The Roots of Magic is a wizard duel fantasy skirmish miniature game, by Grand Arcanum Games. Now that all their eight factions have their main wizard available, they have decided to bring the game to Kickstarter to add a second type of model to every faction: the acolytes.
The game intrigues me a lot. Their Quick play, one on one duel could look pretty static for a skirmish game, but the core of the game is based on movement and positioning, as the energy the wizard gets every turn depends on their placement on the board relative to power nexus. Multiple of the wizard abilities and attacks have a positional effect too, moving or teleporting himself or an opponent. Finally, the scenarios also enforce that the game doesn’t become a long range spell slinging grind, as you have to run after and interact with different objectives. Sadly, I wasn’t able to try the game out before publishing this, but it shouldn’t wait long.
I couldn’t try the game, but I did see the models! I got my hands on two of the already published wizards, Hephescus Zantt and Amara – the unfettered. They have a less heroic scale than most of the 28-32mm stuff out there, more of a true scale, slimmer look. They are cast in resin, and come with standard round lipped bases. The casting details are amazing! Probably the best I’ve seen in a long while: sharp lines, no flash, almost inexistent mould lines. Mine are not painted yet, but I’ve included some of the studio paintjobs next to the pictures of my bare resin to give you an idea of their “paintability”.
Hephescus Zantt of House Myrke is a single piece model, but doesn’t lack details or personality because of it. I really want to paint him soon. The mood the model brings just call for him to get some colours on, fast.
Amara of House Travium came in three pieces, and will require a bit more work to assemble. The chain probably bent or contracted a bit after casting and will need a hot bath to reposition as it’s supposed to go. I see her also as being a bit trickier to paint, with overlapping segments.
The rules are available for free on their website, and the cards for the original eight wizards are also found there.
On a painting basis and miniature quality alone, I can heartily recommend this project. That’s even before going into the interesting gameplay. The basic pledges are for the new acolytes, but you can up them to add the original wizards, or go for some of the bigger, all-inclusive pledges. It’s a surprisingly cheap game and kickstarter to get into, as you only really need a pair of models to get you started.
You can check them out on kickstarter now and have until December 14th to pledge and be part of it:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/739027318/the-roots-of-magic-miniatures-game-students-of-sor