Star Wars Attacktix

For the past few years now, the latest rage in tabletop gaming has been collectible miniatures. Games like Heroclix have combined the addictiveness of collectible card games with the strategy of traditional miniatures. This past summer a new entry into the collectible miniatures game was made, but it has gone under most gamer’s radars because it can not be found in a comic or game store, but rather in the toy aisle at Walmart. Star Wars Attacktix was released in May of 2005 as part of the Revenge of the Sith toy blitz. By their own admission, Hasbro created the Attacktix game as a quick cash in, but found the product line’s success to bypass even their wildest expectations, and they are now fully supporting it.
At first glance, it can be rather easy to dismiss Attacktix as too “kiddy”. The dice and measuring tapes of traditional miniature games are gone. Instead they have been replaced by the Attacktix motto of “last one standing wins.” The figures actually fire missiles from their guns and their light sabers really swing. While this further increases the toy feeling, there is something undeniably cool about using Han Solo to shoot down Boba Fett, or using Darth Maul to leave Mace Windu flipping head over heels. This highlights the greatest appeal of Attacktix, which is its simplicity. The whole idea of the game is to knock all of the other team’s figures over. There are no complicated rules to remember, no line of sight details to quibble over, or unlucky die rolls. Attacktix is a simple, fun, and fast game. The average time of a match is between five and ten minutes. Not only does this allow for more games to be played in a set time, but it creates that “just one more game” atmosphere.
Despite having fairly simple rules, the Attacktix system is a lot deeper than it looks. Each figure has an Attacktix class (trooper, warrior, etc) and a Star Wars class (Jedi, Sith, Empire, etc). All figures have special abilities that will affect other figures depending on their classes. For example, one figure may have the special ability, “free move and attack for one of your troopers”. These special abilities come into play when a figure is knocked over. The more expensive the figure is to play, the better the ability it possesses. The rules suggest using hundred point armies, and the most expensive figures cost forty points, while the cheapest are ten points. Keeping all of this in mind, it is possible to make multiple different army combinations whose special abilities all support each other.
Attacktix has another advantage over other collectible games in that it is much cheaper. Starter sets containing five figures cost $9.95 and boosters with three figures can be purchased for $6.95.
There is no doubt that Attacktix is a kid-friendly game, but it is also a fun and exciting game for all ages. Once gamers get over the childish appearance, they will find a game that reminds them why they fell in love with Star Wars in the first place.

Flex your gamer muscles and submit this article to N4G.com.