Combat Arena: Clash of Champions Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Combat Arena: Clash of Champions, an easy to learn and well-balanced game that pits powerful warriors across the 40K universe in a last fighter standing contest.

There’s a common misconception nowadays about gamers who are serious about playing Games Workshops Warhammer: Fantasy or 40K that it’s just a hobby game. For some gamers who put in a fair amount of time and money that might be true. But for those who are or becoming serious about these games, these have really become lifestyle games. The amount of time and money invested into gathering, building, painting, and playing your army (or armies) in tournaments around the world can be staggering. I mean we’re talking about spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars on this “hobby”. You know what would be great and of interest to any gamers without the being a huge time and financial commitment: more Warhammer gateway games. You’re in luck, read on!

This brings us to today’s review of Combat Arena: Clash of Champions from Games Workshop. This fast-paced tactical game pits powerful warriors across the 40K universe in a last-fighter-standing contest for 2-4 players and that plays in about 45 minutes.

Players will need to determine two things when first playing Combat Arena: Clash of Champions, choose their fighters, and determine either the base or variant rules to play. Once these are determined, the game is played in rounds and each has the following two stages:

Stage One: Prepare – the Action cards are shuffled and five are dealt to each player per fighter but keeping cards separate and secret from the other player(s). Then each player puts as many Initiative cards per fighter forward as they have energy which will make the Initiative deck for that