The Inside Scoop on Gaming

This is a review of the Army Pack, Knights of Falladir, for the Diskwars game. In checking the reviews for Diskwars it shows that it has been some time since the last review. Due to that there will be an overview before the rest of the review is below the overview. Diskwars is a collectible army game. Fantasy Flight Games pioneered the concept of a miniature game without miniatures. It is more of a cross between board games and miniatures. Diskwars is an awesome concept that led the way for several other ideas. Those include other Diskwars based games such as Range Wars and the Legend of the Five Rings Diskwars game. Starting off the review in detail now. In each army pack (it really is a box) you get a 17’ by 22’ sheet of paper which contains all the rules. Also there are 5 army flats, these are the cardboard sheets that contain the un-punched out counters, and 3 extra random flats of more disks. These extra flats may or may not contain disks that go with your army. The rules are laid out well, there are diagrams of important rules conventions suck as diagrams of the disks, starting positions, movement, combat illustrations and illustrations of magic and missile fire. Each disk has all the statistics for it printed right on them. This keeps from having to look them up unlike a few of the miniatures games and similar games I have seen in the past. Combat is pretty simple. Each player, on their turn, moves their disk to touch another disk. Movement consists of flipping the disk, which is a lot like a pog, end over end the number of times equal to it’s movement value. That way measuring for distance to move is eliminated. The one that is on top is the attacker. Compare Attack values to defense values of the lower disk. Whichever value is higher is the winner of the combat The winner scores a single hit. Almost all disks can only take a single hit, some larger ones like Dragons and special unique characters can take more. So combat boils down to maneuvering until you can attack with more strength than the defender can muster with. There is a bit more to it than just that though. Friendly disks touching each other add to the defense, the same as attacking disks touching can add to the Attack score. Magic can cause hits as well as missile fire, which could eliminate a disk, before attacking or defending. So a good sense of tactics really is useful in this game vice simply moving around and trying to attack. If you are too weak when you attack you will lose. Diskwars is a good game, where at times, a strong defense will carry the day. There are three basic alignments to consider. Good, Evil and Neutral. The main difference is there are restrictions to your army composition based on that choice. Good units cannot be with Evil units with Neutral ones able to join either side. The only other consideration is the point value of the army to be fought with. Players select a points value, 200 to 300 points are average, chose disks and spell disks to meet that value and battle with each other. Unlike many miniatures games more than two players works well with turns taken in rotation. This allows for more flexibility than other systems. This concludes the high level overview of the Diskwars system. There is more to it, rules governing how many disks can be activated, specifics on how the spells work as well as missile fire.

Good Points on Diskwars: No painting is required. Which is what prompted me to buy my first army pack, The Uthuk Yllan , to check it out. Nice artwork. The art on each disk is better than much of the artwork in game books now a day. Price. For 20 dollars you can get 2 full Army Packs, or an Army pack and 2 booster packs enabling you to play either against another or to field a nice size army. For half the cost of other systems rulebooks you can field 2 or more decent armies. This is a bargain in this day and age.

Bad Points: Simple combat system. If you have a single unit that is tougher than your opponenets than you could in theory win by not being able to be defeated. Which is where magic and missile fire would come in handy in overcoming those tougher beasts. It is really pretty simple. If you are looking for depth, detail, accurate combat than stay away from Diskwars. Lack of continued support. While Fantasy Flight Games still has this product it is difficult to find them in stores anymore. Which is a real shame as they are a great alternative to traditional miniature games.

