Unboxing: Mechs vs Minions

Mechs vs Minions is a brand new board game by Riot Games, the creators of the massively popular League of Legends MOBA PC game. In this game players work together to complete various missions, while attempting to fend of waves of minions. I've never played League of Legends, but the concept of the game had me interested from the first day I heard about the game, and I knew I had to try and get my hands on it.

Its first wave of shipping, which was 15,000 units strong, sold out in less than a day. While its second shipping wave, which is scheduled to ship out in December, is still available for purchase on Riot's merch store as of this writing. 

After a stressful day of attempting to order it on launch day, while dealing with server issues caused by  thousands of other gamers attempting to do the same, as well as a week of anxious waiting. Mechs vs Minions has finally arrived at my door, in all its 15 lbs of glory. I now have pictures of everything taken and am here to do a full unboxing of the game.

Now, before we get started, Mechs vs Minions features a Legacy style system and new content is unlocked as you play. There are certain aspects of the game which are meant to be revealed as the game is played and remain secret until then. These range from new cards, scenarios and a boss mech that is sealed in his own box. By now, I'm sure those spoilers are all over the internet. But to keep the mystery alive for myself, at least a little, I haven't cracked open the dossiers or the boss mech's box. If you want to see that stuff, Watch it Played has done an excellent series of videos on the game and you can see it all on there.

With that out of the way, lets dig into this box!

This box is huge and the shipping notice weighed in at 15.5 lbs! That's a lot of plastic and cardboard. The Mechs vs Minions logo is embossed as well.

The back of the box. I especially love the letter on the back from Rumble, as I would find out later everything in this game is written in character, which is great. My copy of the game is #10,108/30,000, still blows my mind that they sold 15k of these in a single day.

A close up of the letter on the back.

That's the outside, but what is inside? Only one of the best box inserts of all time! Seriously, Riot have upped the game on packaging. Not only does it all nest together nicely, but the trays for the Minions allow for any of the 4 sculpts to lay in them. The only downside is that the 3rd tray doesn't have a lid and some of the minions will fall out when you hold the box vertically and the trays for the cards don't seem deep enough to accommodate sleeved cards.

Let's take a look inside!

Even with the slight issues of jostled minions and unsleeved cards, this insert is easily the best I've seen, or in my collection. This is an excellent thing, as it means I don't have to try and think up a storage solution for this game. 

Now lets take a look at our intrepid Yordle mech pilots. Each of these are characters from the League of Legends PC game, I don't really know anything about their League of Legends counterparts, but their MvM versions look pretty cool! Of course, I'll be repainting them eventually. 

Ziggs, the Hexplosive Expert.

Heimerdinger, the Revered Inventor. 

Corki, the Daring Bombardier

Tristana, the Yordle Gunner

All four sculpts of the minions. I especially love the one holding the shield in front of him. They all have a wash on them to help the details show better. I already have some red paint on order so I can get all 100 of them painted in a reasonably quick fashion.

The bomb. In some scenarios this is an objective and has a chance of exploding, ending the game. 

This sand timer acts as both the first player marker and a timer for the drafting phase of the game. 

Four rune coins and a pair of gear markers. The coins are used in some scenarios, while the gear markers go on the gear track and doom track. They all all metal too and have some nice weight to them.

Rune dice and standard 6 sided dice. The Rune dice are used for minion movement and to select the first player. 

Crystal tokens, these are objectives for different scenarios. 

The tutorial book, player aid and the rules reference book. The rules reference book looks to be more of a keyword explanation book, all the rules and gameplay concepts are explained in the tutorial book.

Sealed dossiers for each scenario. Each of these contain new cards that are unlocked as new scenarios are started.

Side one of the game tiles. These are pretty sturdy boards too, nice thick cardboard and not a single one is warped. 

The boards feature spot varnish in areas too. Each of the oil slicks on these tiles, as well as the runes have a gloss finish on them. It's a really nice touch.

Side two features a fire theme. Since I haven't dug into the dossiers, I don't know how late or soon they pop up.

The tracker board. As minions are killed, the team gains gear rating, when they reach 15 the heroes go into Overdrive and gain new abilities. The doom tracker is used to keep track of things, such as the bomb's health. When the doom tracker hits 0 it's game over, man.

The player boards, each Yordle has their own board and their overdrive ability is listed on the bottom of it. These boards are used to program your mech.

The School tile, both decks and the Crystal Compass. The Crystal Compass is used with the Rune Dice to control the movement of the minions. 

The school tile is flipped over in some scenarios as a Lava Wall. 

This sealed box contains something menacing that really wants to get out. 

That's Mechs vs Minions! I can't wait to get this on the table and run though the scenarios. Hopefully soon. I know that a few of my friends are interested in trying it out, so maybe it'll get to the table sooner rather than later.

Eventually, I'll be painting up the minis in this box. You can be sure that I'll post the progress on Twitter and Instagram.