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Did anyone here play the World of Warcraft miniatures game? 

Dungeon Command is very similar.  Cards were used to customize your miniatures and or warband.  Differences, WoW did use dice to resolve combat.  Also, WoW suffered from a poor combat system no where near as good as DDM.  WoW also had a lack of map options.  Furthermore, I did not like that figures from your warband could come back "to life" and re-enter the battle after being killed.  WoW did offer some very nice competitive warband combinations and you did not have to "get" every figure and or card and or in multiples to be competitive.  And it seemed like by the time the second set launched there was little support for the game.  I tried and played many games of WoW, but in the end I never really lliked the game. 

For Dungeon Command I do see a better game.  There seems to be more opportunity for growth and it seems to be a better designed combat system.  Plus the miniatures are better, and there are no "rotating" bases to keep track of creature stats.  I play tested Dungeon Command many times and I kinda liked it.  My problem is that I still like the previous game better despite its demise. 

One thing I would like to caution here, there are only TWO sets for Dungeon Command.  There is only a very small pool to build competitive warbands with.  So it makes sense to me that 1 or 2 figures and or 1 or 2 cards will combine to make the most competitve warabnds.  In my opinion there will be many more competitive warband options with the release of 3 more sets over the next 7 months (bringing the total to 5 sets for Dungeon Command):

1) Sting of Lolth [Jul '12]
2) Heart of Cormyr [Jul '12]
3) Tyranny of Goblins [Aug '12]
4) Curse of Undeath [Nov '12]
5) Blood of Gruumsh [Feb '13]

This IMO would then be a large enough pool to have really cometitive warbands with multiple creature and card options. 

I have not purchased either set yet, but I have played the released game a number of times.  I like the deckbuilding (on of the things I did like about WoW), but there is room for improvement to make it more competitive (hopefilly with the additional sets).  And if the deckbuilding is improved it could lead to a very fun and competitive game.  I also like the battlefild map for Dungeon Command as it has IMO almost unlimited options and huge potential for growth.  On the other hand I'm not sure I like the Sequence of Play, in particular moving all of your creatures.  Dungeon Command so far for me does not have the flow nor the strategy challenges of DDM.  But there is room to improve the game and time will tell if the game can catch on as DDM did.  
 
If Dungeon Command does catch on, there are new miniatures produced, and WotC can make it a competitive game (with future sets) with support and tournaments, then I may join in and break down and by the sets.  Until then, I will keep my eyes on the Dungeon Command scene to see how well it grows.  I am very interested in seeing where this goes over the enxt year. 

Cheers. 

Sirohk

     

Aug 3, 2012 -- 6:28PM, sirohk wrote:

Did anyone here play the World of Warcraft miniatures game?

Second place in a Realms, two DMF top 8s, invites to National Championship and Worlds, four Spectral Tigers won total.

Yeah, I'm familiar with it. 

Also, WoW suffered from a poor combat system no where near as good as DDM.

Dice pool systems are inherently better than a Hit/Miss on D20. More dice rolls causes a regression to the mean over the length of the game (reduces luck) while still allowing for the occasional spike in variance. Also, the time system (where different actions cost different amount of time before your next activation) was genius. DDM in contrast was a game of maxing out the number of figs in your band to make sure you have, at worst, as many activations as your opponent, and hopefully more, so you could end up playing actions last on the turn.

WoW also had a lack of map options.

The deluxe starters came with a customizable map allowing infinite maps. Each DMF and Realms also would take place on a different map which would be distributed to players to keep (and sell, if you were collecting many like yours truly). That's an obvious false statement.

Furthermore, I did not like that figures from your warband could come back "to life" and re-enter the battle after being killed.

That's basically what happens in Dungeon Command, with a bit less of a 'this is a simulation of a MMO Arena game where the players respawn' justification to it. Minis games where you just lose your figs wholesale basically revolve around being the first to kill your opponent's mini so that they're in a downward spiral where they can't come back into the game because they have less activations on the board. All the best minis games I've played have a comeback mechanism for players who lose a fig: Dreamblade gave you a spike of spawning points on the next turn, WoW lets you respawn after a short time penalty, DC frees up your Leadership so you can respawn another creature card.

And it seemed like by the time the second set launched there was little support for the game.

Their supplier basically increased their price on them to a point releasing sets for the game was unsustainable so it was on limbo where they didn't release any new set (and thus had ZERO revenue from that game) and yet they provided an extra year worth of DMF tournaments for it, with awesome prizes (i.e. the aforementioned Spectral Tigers, as well as PS3s and Apple products). Contrast to how WotC handled Dreamblade, where they killed the Organized Play right after releasing Night Fusion so that we would still buy the figs before we were told there would be no OP. Classy. And here I'm talking just your basic Edge tourneys (FNM for Dreamblade, basically) where the prizes we could expect on the first few weeks were... extra repaints from previous months they were getting rid. I have friends who basically boycotted Magic:TG and are now not buying into Dungeon Command because they never want to buy a WotC product again based on that...