I spend quite a bit of time playing miniatures games, sometimes your dudes beating the snot out of the other guys is much more satisfying than wooden cubes or cardboard chits advancing menacingly, and in 2017 Warhammer Underworlds burst into the scene and became for a time my favourite GW game. However I have since fallen somewhat out of love with Underworlds and that itch is instead being scratched by Super Fantasy Brawl. This miniatures combat game went on Kickstarter in the summer and I was fortunate to get access to a prototype copy. 

Visually the game punches you in the face with what it’s about right away. Lots of primary colours and big bombastic cartoony characters, they’re here to make big plays and get stuck in. The characters will be quite familiar to people who’ve played games like League of Legends or seen Saturday morning cartoons, lots of variety but they do manage to feel like they belong in the same world. The art style is a case of ‘your mileage may vary’, I’ve been pretty impressed with some of the models but other friends haven’t gelled with it as much. 

Super Fantasy Brawl also doesn’t mess around when it comes to gameplay. One of the reasons I got burned out on Underworlds was keeping up with the deckbuilding, by contrast Super Fantasy Brawl limits the customisation much more sensibly, each hero also comes with a small set deck of action cards that determine their abilities and that’s all you have to worry about.
To actually achieve victory, you and your opponent are racing to collect points because points mean prizes, your objectives are clear and public, usually controlling areas on the map but also taking out enemy champions. Since you only score at the start of your turn the enemy always has a chance to push you off or take you out in return. This creates a very nice flow in the game, both teams will push and wrestle for an upper hand for a few rounds before one team can get ahead and start reliably trying to score points. 

When you’re making decisions to achieve your objectives Super Fantasy Brawl is highly improvisational, each turn you’ll have a brand new hand of cards corresponding to the three coloured cores you use to play them. The puzzle is to make the most of the red, blue and yellow cards you have to move your champions, deal damage and disrupt the enemy in other ways. Also, the cards have a champion they are associated with and can only be used to activate that champion, so it your out of position that super attack won’t be doing anything for you. Another thing fighting for your attention is reaction cards, these will help you endure enemy attacks, but still cost the exhaustion of a core, leaving it unavailable for use in your turn. However there is also some forgiveness, since the cores can also be spent to perform minor actions with any heroes to smooth out your turn.
I’m a big fan of the way this causes combat to play out, sometimes the teams will go back and forth dealing some damage here and there until a champion goes down, there are also turns where everyone works together and the stars align for a combo and turns where you dump all the cores on a single hero to rush across the field and deal heavy attacks.
Combat is flashy and impactful, but the heroes have a lot of health which allows them to strike back a lot of the time, so no alpha strikes in this game. Along with there being an easy mechanism for reviving dead champions means you don’t get locked out of the game. Also, since there is no dice rolling you’re saved the crushing disappointment of a critical attack missing and leaving you exposed. 

 

 

Super Fantasy brawl has a lot of tolerance for making do with suboptimal play, because really that’s the usual operating mode due to the way you get your action cards, but that isn’t to say there’s no reward for smart plays or learning the game well. In particular team composition is key, the archetypes will be recognisable to players of other team games, there are tanks and supports and heavy damage dealers among other roles, and in competitive play the final 3 person team you take to battle is selected from an initial roster of 5 by bans and drafts. So knowing what your opponent’s fighters are capable of is a must.  

There are a number of elements in other games like this that have turned me off over the years, in Warhammer Underworlds the limit of 12 activations in the whole game meant missing one attack felt like it put you hugely behind at a stroke, and the building of your objective deck more often resulted in frustration than fun. Super Fantasy Brawl has got around these problems very well. I’m looking forward to the game releasing and the roster growing giving more options and decision points. Also I expect to put some of my hobby time towards it painting the very good 3D miniatures.

If you’re in the market for a 30-45 minute miniatures game that will keep you thinking about it for the rest of the day, then keep this on your radar.