Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Magic in a Box
PAX Unplugged was a great time this year as I got to play many upcoming games and chat with plenty of developers. But there was one game I couldn’t get off my mind. One game that I kept looking at photos of. One game that drove me to numerous Google searches as I sat at a chair munching on a dry turkey sub. One game that I immediately ripped the shrink wrap off of when I got home from the convention.
At its core, Malediction is a skirmish wargame for anywhere from two to four players on a 2.5-foot-ish square battlefield (size may vary), either as a duel or a tag team battle. Each player chooses a Seeker (aka hero unit) and a deck full of creatures to summon and spells to cast. The goal is to gain enough Mastery (victory points) to win the game. Pretty simple. And that’s the absolute magic of Malediction. The gameplay is straightforward and intuitive. Things work how you think they should. If you’ve never played Magic: The Gathering, these cards are still easy to read and understand everything they do. Measuring your unit’s movement and attacks is simple, even if you’ve never played a miniatures game. Unlike those two categories of games, however, Malediction feels like a total and complete experience in a game box. The business model for the game doesn’t have you ripping countless packs of randomized cards trying to chase certain rare cards to make your deck stronger. It doesn’t have you buying box after box of the same little plastic models to create your ideal army. You can buy a starter box for Malediction, and within 20 minutes, you’ll know the basics of the rules and have your deck and army assembled, ready for combat.
Is this… is this actual magic?
Heart of the Cards
The rulebook for Malediction states that cards are the lifeblood of the game, and it is dead accurate. The cards represent everything you can put on the battlefield, from shield mages and archers to calling down magic missiles from the sky to legendary and powerful relics that can be equipped to your units, all brought to life with stunning artwork. The rulebook outlines how the game is played, but the cards also tell you everything you need to know: name, cost, card type, stats, and any rules text are all readily available at a glance.
Most cards are units, spells, or attachments and cost different amounts of “echo” (think mana) to summon. Units are summoned onto the battlefield, and when defeated, your opponent gains Mastery equal to its cost. Attachments are cards that can be equipped to a unit to modify its stats or capabilities. Spells are one-time use cards that somehow affect the battlefield, like letting you counterattack your opponent or blast them from afar.
Though there are suggested starter decks in each box, there are also extra “Faction Packs” to let you customize your team. The only rules for deckbuilding are to include a Seeker to lead your team and a deck of at least 30 cards, up to 50 cards. As with most deckbuilders, smaller decks are more consistent, so it’s suggested that you keep it at 30, but it’s your team! Go crazy if you want and build your dream deck. Each box also includes a hybrid Seeker affiliated with multiple factions so that you can mix and match the various core boxes.
Many Many Minis
All these units you’re summoning onto the battlefield need a way to be physically represented on the board itself. This is the part where many games are famous for costing hundreds or thousands of dollars to play. Warhammer has a reputation for being a money sink, and even more cost-friendly skirmish games like Marvel: Crisis Protocol or Star Wars: Legion can add up over time if you want to stay current and competitive. The terrain is also an essential factor in Malediction, as it makes battlefields unique, and each terrain piece has special rules about how you can interact with it. This might seem overwhelming or expensive, but Malediction gets around it in a pretty unique way.
The box is filled with cardboard standees! Instead of heavy, expensive plastic, the box has a bunch of punch-out cardboard tokens and color-coded standees of various sizes. This helps lower the cost of producing the game, allowing players to jump in at an affordable up-front cost. However, each box includes a QR code to scan to be taken to an online portal with 3D printable STL files of each unit and terrain piece in the game. If you have access to a 3D printer, you can choose to print the models that interest you after you’ve put in some reps with the different units. The team is also working on a third-party vendor that can print models on demand and ship them to you through a web platform, though it’s unclear when that partnership will launch.
