MINIATURES GAMES NEWS
December 3, 2005
White Wolf/ArtHaus Enters Miniatures Market
 Anaheim, CA - One of the most interesting new games at Gen Con So Cal last month represents a bit of a departure for the folks at White Wolf/ArtHaus. Noticing the success that WizKids created with its pioneering Constructible Strategy Games, White Wolf has taken a detour from its dark RPG properties to create a fantasy themed constructible car combat game.
Racer Knights of Falconus feels like a cross-between Harry Potter and Road Warrior. It's a battle/racing game set in a fantasy universe surrounding the Falconus Academy, where students and professors joust in an arena in a “quest for glory.”
Similar in concept to the Pirates of the Spanish Main and Rocketmen products, Racer Knights comes in collectible packs with plastic punch-out cards that contain the constructible parts of exotic vehicles. Taking more of a modeling approach, this game takes a very simple concept and makes it much more complex. Each miniature is made up of many more pieces including chassis, wheels, weapons and shields.
Background
The fantasy realm of Valoron is the place-setting for Racer Knights. It is a land of magic, chivalry and high-octane competition. At the Falconus Academy, students earn their motorized knighthood by building and piloting Racers. Students and teachers are chosen from the five species of Valoron: humans, mystical alfar, brutish ogres, devious serpid, and wily gremlins. Each species brings its own tactics and strengths to the arena. Students compete to be the best of the best and represent their species in jousts for pride and honor.
How It Works
In Racer Knights, each player controls a single Racer and faces multiple jousting opponents. A joust is part race and part battle: Players gain glory by crossing various waypoints on the way to the finish line, and by destroying their opponents with a variety of amazing weapons. The player with the most Glory at the end of the joust wins. Racers built for speed and agility are matched against heavy-hitters designed for combat.
Oscar Garza is the Organized Play Coordinator for White Wolf. He was at the convention giving demonstrations of the game. He says that the biggest difference between Racer Knights of Falconus and its competitors is the interchangeability of car parts.
“The game is totally customizable as well as collectible. You can choose to take an engine from one pack and put it in a car from another pack. The combinations that we worked out were in the tens of millions because of all the different engines and chassis and drivers and shields and shield positions that you can have. There's just a lot of ways you can build a car and so the tournament experience should be fun because you'll be see a lot of different kinds of strategies.”
This interchangeability even reaches across the five species in the game, so that an ogre Knight can pilot a Racer built on a human chassis, but with a gremlin engine, serpid tires, and an alfar weapon. This allows players to tweak their Racers to perfectly suit their play styles.
Racer Knights of Falconus pits two or more players against each other in a game that melds demolition derby with knightly jousts. The game is sold in individual foil packs that contain everything necessary for one player to get into the game. The base set of Racer Knights includes over 100 different Racer components and over 20 different Knights. The best news is that White Wolf has priced the booster packs at one dollar below ($2.99) the going price ($3.99) for a constructible, collectible miniatures game. If you buy your Racer Knights boosters at BigBox Games you'll pay even less. Good driving…and good hunting!
Copyright 2005 BigBox Games. All Rights Reserved.
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