Dune: War for Arrakis Announced by War of the Ring Designers

CMON has announced its next project - Dune: War for Arrakis. The board game maker is a new asymmetric war game for two "factions" that pits the Harkonnen forces versus the growing Fremen rebellion. While House Harkonnen initially starts in control of Arrakis, the smaller Fremen forces have a distinct advantage of being hidden in the desert and use that to slowly build their forces. The game will include multiple paths of victory for both sides, the Harkonnen can win by conquest, while the Fremen can win by progressing Paul Atredis from fleeing noble to the galaxy-conquering Muad'dib. CMON noted that their version of Dune uses original designs that are not based on the recent movie. A trailer for the game can be seen below: 

CMON recruited Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi, two of the designers of the immensely popular War of the Ring tabletop game, to design War for Arrakis. In a video announcing the new game, Nepitello admitted that he and Maggi used many of the mechanics from War of the Ring as inspiration for Dune: War for Arrakis and that War of the Ring veterans might notice how War of the Ring inspired War for Arrakis. For instance, War for Arrakis brings over the Action Dice mechanic, in which players use a pool of dice to determine their actions during a turn. 

As CMON is producing Dune: War for Arrakis, the game will come with a ton of miniatures. CMON producer Thiago Aranha noted that the board would support up to 100 miniatures, many of which are individual characters from Dune. Since Dune: War for Arrakis is a war game, CMON opted for a smaller scale miniature than it does for other games, just to fit all the miniatures in. A Sandworm figure will also appear in Dune: War for Arrakis and will be a critical component to the Fremen side of the game.

Fans can sign up on Kickstarter to be notified when Dune: War for Arrakis's crowdfunding project goes live.