A day after its crowdfunding launch on Friday, October 10, Archon Studio’s Heroes of Might & Magic: The Card Game has already amassed over $800,000 from backers on Gamefound, having hit its initial $58k goal in just over five minutes.
If you’ve somehow never heard of Heroes of Might & Magic, it’s a collection of PC strategy RPGs known for their expansive maps, grid-based tactical battles, and spending hours and hours scouring the land to find deposits of sulfur so that they could finally afford to upgrade their red dragon caves.
Many of the series’ later, 21st century instalments met mixed reviews, but 1999’s Heroes of Might & Magic III was a trailblazing success that still holds up pretty well, with a loyal legion of fans. So loyal, in fact, that over 25,000 of them backed Archon’s HoMM board game to the tune of $8.3 million, over the course of two separate Gamefound campaigns.
Now, after that rip-roaring success, Archon is returning to the HoMM well with a lower cost, strategic card game, trading massive boxes of hex boards, tokens, and plastic minis for, well, massive boxes of cards instead. But it does look cool.
Launched for crowdfunding on the PC series’ 30th anniversary, Heroes of Might & Magic: The Card Game sets out to mimic the Heroes III Experience. Two players slide their cards onto a 7×7 grid, deploying units and locations to populate the map, and casting spells to buff their own soldiers or to harm the opposition. Each player controls a hero (of might and/or magic) and they lose when that hero is slain.
Importantly, it’s not a trading card game built on random boosters. You’ll buy specific expansion based boxes to add new factions’ unit, spell, ability, artifact, and location cards to your overall pool – then build decks and face off.
In this initial Gamefound campaign, the game’s factions are tied to different pledge tiers. Backing at the $56 (£42) “Adept of Might and Magic” tier only grants two playable armies: castle, and necropolis (in other words humans and undead). It takes backing the $149(£112) “Queen of Might and Magic” tier to unlock every race from Heroes III.
What are some classic PC titles that you’d like to see adapted into card games? Personally, I’d love to see some sort of Grim Fandango deck builder, even though I have no idea how that would actually work. Let us know your choices in the Wargamer Discord community.
There are plenty of other great tactical titles out there, as you can see on our list of the best strategy board games. To take it up a notch to the real cream of the tabletop crop, check out our picks for the best board games ever.
