I’ve been trying to explain how Batman plays as it is something that is unlike any other tabletop miniature game. Most tabletop miniature games are easy to pick-up strategically because it boils down to one thing: push your miniatures towards the centre. Batman is much more fluid and dynamic. After playing more Heroes of the Storm and Smite, it hit me: Batman is more akin to a MOBA. MOBA stands for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, with the two most popular practically became national sports. You may have heard of them: League of Legends and Defence of the Ancients 2 (frequently short-handed to DOTA2). I think that approaching the Batman Miniature Game with a MOBA-mindset will reward more success than not.

MOBAs are broken down into three game play phases: laning, objectives and team fights. Laning is when you stick to your particular “lane”, of which there are usually three, to gain experience to level up the character. Objectives is when you move from being focused on the solo experience and move towards team-based play. There are usually special benefits scattered around the map that players need to acquire to get an edge in fights. Finally, there is the team fight experience when each member of the team fights in concert with each other. Most MOBAs have five members per team, so this will usually be a ten man skirmish as both teams vie for supremacy. These team fights will usually erupt when one team stumbled into another attempting to accomplish an objective.



In Batman, the first turn is the “laning phase”. This is where you make the decision of where your miniatures move and run. They’re being positioned to what suits their role. The other way to look at it, is that you can spend this time grabbing an opponent’s Titan so that your model is more powerful later. Very few models have a first strike capability and if they do, it is mostly to test the waters. Next is the Objectives phase on the second turn, this is dependant on the Scenario as some are difficult to score while others are easy. Objectives determine victory, their placement is important. Finally, the last phase is the team fights. In Batman, this is usually from the third turn onward, as models are vying to contest objectives, gain advantage through outmanoeuvring or flat out taking out the opposition.

MOBAs are complex systems that require you to understand the meta-game for you to succeed. Batman is very similar because ‘push to the centre’ will not very often be the best results. You need to maneuver, cut off your opponent’s desired Objectives while secure your own. Unlike most Tabletop Games, the weakest model can take a fairly serious beating before being swept off of the board. This means that even the “squishiest” character sticks around, allowing for more roles to be defined and utilized. The Batman Miniature Game quickly becomes a game of knowing which role a character is and which match-ups they win.

There are usually four to five roles in MOBAs. League of Legends is known for Tank, Support, ADC (damages from basic attacks), APC (damages from special attacks) and Assassin. Most MOBAs have players pick one of each of these roles to face an identical typed team. I’m more fond of the Heroes of the Storm breakdown of Warrior, Support, Assassin and Specialist. Heroes also doesn’t require you to have one of each, you can play with a team of Assassins or two Warriors, two Supports and one Specialist. The roles’ jobs are the following: Assassin is responsible for dealing damage; Support is to heal and protect their allies; Warriors are a front-line and interdict attacks on their weaker allies; and, Specialists focus on manipulating the battlefield.

What can make this more complicated is not only a character’s role determine their behaviour, where they are placed on the map also modifies this. A Solo lane character operates alone, the Duo-Lane are two characters who attempt to synergize an offensive strategy, a Jungler travels between each of the lanes to take care of early game Objectives and the Mid sits between the Solo and Duo-Lanes to provide assistance if they’re winning.

In Batman, there isn’t quite an exact parallel from model-to-League of Legends character. Miniatures with weapons are probably an “Assassin” but that isn’t quite the case. Huntress has a Ranged Weapon but I wouldn’t consider her an Assassin or Batman with his Batarangs. Nightwing, in my mind, is exemplar of Assassin – a glass cannon that probably takes out any opponent but cannot handle retaliation. A Jungler in a MOBA would probably look very similar to the Dancer Role: move around the board, avoid confrontation from Bruisers, harass gunmen, score and contest Objectives. A Squire is a Support model who focuses on putting down dangerous models, they probably have good abilities to assist the damage dealers. Every single Unusual Leader definitely merits as a Support, because even if they can fight, you don’t want to risk them due to their VP worth. Bruisers, formerly known as “Button Men“, are models that dish out damage and can probably take a hit or two as well – Warrior or Tank would be the equivalent in a MOBA.

The importance is thinking of the Batman Miniature Game as a MOBA is taking those same mentalities. Models are not locked in combat, maneuver for advantage, don’t chase models that are “kiting”, fight for a reason (such as Objectives – not “just ’cause”) and understand that there are plenty of ways to make life tough for your opponent. This also means that there aren’t models that Hard Counter an opponent, just give advantages. You’re the one responsible for your team’s strategy during Raise the Plan and the execution of tactics throughout the round. Just don’t mess up, not like you can blame a teammate. 😉