Disclaimer
A copy of Maladum was provided by Battle Systems for the purposes of this review. All views are my own.
Intro
Anyone who has stepped foot in a tabletop games shop recently, or had a cursory look online, may have noticed the increasing prevalence of miniatures-focused board games. Often tactical and skirmish-themed, these games pit players against one another or, increasingly, against a common ‘game-controlled’ enemy. On the outside, these games can seem quite intimidating; complex systems bundled in huge, densely-packed boxes. On the inside, they often reinforce initial impression. However, when you have that magic combination of the money, time, space, and willing friends and/or family to play these games, they can be extremely engaging and satisfying to play.
Herein lies the rub. While I have enjoyed playing my fair share of these types of games, including the excellent Star Wars: Imperial Assault, they are not necessarily my first choice to play. This isn’t due to some inherent bias against these games; in fact, I love tactical games. However, I find that the expense and time commitment required to enjoy these can be difficult to justify. Naturally, these are not insurmountable hurdles, and certainly not ones I am willing to hold me back from trying something new. So, when the opportunity arose to give Maladum a spin, I happily took the plunge.
What is Maladum?
Maladum is a relatively new fantasy dungeon-crawling board game created by the UK-based company Battle Systems. As the company’s name suggests, Maladum is really a full-on game system masquerading as a board game. It shares much of its DNA with traditional miniatures wargaming systems and offers a robust mechanical framework for a deep, strategic campaign. It can also be played cooperatively or competitively to various degrees, depending on your preferences. There is also detailed guidance and tools for creating brand new characters and campaigns, available on the Battle Systems website.
How I reviewed this
In addition to the initial disclaimer, this review comes with a caveat regarding its scope. For this review, I played through the tutorial and the first two missions in the campaign booklet with a couple of friends over three sessions. This is therefore very much a review based on my initial impressions rather than of the full campaign. While I’ve clearly barely scratched the surface of what the game has to offer, I feel that I’ve played enough to form a solid opinion which should help you gauge whether you might also want to ‘take the plunge’.
What’s in the box?
When Maladum first arrived at my door, I was immediately struck by the size of the box — that is, I was quite surprised that it wasn’t significantly larger, especially knowing that this was a miniatures game with 3D terrain. It is, however, densely packed. Unboxing this game is an enjoyable, if somewhat overwhelming, experience as a result. The first things you’ll see are the foldable battle map, a token bag, an assortment of miniatures, various multi-coloured plastic pegs, some range-finders for ranged attacks and spells, and dice. Underneath all of this, you’ll uncover a serious quantity of well-made components printed onto a hefty pile of cardboard sheets: assorted counters, character cards, items, tokens, and the ‘3D’ terrain.
The component quality is excellent, with the terrain a particularly impressive highlight. Expect 3D chests with hinged lids, barricades, scones that hang on walls, and openable doors. I didn’t encounter any torn, misprinted, or otherwise damaged pieces, and each constituent part is separated with a satisfying click. There are also three separate booklets: a tutorial booklet, a campaign booklet, and a substantial rules booklet that highlights how modular the game is. Thematic, detailed, and well-positioned artwork is strewn throughout; it’s clear that a lot of care and attention went into their presentation.
Storage woes
Neat storage of these components requires some additional planning. While there are inlays for the various components, things become a little bit messier once they’re punched out of the cardboard. The game doesn’t come with enough bags to keep its various components separated. It includes just 4 plastic baggies, despite asking players to store common, uncommon, rare, tutorial, and extra ‘unique’ items in their own, separate bags. I found it helpful to have additional bags ready for smaller pieces of terrain and decorations (like books and cups that you place on the tables), as well as for traps and pits. This makes it easier to find and store. While this isn’t really a huge negative, it’s something to keep in mind if you’re planning to pick up a copy of the game.
How the game works
Flicking through the rule book, it’s clear that this is a complex game with a huge number of systems to be aware of. The basics, though, should be familiar; you roll dice for things like attacks and abilities, and do basic arithmetic to understand the consequences of these actions. Alongside this are RPG staples: attack and damage types, active and passive skills, and a list of actions and ‘effortless’ actions you and your adversaries can perform.
