Every time I’ve tried to get into a proper miniatures game, Warhammer, whatever, I’ve bounced off the sheer weight of it, painting, army list building, a rulebook the size of a phone book. Godtear’s pitch is a skirmish game with pre-sculpted champions, a handful of followers each, and games that finish in under an hour. That pitch is mostly true and it’s why I keep this one around despite some real reservations.

Card-driven activation is the smart part of the design, each champion has their own small deck of ability cards that determines what they can do on a given turn, so there’s a genuine push-your-luck feel to deciding whether to commit your best card early or hold it for a swing later in the round. The quest objectives, capture this shrine, protect this NPC, give games actual shape beyond just killing the other side’s models, which I appreciate more the longer I play skirmish games in general.

The minis themselves are gorgeous out of the box even unpainted, pre-primed and detailed enough that the grey-plastic guilt most of my group feels about unpainted figures barely registers here, they photograph well on the table as-is.

Champion balance is the real weak point. A couple of the Borderlands starter champions are noticeably stronger than others in a way that isn’t just player skill, and once you’re mixing champions from different waves the power creep becomes obvious fast, which is a real problem for a game trying to sell itself as a lighter alternative to the big miniatures franchises. The core box also only really supports two players comfortably, three or four needs more purchases.

A genuinely good idea, executed unevenly. Three stars, worth trying before you buy given how uneven the champion pool gets.