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Krosmaster Arena Is Final Fantasy Tactics On The Tabletop And Your PC
As a fan of tabletop games, I'm always on the lookout for something new and different. I've got an affinity for miniatures games – but my wallet, common sense, and unwillingness to paint have typically kept me away. I happened to wander into Japanime Games' large room at PAX and found something that may be the answer.
Krosmaster is played on a gridded board with fantastic-looking anime-style miniatures. The characters are diverse and fantastical, including an adorable grim reaper, the queen of tofu, and the king of overly aggressive sheep (if you're familiar with MMO strategy games Dofus or Wakfu, you'll see familiar faces). The board is set up with cardboard models of bushes, trees, and boxes, which create a great sense of dimension and offer modular configurations.
I played a very simple game against someone with two characters on each side, and the experience played out like a tabletop version of a tactics game. Each miniature comes with a card that details movement speed, attacks, special abilities, and basic traits like whether a character can absorb a hit due to armor.
The hook here is that each miniature comes with a code for an online version of the same character. Krosmaster Arena is also available on PC, with the same competitive play.
The game moves quickly, and it scales for different skill levels. We just played with simple abilities, but there are also gold coins to collect and items to purchase during battle. It can be dialed back for playing with kids (who will likely love the miniatures) and ramped up for adults that want the more complex experience.
You can pick up Krosmaster Arena at your friendly local game store and check out the online version on the official website.
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