An image depicting all four boxes of Malediction

Malediction Preview - MTG Meets Warhammer

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Published: January 20, 2025 9:58 AM

After checking out the upcoming Malediction at PAX Unplugged this winter, creators of the game Loot Studios sent us home with some starter sets to check out ahead of the game’s launch on GameFound. Now that we’ve played a suite of matches, we’ve got first impression thoughts!

Malediction - What Is It?

Malediction is a unique blend of a few different genres of tabletop gaming. It takes the skirmish tabletop warfare of a Games Workshop Warhammer game like Warcry or Kill Team but adds a unique card draw element.

From our Malediction preview, an image of multiple cardboard standees engaged in battle

When I met with the team at PAX Unplugged, their one sentence elevator pitch put it succinctly: it’s like Commander meets Warhammer. After having played a few test games of Malediction, I have to agree!

Want to try the game out for yourself? They’ve got a free print-and-play version of the game ready to download now!

Building A Deck And Army In Malediction

In Malediction, when you construct your force, you’re not just going to bring together a collection of miniatures. You’ll also be building a deck of cards centered around a leader. Choosing cards within that leader’s faction, you’ll build a deck that includes unit cards, gear, slower channel spells, and quick swift spells.

This is one of my favorite twists on the wargaming genre. To bring a miniature out onto the battlefield, you have to play the card from your hand and spend Echo (your mana-like resource in the game) to put it on the battlefield.

Spells you have in hand may let you spend Echo to heal a unit, perform an extra attack, move for free, and myriad other special abilities. In this way, you’re customizing both your forces and the ways you can upgrade or augment them.

From our Malediction preview, an image of cards from one faction of the game

Gameplay Is Fast In Malediction

One of the things I liked most about my playthroughs of Malediction is just how quickly the game goes. We tried it with two players and as a free-for-all three person game (which the rules don’t account for so we homebrewed a little bit), and both where snappy - finishing up in less than an hour.

Part of this comes from what it takes to win the game. It’s a rush to a set amount of victory points - in our games we played to 25. You gain victory points equal to the cost of enemies you defeat, and you get points for securing powerful artifacts strewn about the board.

From our Malediction preview, an image of miniatures battling
Combat here clustered around a Husk (black-based miniature toward the back) where a powerful artifact waits to be claimed!

The other reason this game zips along is the way you field units. At the start of the game, you can field units from the corner of your battlefield. But after that, you can bring a unit in next to a unit of yours already on the board - no matter where they are - provided you’re not engaged with an enemy unit. This removes the slog of having to slowly advance your models across the battlefield.

The Forces of Malediction All Feel Very Different

We were sent home with copies of all four of the forces made for the premiere of the game - Primal Blood, Order of the Shattered Throne, Legion of the Fallen, and Conclave of the Spheres, and each has its own distinct play style. 

The Primal Blood faction is all about aggression - they willing sacrifice both accuracy and health to gain bonuses to attack, and many of their units can make reckless charges and extra moves across the battlefield.

The Order of the Shattered Throne are angelic guardians, who guard each other well. Many of the figures in this faction can absorb damage intended for nearby enemies, and their spell cards involve a lot of healing and damage negation.

Malediction art of the Soulwhisperer by Guilherme Motta
The Soulwhisperer, a unit in the Legion of the Fallen, shows off the macabre aesthetic of the faction. Art by Guilherme Motta. Image: Loot Studios.

The Legion of the Fallen are comprised of the walking dead (or nearly dead) in many iterations, and focus on damage through swarming enemies with low cost minions. 

Finally, there’s the Conclave of the Spheres faction, who dabble most heavily in magic and are willing to sacrifice their minions to achieve their goals.

Malediction image of standees and their cards
Units from the Order of the Shattered Throne (Gold bases) and Primal Blood (Red Base) with their unit cards.

It’s easiest, perhaps, to think of these four factions as colors on the Magic: The Gathering wheel. Primal Blood is like Red cards with their aggression, Order of the Shattered Throne, with its life gain and defense, is like White cards. Legion of the Fallen, full of undead and devastatingly deadly, is like Black MTG cards. And Conclave of the Spheres, with its mana-manipulation and spell-focused trickery, is very MTG Blue.

STL Files in Malediction

In closing, one of the more interesting aspects to this skirmish wargame is the fact that the box itself contains no plastic miniatures. Instead, you’ll receive cardboard standees (as pictured throughout) to represent your models and the terrain. But when you crowdfund the game, you’ll receive the STL files to print their gorgeous 3D minis.

If you don’t have a 3D printer of your own, they have a list of recommended 3D print-on-demand vendors they’ll recommend.

All in all, this is one of the more unique approaches to tabletop wargaming I’ve played in a long time. You’ll need some table space - but no more than a normal wargame would expect from you - and there are elements here that are direct references to other games (you “exhaust” or tap your models’ cards once they’ve activated, you can cast spells ala MTG with sorcery or instants), but the culmination of how Malediction brings it all together is pretty incredible.

Want to learn more? Head over to the Malediction Gamefound page to check it out and back it for yourself when the game launches!

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Giaco Furino joined the TechRaptor team as a Staff Writer in 2019 after searching for a dedicated place to write and talk about Tabletop Games. In 2020, he… More about Giaco