The core gameplay loop in Maladum revolves spilling into a dungeon, collecting loot, completing objectives, and barrelling back out; hopefully in one piece. Players control adventurers exploring modular dungeons, using their actions points to move, fight, search, or use abilities to explore and survive. Enemies generally respond in programmatic ways, following a quick flowchart to understand what they should do. The Doom Tracker represents the danger in the dungeon and progresses naturally each round. It mainly escalates the threat level through spawning tougher enemies, including the Malagaunt, powerful necromancers prowling their domain. There may be other consequences that I have not yet encountered. To throw potential spanners in the works, an Event Card is drawn at the start of each round. This can introduce both positive and negative twists, like reducing or increasing the level on the Doom Tracker, or introducing new hazards or enemy reinforcements. Enemy (‘Adversary’) spawning is partially randomised as well, with dice rolls indicating how many spawn and where. This means that in some earlier rounds, there is a slim chance that no enemies whatsoever will spawn. Whatever the objectives, players must exit the dungeon before the Doom Tracker reaches its end or face, well, their doom.
Learning the game
I enlisted the help of a friend to set-up and play through the tutorial mission so that we could share the learning experience. Getting to the meat of the game took quite a while and was not without issue. Setting up the first mission took longer than expected; a few hours just to organise all the components and digest the basics. If you’re inviting people round to play, I strongly recommend doing all of this beforehand, or you risk your guests losing interest before the first mission starts. It’s also wise (and advised by Battle Systems) for someone to read through the rules ahead of time. This is good practice for any new game, especially one as complex as Maladum.
The tutorial does a great job of guiding you literally step-by-step through the first four rounds of the mission. It also, crucially, explains why you do things in a certain way. It purposefully ignores some rules in favour of streamlining the initial experience, which is welcome considering the number of mechanics listed in the full rulebook. The flavour text helps you understand the context in which your party of adventurers finds themselves in and helps elucidate the ‘rules’ of this world (as well as the actual game). After four rounds, the game drops you into the thick of it and asks you to use your newfound knowledge of the basics and continue the mission. Thanks in part to the precarious circumstances in which the tutorial leaves you, we succumbed embarrassingly quickly to our enemies’ attacks. This is probably as good a place as any to mention that I initially scoffed at the suggestion in the booklet that we should play the tutorial a few times; as if we wouldn’t succeed. Safe to say, we tried again and included some of the rules we’d missed the first time around. While we did slightly better, we still failed literally three inches from the exit. Most importantly, we had fun and were feeling excited at the prospect of playing a proper mission.
There are some bits I didn’t like about the tutorial, which are indicative of some of the broader issues I encountered later. Firstly, matching the setup map was slightly confusing. I felt that the map legend could benefit a bit more variety in terms of distinguishing between types of terrain. Similarly, some symbols on the characters, items, and setup page were too abstracted at first glance, and I found myself frequently referring back to the rulebook a bit too frequently. This will (and did somewhat) improve with practice, but it slowed our progress sufficiently to be frustrating. Also, while we enjoyed the flavour text, there is quite a lot of it. For a heavily thematic game, verbosity is a double-edged sword and tolerances will vary within and across groups. Reading aloud all of the flavour text made each round take quite a while to resolve confidently. Ultimately, this took quite a long time to set up and play through. We started at midday and played the tutorial twice by 3pm, including a break for lunch. So, just setting up and digesting the basic flow of the game took about 2–3 hours. It did, however, really help us to internalise the flow of the game; though it made us quite conscious of the surprising omission of reference cards for game flow. Frustrations aside, I recognise that there is rarely a perfect way to craft a tutorial and, on balance, this is a thoughtful attempt that (mostly) effectively demonstrates the basic game flow.
Starting the Campaign
From our group’s perspective, the difficulty of the first mission in the campaign book felt a good deal easier than the tutorial; perhaps attributable to its increased scope. While the tutorial only covered a quarter of the battle map, the first mission spanned its entirety. This meant there was loads more to explore and that enemies weren’t likely to start hitting you in the first couple of turns and we could sail through the first few rooms unscathed. The dice were (mercifully) broadly in our favour, as were the ‘neutral’ NPC monsters who took the battle to the skeletons for us, though we still felt fragile and broadly unprepared for any prolonged combat encounter. This tension provided the impetus for us to hurriedly scramble through the dungeon in search of treasure. A couple of sticky encounters with some adversaries and a hostile NPC proved a good challenge. Unlike our psychologically bruising tutorial experience though, we managed to escape relatively unscathed with some loot to boot.
