Both Archon Studio’s website and the companion startcraft-tmg.com were down for a number of hours. Let’s see what all the fuss is about!
Yesterday Preorders went live for StarCraft: The Miniatures Game and both the developer’s website and a companion site were down for several hours as I sweatilly tried to get my order in gamers flooded the site. StarCraft, a little known Real Time Strategy game that I played in the high school computer lab with my buddies during lunch… wait, you played it too? World wide phenomenon, you say? Oh, that’s right. StarCraft is a widely popular RTS franchise that has sold an estimated 17.6 million copies across all games and expansions. It became an eSports staple over a decade ago, with roughly $38M USD in prizes awarded officially and, according to escharts.com, peak viewership of 176,413 for the WCS Global Finals in 2018.
StarCraft: TMG promises to build on this sterling reputation with high quality miniatures, fun and engaging gameplay, and faithful adherence to the source material. If yesterday’s reaction to the preorders are any indication, fans of the series are hungry for exactly this kind of treatment for the beloved franchise, and willing to pay top dollar. The “Founders Edition” two player starter set, containing Terran and Zerg starter armies is listed at $199 (marked down from $229), while the Protos starter set is $109 (marked down from $129). There are a load of individual units on preorder as well that are not included in the starter sets, as well as several army bundles for different factions, with the 3 faction All-In bundle listed at $669.
The game was demoed at Spiel Essen last year and will very likely have a big presence at Adepticon later this month. Our own Rowlf The Dog was able to play a beta version of the game last month. Check out his impressions here. Based on the “How to Play” video hosted on starcraft-tmg.com, Legion players will find a lot of familiarity with the game. There are unit cards, keyword called “tags” and attacks with surge dice. The game seemingly forgoes any resource harvesting or base building elements in favor of a combat focus, but there does appear to be a resource accrual mechanic that happens over time and can be used to pull in reinforcements.
Though we have no actual sales data yet, there appears to be huge interest for this newest entry on the tabletop scene. Are you excited for StarCraft: The Miniatures Game? Let us know what you think in the comments
