Fantasy game fun

Sport-based board games have always tweaked my interest.

I am after all a rather dedicated sports fan, with an interest in the Canadian Football League, baseball, hockey and even box lacrosse.

That is likely why I am a huge fan of Strat-o-matic baseball, still the best sports simulation I have played, and NHL Ice Breaker one of those quick, and always fun hockey games.

And then there is fantasy football. Take a love of football, and add in the chance to play with teams of elves, dwarves and orcs, and you really have hot the sweet spot in terms of my gaming interests.

Tutatis is a 2011 release from Greebo Miniatures an Italian miniatures maker.

But why another fantasy football game? I asked the Italian creator just that.

"Tutatis was created for many reasons and I have taken inspiration from these. For the story and background, I love writers like Terry Pratchett, Usrula, Tolkien, Asimov etc," he said. "I love the quotes and I had tried to insert most as possible in this game. All the story are made by me, but you can find lots of quotes inside of background, like the Mage team (Unseen university from Pratchett), the turtle team inspired by TMNT, or another big turtle hero inspired to Gamera (Godzilla story). I won't create a game with lots of character findable in all our human story, from Comics to Cinema to real life (like Napulon, or LaVinci).

I love also the Gaelic football, and one note Gaelic divinity is Tutatis, the god of War. In this game there are lots of war, so, why don't use this great name? It's also a big note exclamation from Asterix and Obelix!"

In creating Tutatis Greebo went in a slightly different direction than other games in the same general category, choosing to make a much smaller miniature than the rather standard 28 mm.

"Tutatis is Little! You don't need one big table to play, you don't need one big box to bring your models and pitch, you don't need a room if you want to have all teams and pitches," explained its creator.

"Smaller scale means smaller prices for customers, big fun to see models little deformed, the possibility to use models for lots of things. Also all models in the game have the biggest portability."

The smaller sizes are still finely crafted, with lots of fine detail.

But the size is a challenge for the painter.

"If people have difficult time to paint a Tutatis models, have also difficult to paint any other things, because the head of a 32 mm is like the head of Tutatis models or little bigger.

All Tutatis models are essential in details, but all models have also all they need to be effective and cool to see," said Greebo.

Unlike other games Tutatis has a much more whimsical 'feel' to the teams, in-part because of size, and in-part because of how the sculpts are fashioned.

The game rules are very simple to follow even with the occasional Italian-to-English translation glitch.

Tutatis as a game plays more like a combination of rugby, you can't make a forward pass, and soccer, you kick for points, and has been called akin to Gaelic football as a result.

The rugby-like ball movement and the kicking, with a goaltender to beat, are neat aspects of the game which set it apart from others.

Also the players all having a unique skill from the outset certainly makes the game feel more like a team of individual players, rather than have half a dozen generic linemen, and a couple of clone runners.

The small size makes the game highly transportable, and cost wise you can have a two or three teams as cheaply as one in most competitive games, and that is a plus.

Check Tutatis out at www.greebo.it

If anyone is interested in this game, or other board games feel free to contact [email protected]