Okay. I can see what they're tryin gto do here, and I like some of it--but I'll have to be seriously convinced about some of the other stuff. It looks like we'll be getting some new factions, which is fine, and we'll be getting some subfactions--which, according to the description, is the new Mage Knight version of Heroclix Team Abilities. I think team abilities are wonderful, and the system of factions and subfactions has a ton of very exciting possibilities. To that I say huzzah.
The new dial window is slightly larger to accomodate the "ability nexus," which is essentially a fifth slot for a special ability. Given that Mage Knight already incorporates up to two abilities per stat, the nexus seems designed to let them use three powers for a single stat--which makes sense, given that the damage stat is already eaten up by the green starting marker. I doubt it will be used often, and it's pretty easy to read, so I doubt it will make an enormous impact. To that I say meh.
The new stats, I think, are way more confusing that they need to be. Instead of five (speed, attack, defense, damage, range) we get seven (speed, attack, defense, damage, range, ranged damage, and attack bonus), and on top of that we have all kinds of wacky crap like damage type and weapon proficiency. The dial is cluttered, and needlessly so in my opinion--does the game really need attack bonuses? Are damage types important enough to warrant the confusion they'll cause? Hasn't a single damage stat served us well this far? Adding in all of this new info makes the game harder to play without adding any new depth--just extraneous details that the old system handled more elegantly. To that I say boo.
I appreciate where they're going here--they've refined the clix system over the past several games, and they wanted to apply some of the new advancements to Mage Knight to make it work better. Team abilities and items seem like a good way of doing this, and the ability nexus will help counteract some flaws in the initial design of the special abilities. But some of the other changes seem tacked on for the sake of being different, and while they won't ruin the game I don't think they'll help it much either. I'm willin gto be convinced, though, so we'll see what happens in November when it comes out.
(I'd like to point out, though, that the addition of items will make our old plans for Mage Knight Diablo 2 much more feasible. I'll have to put some more thought into that...)