The army pack in detail The Knights of Falladir are considered to be of the Good alignment Along with the Acolytes and Elves are the Knights are the main force for Good in the Diskwars setting. This Army’s main disks are heavy on the infantry. There are 4 regular disks of Men at Arms with decent, read average, stats. There are 4 disks of Royal Bowmen who are also decent in stats. None of those are the best, none are the worst in the game. That takes up the first two flats of units. On the third flat are two of the larger unit disks. One is a disk of Heavy Horse Cavalry. This is a hard hitting, (twice the attack value of the Men-at-Arms) and pretty fast unit. The last unit disk is named Pikemen. They have an atrocious attack value. Their defense value is twice the value of the Heavy Horse Cavalry or the Men-at-Arms. This makes for a disk that has one use only. To be the centerpiece of the line and not move anywhere. The problem with this army is there is not a lot of versatility. OF course in the army packs there is a limited number of troops that are available. The starting flats are the same, which I like, for all the same boxes. This army has only one fast unit, no integral spellcasters, and eight spells on the standard flats also, meaning unless you get an allied spellcaster in the other flats you have no magic abilities, in the starter army forces. This makes for a rather slow and rigid army. No speed, the feel is a wait and let the enemy come to you which can be disastrous in Diskwars. As combat is a comparison of Attack vs. Defense all that is needed is to marshal forces and take out the main disk, the Pikemen, and the army has lost the backbone it seems to have been designed with. If you went and got a second Army of Falladir Pack then the two units of Pikemen would be a truly formidable centerpiece, the then 8 Men-at-Arms and 8 Royal Bowmen to support them should give most other armies pause to consider their moves and attacks. A single pack though does not cut it in this case for me. Counting up the total points, there is only 50 points of base units available in the standard flats. In the case of the box I got to review there was a good amount of support on the other flats. A total of 50 more points of characters and with the spells then available (9 points worth) making for a maximum fieldable army of 109 points from a single box.

Good Points: 6 of the 13 disks on the extra flats were Good so they could be recruited into the Army of Falladir, several great support characters, 1 spell caster and another Knight to round out the army. Bad Points: Only 1 of the 6 other disks that could be recruited was a spellcaster and only Level 1 so that only 3 of the 8 spells are useable by that character.

Overall Diskwars is awesome. Love the art, love the game-play, love the fact I do not have to paint minis. The Army of Falladir has less appeal to me, mostly because I run with the Evil Factions not the Good Factions in this setting. For someone starting out this would be an acceptable army, slow, not a lot of surprises with a bit of backbone being available. For more information about Diskwars visit the page on Fantasy Flight Games for it.

