The Knight Mage (or Mage Knight) is created by WizKids Incorporated; it is a miniature wargame that uses collectible figures. Jordon Weisman is the founder and designer of this game along with Kevin Barrett. The Knight Mage is the first game to utilize WizKid’s Clix system, which effectively combines wargaming and roleplaying elements with features of collectible card games. After it was introduced in 2000, this game went on to achieve massive success.

Different from other miniature war games, this game totally eliminates the requirement for references to tables and rulebooks by simply integrating a dial into every figure that has its own present combat statistics:

•       Attack & defense values
•       Special abilities
•       Movement rate
•      And combat damage

While this particular system sure lacks the versatility of the other types of miniatures games, chiefly because the players are not able to customize their figures, sure makes up for this by effectively facilitating speedy gameplay and also by having a large amount of distinctive figures. Known as the “combat dial,” a system that has proven to be quite popular and has also been used by the company (WizKids Inc.) to design other games, two of which include; MechWarrior and Heroclix. The dial will allow a figure’s exhibited statistics to also change as it continues to take damage.

Every Knight Mage figure clearly belongs to a particular faction. The factions that were in the early release included:

•       The Atlantis Guild
•       The Black Powder Rebels
•     The Elemental League
•       The Draconum
•       The Orc Raiders
•       The Necropolis Sect
•       The Knights Immortal

The other factions were later added. Every faction had its strengths and of course weaknesses; for instance The Atlantis Guild is known to have a lot of figures with very powerful ranged attacks, but they didn’t have healers. Yes, a player can combine the figures of various factions in their army anytime they wanted to, but the snag is that only figures of similar factions could move together in a formation. Employing the formation rules, players could simply move 3 to 5 adjacent figures whilst using just one action. You need to know that formation combat action can also be used in which several adjacent figures of similar factions attack and boost the chances of effectively hitting the target. Because of the limited amount of action per turn is indeed one of the most pertinent tactical considerations in the Knight Mage game, players making their army will have to smartly balance the benefits of formation combat and formation movement against their desire to have the flexibility from dissimilar factions.

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http://gaming.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=3689&vpr=yes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mage_Knight