Small World of Warcraft: How to play the new WoW board game

At BlizzCon 2019, we first saw hints of a new board game variant of World of Warcraft that would give us "gameplay full of orcs, elves, and more" in spring 2020. In the end, however, we had to wait until September 30 for Small World of Warcraft to finally appear in Germany. In the meantime, we have joined the battle for the most victory points with the peoples of Azeroth and tell you whether the spinoff of Small World from 2009 is a licensed pickle or a worthy board game conversion.

WoW meets board game classic

Small World, developed by Philippe Keyaerts, will be familiar to many fans of strategic board games. In recent years, numerous expansions and variants have been released based on the original's 2009 rulebook, and there's even a digital variant for Linux, macOS, Windows (on Steam, for example), Android, and iPad. And yes, Small World of Warcraft also offers much that is familiar to connoisseurs of the original version - in terms of game mechanics. However, this is not a 1-to-1 copy with new races. The creator has made some changes to the mechanics and the rulebook in detail. Great: The new features are highlighted in the rulebook, so that Small World connoisseurs can fully concentrate on the differences while reading.
The preparations for a game of Small World of Warcraft have been made. May the better commander win! Source: buffed But even Small World newcomers should be able to quickly prepare for the game and internalize the most important steps of each game. The board game is not super complex. Instead, the gameplay offers enough variance to still feel fresh even in the umpteenth round. In addition, there are always exciting decisions to be made, which can decide about victory or defeat. But one after the other ...

Battle for Azeroth and victory points

In Small World of Azeroth, the goal is to occupy as many regions in Azeroth as possible with your own races and thus secure the most victory points in the up to ten game rounds. The world map does not correspond to the Kalimdor or Eastern Kingdoms continents that we know from WoW. Instead, the world is made up of several land masses of different sizes, with the number of players determining which map sizes are combined with each other. Which variants of the maps are then used is up to the players.

The maps themselves are composed of fairly generic biomes: Forests line up with hills, swamps, fields, mountains and bodies of water. However, thanks to the art design and details such as buildings, they can be associated with the Warcraft world; the fields are reminiscent of Westfall, the green hills with the stone formations are reminiscent of the Arathi Highlands, and so on.

Small World of Warcraft - the details
- Number of players: 2 to 5 players
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Age: 10 years and up

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Duration: 45 to 90 minutes


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Language: German
- Price: about 60 euros at AmazonDeutlich




mehr Azeroth-Vibes spüren wir dann im weiteren Verlauf der Spieles. For example, right at the beginning is the choice of the first race, whereby the factor of chance decides which six of the total of 16 tribes are actually available for selection and what special abilities they have. Each tribe has its own advantages and disadvantages. Naga, for example, are allowed to conquer sea and lake regions and can also start their conquests in these, while the competition can only go ashore in regions with a harbor. Gnomes, on the other hand, can launch an air attack on any region once per turn, without having to have a squad positioned near that area.

The special abilities just mentioned provide additional bonuses. Explorers are rewarded with additional victory points if they control regions on as many continents as possible. The Fortifying skill, on the other hand, allows you to raise a fort in a conquered area to help you defend it. And if you have archaeologists, you get additional victory points for each artifact you collect and for each legendary location under your control.
You can command a total of 16 Azeroth races in Small World of Warcraft, including Astrals, Goblins, Naga and Pandaren, in addition to Humans, Orcs and Night Elves. Source: buffed

Speaking of which, the artifacts and legendary places that can be found in the world are also part of the Azeroth lore. We conquer the Dark Portal, Karazhan or the Chapel of Light and use Frostmourne and the Heart of Azeroth to make life as difficult as possible for our opponents. Especially at the beginning, the mass of races, abilities, locations and artifacts can easily overwhelm beginners. Fortunately, there are handy rule sheets where players can quickly look up the details.

Let your people perish

So right from the start of the game, several exciting decisions await you: Which people-skill combination do you choose? On which continent will you land your troops and where? You will soon realize that you can only conquer a small part of the playing field with your limited troops. In addition, if there are battles with the armies of other players, you will have to accept losses in case of defeat. So what can you do to continue expanding your empire and earn more and more victory points?

A battle has broken out in the center of the continent over the Dark Portal. Source: buffed Well, at the latest when you lack the troops to conquer new regions, you should think about letting your current nation perish. In this case, the spirits of the troops still in action will defend the territories you have conquered so far (but they can no longer attack, and their ability is no longer effective), and at the same time you can choose a new race with a new ability and start another round of conquest.

This decision is tricky because you are doomed to watch for one round when you change races like this. And since each game lasts only eight (with 5 players) to ten rounds (two to three players), this hurts twice as much. You also have to keep in mind that you can't command two extinct races in the game world at the same time. As soon as you change races for the second time, all remaining units of the first perished race disappear. But you can't be too passive either, otherwise your opponents will snatch away too many regions from under your nose.

Our conclusion to Small World of Warcraft

Small World of Warcraft costs just under 60 euros. Source: buffed With Small World of Warcraft, Days of Wonder, Blizzard and Philippe Keyaerts have created a great board game in the WoW universe. Although the set pieces of the world map seem quite generic at first glance, this flexible structure of the world map provides a lot of variance in the games and the possibility to adapt the size of the game world to the number of participating players. The randomly arranged combinations of races and abilities further increase the replay value and provide the first exciting decision in the game early on.

We also like the fact that Small World of Warcraft is based on the original from 2009, but has been adapted in the right places so that it doesn't play like a simple copy with a WoW license. Fans of the universe will certainly enjoy the many small details and the familiar races, artifacts, locations and elements from Azeroth as much as we do. However, the board game offers enough playful quality to be fun even for those interested in board games who have had no previous contact with the Warcraft license. We give it a thumbs up!

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