Celtos
reviewed by P. Slevin

Celtos is I-Kores new fagship fantasy battle game. The rule books can either be down-loaded for free from their web site, or purchased. The two are identicle, save that the encoding gives low quality images in the downloaded version.

The book itself is gorgious. Glossy paper, well formatted, with stunning art and clear instructions. Chapter hedings might have been nice though.

The book opens with background, which is based on the darker side of celtic mythology. It borrows enough to be cool, without using too much so as to get the celtic history buffs annoyed. The background is brief but well excecuted, giving is a firm idea of the world. If the map had been a little clearer, this would be perfect.

The rules have a passing similarity to Warhammer, but are designed to work on a similar scale, so this is hardy surprising, though they are different in such a way as to reflect warband combat. All resolution is done on the one chart, which makes life easyer. Rather than making tules for each indevidual troop type, a number of skills are listed, which works very well, and looks to be the way WFB is intending to go, judging by the 6th edition rules.

The back of the book includes short army lists for each of the races, which all have similaritys, but very different combinations of stats and skills. In this way, it paints that all the armies are of similar make up, but of different mind set, which suits the stting perfectly.

Unlike a GW product, the game includes only the most breif introduction to wargames, but given that I-Kore are working in the main-steam wargames field, rather that GW's high-street market, this is perhaps justifiable.

For WFRP players, the background will be parabount, and is especialy usefull to influence Albion in at least two of it's three incarnations.

WFB players might find the rules an interesting diversion, and the figures are nice too. I can't see this working as well for the larger end of warhammer, but the smaller side (500 points) would benefit from the more detailed structure.

Mordheim/Skirmish players might be interesten in the skills, figure, or even the whole rule set, as small battles can be easily acted out.

Over all then, something for everyone to at least look at, especialy as the books are free. Go and download them right now.

Stun Factor - 7 for warhammer gamers, but 9 generaly.

For more information about Celtos please visit www.i-kore.com