Knights of Falladir
Knights of Falladir Capsule Review by Tad Kelson on 19/04/02 Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 3 (Average) Knights of Falladir is another in the Army Packs for Diskwars. While not my favorite army it could be developed into a strong defensive force with extra disks. As always great value for the cost. Product: Knights of Falladir Author: Fantasy Flight Games Category: Diskwars Company/Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games Line: Diskwars Cost: 9.95 Page count: n/a Year published: 1999 ISBN: 1887911-76-6 SKU: DW03 Comp copy?: yes Capsule Review by Tad Kelson on 19/04/02 Genre tags: Fantasy Diceless Other	This is a review of the Army Pack, Knights of Falladir, for the Diskwars game. In checking the reviews for Diskwars it shows that it has been some time since the last review. Due to that there will be an overview before the rest of the review is below the overview. Diskwars is a collectible army game. Fantasy Flight Games pioneered the concept of a miniature game without miniatures. It is more of a cross between board games and miniatures. Diskwars is an awesome concept that led the way for several other ideas. Those include other Diskwars based games such as Range Wars and the Legend of the Five Rings Diskwars game. Starting off the review in detail now. In each army pack (it really is a box) you get a 17’ by 22’ sheet of paper which contains all the rules. Also there are 5 army flats, these are the cardboard sheets that contain the un-punched out counters, and 3 extra random flats of more disks. These extra flats may or may not contain disks that go with your army. The rules are laid out well, there are diagrams of important rules conventions suck as diagrams of the disks, starting positions, movement, combat illustrations and illustrations of magic and missile fire. Each disk has all the statistics for it printed right on them. This keeps from having to look them up unlike a few of the miniatures games and similar games I have seen in the past. Combat is pretty simple. Each player, on their turn, moves their disk to touch another disk. Movement consists of flipping the disk, which is a lot like a pog, end over end the number of times equal to it’s movement value. That way measuring for distance to move is eliminated. The one that is on top is the attacker. Compare Attack values to defense values of the lower disk. Whichever value is higher is the winner of the combat The winner scores a single hit. Almost all disks can only take a single hit, some larger ones like Dragons and special unique characters can take more. So combat boils down to maneuvering until you can attack with more strength than the defender can muster with. There is a bit more to it than just that though. Friendly disks touching each other add to the defense, the same as attacking disks touching can add to the Attack score. Magic can cause hits as well as missile fire, which could eliminate a disk, before attacking or defending. So a good sense of tactics really is useful in this game vice simply moving around and trying to attack. If you are too weak when you attack you will lose. Diskwars is a good game, where at times, a strong defense will carry the day. There are three basic alignments to consider. Good, Evil and Neutral. The main difference is there are restrictions to your army composition based on that choice. Good units cannot be with Evil units with Neutral ones able to join either side. The only other consideration is the point value of the army to be fought with. Players select a points value, 200 to 300 points are average, chose disks and spell disks to meet that value and battle with each other. Unlike many miniatures games more than two players works well with turns taken in rotation. This allows for more flexibility than other systems. This concludes the high level overview of the Diskwars system. There is more to it, rules governing how many disks can be activated, specifics on how the spells work as well as missile fire. Good Points on Diskwars: No painting is required. Which is what prompted me to buy my first army pack, The Uthuk Yllan , to check it out. Nice artwork. The art on each disk is better than much of the artwork in game books now a day. Price. For 20 dollars you can get 2 full Army Packs, or an Army pack and 2 booster packs enabling you to play either against another or to field a nice size army. For half the cost of other systems rulebooks you can field 2 or more decent armies. This is a bargain in this day and age. Bad Points: Simple combat system. If you have a single unit that is tougher than your opponenets than you could in theory win by not being able to be defeated. Which is where magic and missile fire would come in handy in overcoming those tougher beasts. It is really pretty simple. If you are looking for depth, detail, accurate combat than stay away from Diskwars. Lack of continued support. While Fantasy Flight Games still has this product it is difficult to find them in stores anymore. Which is a real shame as they are a great alternative to traditional miniature games. The army pack in detail The Knights of Falladir are considered to be of the Good alignment Along with the Acolytes and Elves are the Knights are the main force for Good in the Diskwars setting. This Army’s main disks are heavy on the infantry. There are 4 regular disks of Men at Arms with decent, read average, stats. There are 4 disks of Royal Bowmen who are also decent in stats. None of those are the best, none are the worst in the game. That takes up the first two flats of units. On the third flat are two of the larger unit disks. One is a disk of Heavy Horse Cavalry. This is a hard hitting, (twice the attack value of the Men-at-Arms) and pretty fast unit. The last unit disk is named Pikemen. They have an atrocious attack value. Their defense value is twice the value of the Heavy Horse Cavalry or the Men-at-Arms. This makes for a disk that has one use only. To be the centerpiece of the line and not move anywhere. The problem with this army is there is not a lot of versatility. OF course in the army packs there is a limited number of troops that are available. The starting flats are the same, which I like, for all the same boxes. This army has only one fast unit, no integral spellcasters, and eight spells on the standard flats also, meaning unless you get an allied spellcaster in the other flats you have no magic abilities, in the starter army forces. This makes for a rather slow and rigid army. No speed, the feel is a wait and let the enemy come to you which can be disastrous in Diskwars. As combat is a comparison of Attack vs. Defense all that is needed is to marshal forces and take out the main disk, the Pikemen, and the army has lost the backbone it seems to have been designed with. If you went and got a second Army of Falladir Pack then the two units of Pikemen would be a truly formidable centerpiece, the then 8 Men-at-Arms and 8 Royal Bowmen to support them should give most other armies pause to consider their moves and attacks. A single pack though does not cut it in this case for me. Counting up the total points, there is only 50 points of base units available in the standard flats. In the case of the box I got to review there was a good amount of support on the other flats. A total of 50 more points of characters and with the spells then available (9 points worth) making for a maximum fieldable army of 109 points from a single box. Good Points: 6 of the 13 disks on the extra flats were Good so they could be recruited into the Army of Falladir, several great support characters, 1 spell caster and another Knight to round out the army. Bad Points: Only 1 of the 6 other disks that could be recruited was a spellcaster and only Level 1 so that only 3 of the 8 spells are useable by that character. Overall Diskwars is awesome. Love the art, love the game-play, love the fact I do not have to paint minis. The Army of Falladir has less appeal to me, mostly because I run with the Evil Factions not the Good Factions in this setting. For someone starting out this would be an acceptable army, slow, not a lot of surprises with a bit of backbone being available. For more information about Diskwars visit the page on Fantasy Flight Games for it.