When trying to understand how Mage Knight fits into the world of tabletop wargames, you will quickly discover that it is quite hard to compare Mage Knight with any other tabletop wargame you know. As a matter of fact, it all starts with the inovation that players don't go any buy their armies just as it suits them but instead they acquire their armies on a more or less random base. Just as in collectible cardgames, all figures are sold in Starters and Boosters, and until opening these the players will not know which figures are included. Thus, a new player needs to buy a few of these sets to get a decently sized army, and then he can start playing - eventually acquiring new figures for his army by swapping figures with other players. As a further innovation, none of the figures needs to be painted. All of them are readily painted to a good standard, and the quality of the plastic figures is satisfying and shows enough details: long hours of preparing an army for battle by painting it decently now are part of tabletop history. However, the most ingenious element about Mage Knight is that each figure has its attributes and characteristics printed in its base. Thus, the movement, battle, damage, shooting characteristics and special attributes of a figure are constantly visible during the battle. What is more, the figure's base can be rotated when it suffers a wound, revealing a figure's new (weaker) characteristics. When a Skull shows on such a rotation, the figure is killed and removed from play.

In comparision to other tabletop wargaming systems which I have tested, Mage Knight does not come with a highly sophisticated background story. Instead, players get a few bare background infos, whereas everything else is left to their imagination. What can be told about the background is that the world of Mage Knigh has long been dominated by three colleges of magic: The Elemental League, The Necropolis Sect, and the Atlantean Guild. However, the iron grip in which these three mighty colleges did hold the world made many inhabitants angry against the predomination of magic, and thus - when gunpowder was discovered - the human and dwarven slaves joined together and founded the Gunpowder Rebels. With the foundation of this opposing force, the balance of power was lost and war broke out amongst the factions. In their battles, the factions have been joined by others: Thus, the Immortal Elven Knights, the Orc Bandits, the Draconians and the twisted Mage Spawn also joined into the fray.

As known from other tabletop wargames, each of the races features a number of different units typical for the faction it represents. The Atlanteans, for example, are technicians of high reknown and thus they have a number of collossal machines which they can add to an army, whereas the Elemental League has a number of different elemental creatures to fill their ranks. The Immortal Elven Knights have more standard military units like men-at-arms and archers, and the Gunpowder Rebels have different units equipped with ranged weapons. Each unit has a point-value, and at the beginning of the game the players agree on a certain size for their army. Based on this size, the players start to add units to their army and put them into starting positions on the battlefield. However, a player is not limited in chosing units for his army by the different factions existing in the game. He is free to add forces from virtually every faction to his army, although more conservative players still will prefer to compose and army of just one or two factions. However, there exists a bonus for including several units of one faction: These units may stand together in a battle-formation, and these formations can act together whereas usually each unit has to act on its own.

Depending on the size of the armies, the players usually get about two to four action points which they may allocate on their units per turn. Basically, these points are used for moving units, and movement is simply made by measuring distances in inches with a ruler and re-positioning the figure at its new position. Only two rules need to be observed while moving: A figure may move only up to its maximum movement allowance and there must be a clear path between the points where movement starts and ends. When moving units, the big advantage of a formation of units of the same faction becomes visible. Units touching another unit's base form a formation, and such a formation may move together by just spending one action point. Important also is the positioning of a figure at the end of its movement, since it only has certain line of sight, and only enemies within sight can be fought by the unit. Once a player has spent all his action points and has marked all actioned units accordingly, play switches to the other player(s) who now spend his own action points. Once play returns to the first player, he may again allocate his full allowance of points, but if he actions a unit which already got an action last turn that unit will be exhausted and loses one life (i.e. one click on its base) for been driven forwards recklessly.

Fighting is possible by ranged battle or by hand-to-hand combat. The basic mechanism for the fighting is fairly easy, depending on a roll of two dice whether a unit is hit. The attacker has to action his unit in order to attack, and to the roll of 2 dice he adds the attack-characteristic of his unit. If the result is bigger or equal to the defense-characteristic of the attacked unit, the enemy is hit and loses as many lives as shown by the damage-characteristic of the attacker. This easy resolution of combat is modified in a number of ways by some special rules and special attributes of a unit. Thus, a roll of 2 is always a miss whereas a roll of 12 is always a hit, and a further bonus is given if the attacked attacks from a position not in the line of sight of the defender. Even more important are a unit's special attributes: magical attacks, mastery of weapons, armour, pole weapons, endurance, reganeration, bodyguard and berserk are just a few of the attributes a unit may possess, and each of these will have one meaning or another for gameplay: an armoured character is more tough to be wounded by ranged weapons, a weapon's master can cause additional wounds (if he rolls lucky), a bodyguard can assist a figure it touches in combat, or a character possessing endurance can always reduce damage a bit. In the end, the game will be won by the only player who has characters remaining on the battlefield, or if a player surrenders since he considers his position hopeless.

After giving Mage Knight several rounds of testing, I could not refuse the conclusion that Mage Knight is one of the most attractive tabletop wargaming systems I ever played. The rules are very easy and fast to learn, and a rulebook of 10 pages is all players need to read for enjoying the game at its full size. All special attributes of the units are printed on a small quick reference sheet, and they can be learned step by step during play. Rules for additional scenery like difficult ground, rivers and buildings are also included, completing the rules with everything every needed in tabletop wargaming.

As a matter of fact, Mage Knight is a really mature and well-balanced product which will bring great fun especially to players which are new to the concept of tabletop wargames. However, its attraction does not end here because advanced players also will feel the advantages of Mage Knight's esay playing concept once they got a taste of the rules. Players do not need to spend hours preparing and construction their armies, and the game alike is fast paced without too much interferences caused by measuring, rules-discussions or keeping record of a unit's chracteristics. Mage Knight definately has set a new standard!

Mage Knight is an expanding playing concept, and there already exist new kinds of figures on the market: Mounted Figures, Chariots and even Dragons are available, and I hope I will be able to test the impact of these new units on the game at some later point.