Elven Legacy

Next, I checked out Elven Legacy. Those of you familiar with the heyday of strategic boardgaming will be familiar with the basic gameplay of this title. Essentially, the action is predicated upon moving units around on a hexagonal grid as you attack enemy units en route to your goal. While typically seen in more massive wargames based on actual real-world historical battles, Elven Legacy has as its storyline the tale of a race against time for the Elven race to prevent closely-guarded secret from falling into the wrong hands.

Combat is committed on a turn-by-turn basis, with each faction using up their move allotment for all its units before the other side takes their turn. This can be stressful at times, as you watch your units take unavoidable damage, but it's also part of the fun of setting everything up just right. EL boasts over 100 unique units, each with their own particular properties, and these have to be carefully tracked and used to their greatest advantage. Some units offer farther movement, some are stronger on offense, some on defense, etc. Your regular troops can be leveled up to level 5, and they keep these levels between missions.

Leading these troops are special hero units, who can be raised to level 10. These units are generally tougher than their subordinates, and have special abilities to employ in the conflict, like improving the stats of nearby friendly units, or offering combat spells. The survival of your heroes is of tantamount importance, as losing one can lead to mission failure.

The "board" you'll play on looks like any other well-rendered terrain, with a variety of environmental elements like forests, hills, etc. As you move your units across the landscape, you'll need to take it all into account, because each terrain hex affects the way your troops do battle. For example, a hex with forest on it might hinder movement slightly, but also offer a bonus for certain units.

Units are represented on the board in two ways: from a higher viewpoint, you'll see just one warrior, representing the aggregate. If you zoom in a bit closer, the lone warrior will resolve to show the actual number of units he represents. Regardless of which representation you choose, it doesn't affect combat at all. You might want to stay in the actual units view, however, as that will show you the actual force you're attacking with, and that's important in planning battles ahead of time.

In both views, you'll see a small vertical banner above your troops that displays important information such as overall troop health, remaining movement number, etc. This is useful for at-a-glance assessment, but if you need more information, you can right-click on any unit for their specific properties. Watching battles take place is a fun exercise, but if you tire of it, you can skip the animation with a simple press of the space key.

EL also offers multiplayer combat, for both Internet and Hot Seat play, and the game contains a mission editor, allowing you to create your own campaigns. Elven Legacy is deep enough, yet simple enough, for anyone to get into and play. It's scheduled for release this April.