Mythic Commander

A friend recently posted on FB about a new set of rules from Modiphius Games which looked very tempting... so much so that I immediately ordered a set.  Unusual for me as I'm usually way behind the curve on new things.

Mythic Commander is a new set of grid based fantasy combat rules... very much a sandbox style of rules that can be tailored to all sorts of settings. 

The game comes in a slim (44 pages) rulebook with all the cards, tokens and counters you'll need, including  top down counters for units including infantry, cavalry, chariots, siege weapons, commanders and (because this is a fantasy game) wizards and monsters.  It also includes a double sided playmat.   When I bought the game I was also sent the pdfs for all the components so it would be easy to replace anything or add to your armies.

The game owes a lot to Modiphius' Airfix Battles which is no bad thing.  Players hold a hand of cards to boost tactics attacks, movement  etc as well as spells if you have fielded Magicians.  There are several schools of magic to choose from so you can suit the theme of your army (eg fire, nature,  death, etc)

The grid based movement and combat is simple but very effective and both of us quickly picked up the game without too many mistakes.  

What I really liked was the huge range of perks, special abilities, weapons etc that you can vary the basic units with. As this was our first game we kept it very vanilla, and it would be easy to overload  a game with too many optional extras.  But, it does mean that with a little work you can field armies that reflect your favourite fantasy setting... it would be very easy to adapt the starting troops to a Lord of the Rings theme for example.  And of course, if you drop the magical elements then historical armies would work really well.  The game themes its armies into 7 cultures eg Skillful, Barbaric, etc.   The versions we fielded felt very like Romans vs Britons with some magic thrown in.

My only criticism would be that some of the components such as the card decks are pretty flimsy.  On the plus side though there are a good assortment of counters to mark damage and to remind you who needs to take a morale test each turn.

Definitely recommended... it has a lot of potential as a toolbox and would make a great travel game: everything fits into a plastic wallet and is very portable