Our second mission was a lot easier than the first, through absolutely no skill of our own. In fact, the event deck was the star here, initially by being overly kind to us and keeping the Doom at bay. The Adversary die also seemed weighted in our favour through letting very few enemies spawn for the first few rounds. Then the chaos began. A few rounds in, consecutive Event cards triggered several neutral NPCs to spawn with some randomised items. The first NPC had a special rule; it would target enemy Adversaries or anyone larger than it. The very next turn, a second, larger NPC spawned with the sole aim of looting everything in sight. Then a third appeared; a ‘lost traveller’ running around in a state of panic. To our utter delight, the first spawned with something that none of us expected: a gun. My first thought was to relieve them of this burden, but then something magical happened. The gun-slinger immediately proceeded to ruthlessly (and algorithmically) blast the large NPC to pieces right in front of us, before turning its attention to the skeletal enemies nearby. Our rogue successfully rolled to persuade the third NPC to leave, earning us ‘renown’ on our Campaign Log, before the poor soul was suddenly swarmed by spawning enemies only one square from the exit. Meanwhile, our adventurers fluttered about without a care and looted all 8 objectives before waltzing out the door. This Rube-Goldberg machine of chaos is a prime example of the compelling emergent gameplay that can occur in Maladum.
Outside of combat
Following each mission, there is a ‘Market Phase’ and then a ‘Rest Phase’. In the former, you can buy and sell items. The dice-powered Rest Phase offers a mix of potential boons and setbacks depending on your choices and your rolls. After the first mission, we managed to stock up on a couple of more powerful items, gained an additional XP for one of our adventurers, and fully rested our party to be ready for the next dungeon-dive. Not all parties will be so lucky.
How Long Does it Take to Play?
If you’ve played lots of board games, you’ll know the advertised playtime on the box often isn’t reliable. Maladum is no exception. Expect longer sessions to begin with. Once you’re familiar enough with the rules, I’d suggest setting aside at least a couple of hours per mission, including setup.
How Often Should You Play?
Maladum is best played with a consistent group on a regular basis. Of course, unless you’ve got a good chunk of free time, this is hard to manage. If, for example, you play once a month, I’d recommend setting aside a full day to get through a few missions.
Final Thoughts
My experience with Maladum has been pretty positive overall. It’s a fun, engaging game with tangible stakes and even more tangible dungeons. There are some minor game-flow hiccups that I think can be resolved with a bit of practice and patience, though I’d certainly like to see a more efficiently presented second edition to iron these out. In particular, for how often I’ve had to consult the core rulebook, I’d prefer if it was laid out a little more linearly. We had to jump around quite a lot to get to some basic rules. Similarly, I think the world building and thematic elements would benefit from being put into a separate booklet. A more streamlined rulebook and bundling in some separate quick reference cards, for instance, would go a long way to addressing these issues.
Minor gripes aside, there is a huge amount of depth to this game and I definitely feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface with some of the mechanics and systems here. This is a really clever and thoughtfully crafted game with heaps of replayability. If you’re a fan of miniatures games, tactics games, co-operative games, or narrative-driven campaign games, Maladum really has a lot to offer. However, if you’re a casual player looking for something you can dip into for a couple of hours, you might struggle.
Scores
· Overall score out of 100 – 85/100
· Artwork – 5/5
· Complexity – 5/5
· Replayability – 5/5
· Player interaction – 5/5
· Component quality – 5/5
Likes:
1. Deep, varied, and tense gameplay
2. Flexible system that encourages you to play with the rules to your liking
3. 3D terrain is a huge draw, with excellent component quality
4. Modular and expandable, with huge replayability
5. Lots of build options for your characters
Dislikes:
1. Too many things to track to not have bundled-in reference cards
2. Additional storage solutions required to keep things neat
3. Time-consuming setup and storage
4. Complexity means a heavy dependence on a consistent group