The team behind Malediction is Loot Studios. Founded in 2020, they’ve been focused on making super detailed, high-quality 3D printable models for use in other tabletop games. I was already familiar with their work as I’ve used a few of their models in my Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. Starting a few years ago, they decided they wanted to make models for their own game, and that’s when Malediction was born. I’ve seen these models up close and fully painted, and trust me, they are breathtaking. I’ve been wanting to upgrade my 3D printing setup at home for a long time, and Malediction is the thing that finally has me pulling the trigger.
Strategy Over Luck
One of the key design elements that Loot Studios wanted to emphasize was that strategy takes priority over luck, and that is reflected in its gameplay. Players take alternating turns activating units. When activated, a unit has two action points to spend on its turn. Basic actions like moving and attacking cost one action point. Shifting (moving without triggering retaliation from a nearby opponent) and charging (moving twice to engage an enemy it has line of sight on) cost both your action points for the round. To move, you simply check your unit’s speed value to determine how many inches it can move with a single action. To attack, you roll a d20 and add the unit’s accuracy value. You hit if the result equals or exceeds the target’s defensive value. Otherwise, you graze them. Each unit has a power value for hits and grazes—hits are always more damaging, but even a graze will inflict some damage on the enemy. Even when you critically fail by rolling a 1, you’ll still ping them for one damage, and if you are critically hit by rolling a 20, you get to add your two values together to do significant damage! Loot Studios made this conscious choice to ensure no turns feel like complete duds due to bad dice RNG. You’ll always do something useful on your turn.
All this attacking and defending is essential because the real goal is to secure relics. The battlefield contains multiple “husks” at the start that can be secured by your units to take powerful, game-altering relics from the relic deck. Importantly, holding a relic also earns you Mastery, which is how you win the game. If a unit holding a relic is defeated, a new husk is placed at its place of death, ready for a new relic to be claimed by whoever can secure it. Kill the enemy or push/pull them away from the objective, whatever it takes! Husks are one of my favorite gameplay mechanics in Malediction. If I don’t want to fight into your units on your side of the battlefield, I can grab a relic and run to a more favorable position, forcing you to chase me down. If my unit dies, then the husk spawn shifts the battlefield layout. This ever-changing map means each game of Malediction feels unique and dynamic, with multiple opportunities to flex your strategic decision-making.
Sink Your Teeth In
At launch, Malediction boasts four unique factions to master. The Primal Blood thrives on the attack, allowing fast, aggressive playstyles. Order of the Shattered Throne are defensive aces, boasting resilient units and protection spells. Conclave of the Spheres are the mages, offering ranged spells and tricky control options. Finally, the Legion of the Fallen are the resident necromancer-adjacent faction, inflicting curses and hexes on enemies and raising corpses to do battle. You don’t need all four boxes to play the game – one box has enough materials for a single player – but mixing and matching the different factions is one of the joys of exploring everything Malediction offers.
The team at Loot Studios already has further releases in mind, with content planned annually for those who want to expand their collection with new Seekers, units, spells, and more. I was enchanted by everything they had on display at PAX Unplugged and thus set my expectations astronomically high for this game. It looks capable of taking over the world. When I finally sat down to play it, I feared my expectations were too high, and yet I was still blown away by how frickin’ cool everything was. There’s no reason a game that borrows from Warhammer and Magic: the Gathering should flow so smoothly, but it does! It blew me away, and I’m already evangelizing the game to all my friends who will listen. Sure enough, every person I get to play walks away with a similar reaction.
What’s not to like about Malediction? It’s affordable and has a non-predatory monetization strategy, making it available to more people. The gameplay mechanics are simple and easy to understand, making it accessible to those who don’t want a complex game while offering enough strategic depth to delight even the crunchiest gamers (like me). It’s the world’s first 3D-printable miniatures card game. All that alone would be enough to get people talking, but I haven’t even mentioned the effort they’ve put into building out the lore and mythos of its universe with the help of fantasy author Tracy Hickman of Dragonlance fame. And if that’s not enough to whet your appetite, they even offer a free print-and-play demo so you can try out the basic mechanics and get a feel for how the game plays.
Malediction is very good. It may even be revolutionary. And I hope it takes over the world.
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