head-on, Blizzard is pushing the WoW miniatures game at much more casual wargamers who are new to the hobby, else haven’t yet jumped in. For veteran wargamers, the WoW miniatures game will likely be little more than a novelty for fans of WoW, and ignored otherwise.

We’d be surprised if the WoW miniatures game even comes close to reaching the success Mage Knight did in its peak, and as we know, Mage Knight didn’t last long even after a product refresh (which arguably did more harm than good). If Blizzard’s entry into this space is an honest one, we’ll still be surprised if the game ends up with more than two or three expansions on top of its limited unit pool at release.

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