Mutant Chronicles: Collectible Miniatures Game

Stop me if you have heard this before. In the distant future, governments have fallen into indolent decay, and huge corporations, called ... wait for it ... Megacorporations (catchy, no?), rule not only Earth but space as well. They push every boundary known to man in search of profits, and when they reach Pluto, the boundaries push back.

It is there that they unlock an ancient evil. An evil that manifests itself as the Apostle Algeroth. An evil that advances first into man's outer outposts and then, without remorse, onto kitchen gaming tables across planet Earth. Such is the story of the Mutant Chronicles: Collectible Miniatures Game.

Mutant Chronicles follows many standard miniatures conventions: gamers pick their sides, randomly place victory locations and then begin the fight. The starter set that I reviewed comes with everything you need to fight epic battles of man against demon. Specifically, six prepainted 54mm miniatures, a large game map (printed on both sides), dice and cards. Nothing fancy.

What is fancy about Mutant Chronicles is the combat system. During combat, the player rolls a number and color of dice preordained for each miniature. The dice tell not only how many hits were garnered but also at what range. Also different is the method of activation. Players choose a number of gold, silver and bronze tokens. Rules limit how many tokens of each you may choose, and it's inversely proportional to the quality of your troops. In other words, the more high-quality troops you have, the fewer high-quality orders tokens you receive. A gold order token allows the ordered miniature to take three actions—for example, move, fire and a special action. Silvers allow two and bronze only one. And finally, throw in similarly colored Command Cards that can modify the game rules or bestow unique bonuses, and you have a pretty darn fancy activation and combat system.

Unique, interesting game

Combat systems are the heart of any miniatures game, and Mutant Chronicles has a darn good one. The dice do away with the need for charts and complex character cards. Just reference your miniature's card. If it displays two light-green dice (light ranged attack), you roll them and read the highest number and the amount of hit icons. If the highest number equals or exceeds to range to your target, you inflict the number of hit icons (modified for terrain and special effects) that are displayed on the dice. No fuss, minimal muss.

The requirement to balance the quality of your Command Cards, order tokens and miniatures makes for interesting choices before the game, without the tedium of adding together tens of numbers and matching armies. Each gamer, in skirmish mode, must have equal numbers of each color. For example, if you are playing a skirmish game with three models you may have a total of three each bronze, silver and gold divided among your models, cords, and tokens. If you want three gold models (in other words, high-end characters), fine, but you'll then need to cut back on the quality of your tokens and cards.

It's a good system and Mutant Chronicles is a fun game. Fantasy Flight continues to release new factions and booster packs as the game's following grows, and at $19.95 a pack the price is reasonable. Good game plus reasonable price equals no-brainer. Go get one.

I continue to be amazed at the creativity of today's board and miniatures designers. Mutant Chronicles has some meaty strategies in a readily digestible format.

-—Mark