The 129 plastic miniatures in CMON’s upcoming Dune board game War for Arrakis may be “slightly smaller” than the publisher’s usual fare, according to the game’s creator Francesco Nepitello – but he says they’re drastically better than those of his earlier famous creation: legendary Lord of the Rings strategy board game War of the Ring, first released in 2004.
“There’s no comparison,” Nepitello tells Wargamer in an exclusive interview, exploring the development, gameplay, and materials of Dune: War for Arrakis.
“The figures of War of the Ring were awesome at the time when the game came out,” he says – but, he says, for a game with 200+ minis, it was “extremely cheap” – and so the quality simply doesn’t compare.
“In this case, CMON wins the comparison, because yeah, the figures are so much better,” he tells us.
Nepitello also hints to us there are Dune: War for Arrakis expansions on the way – if so, they’ll be adding to an already bountiful core collection of board game minis.
According to the Dune: War for Arrakis Kickstarter campaign (which has so far raised nearly $500k from backers), the game’s core box includes 129 unpainted miniatures: 15 named characters from Dune, alongside a variety of Harkonnen, Sardaukar, and Fremen military units and vehicles (plus sand worms, of course).
That’s already been supplemented by six more characters via stretch goals (Thufir Hawat, Iakin Nefud, Doctor Yueh, Count and Lady Fenring, Liet-Kynes, and Jamis), as well as 7 extra military unit variant models.
But Nepitello names one potential drawback of War of Arrakis for some fans of today’s big-box, miniature-heavy luxury board games: the minis are a bit smaller than usual.
“I know that some fans of CMON’s games might find that as a negative point, the figures are slightly smaller than the usual because we didn’t want the players to feel that the board was overcrowded.”
“Again, gameplay was our was our main reference.
“It was like: okay, but these things are going to look cooler if we make them bigger… but they don’t fit in the region!”
“So yeah, it’s going probably to be a bummer for some miniature fans because they’re slightly smaller – but if you look at the the images we’ve shared so far, they look super cool anyway.”
CMON Games first announced Dune: War for Arrakis on July 15, 2022, and launched its Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for the game on September 14. The campaign is scheduled to close at 6pm PT / 9pm ET on Thursday, September 22.
War of the Ring Second Edition was released in 2011 to some acclaim, and currently enjoys pride of place in our guide to the best board games for couples.
For our full, exclusive interview with Francesco Nepitello, and lots more coverage of Dune: War for Arrakis, alongside all the best board games, tabletop RPGs, trading card games, Warhammer 40k, and more, stick with Wargamer.
Source: Wargamer
