With a description more familiar to computer games, WizKids has announced a new board game called Wartime, which uses a real-time play mechanic, releasing in June.

Imagining a fantasy battle between humans and orcs, Wartime forces players to think on their feet instead of taking structured turns.  Each player has a number of 30-, 60-, and 90-second sand timers which must be flipped when one of their units takes an action, be it move, attack, or use magic.  That unit cannot act again until the timer resets.  Victory depends as much upon successful management of the timers as it does on effective use of unit abilities.

Wartime is a scenario-based wargame, and includes a branching mission campaign in which the results of each scenario determines the progress of the war.  Players can also configure their units for the scenario they are playing, or even create their own scenarios.

The game includes 12 sand timers, 80 unit tokens, a game board and terrain hexes, 20 stands, and 50 cards.  Wartime is for 2 or more players, ages 14 and up, and each scenario can be played in about 10 minutes.  MSRP is $59.99.

June will also see the release of another battle game from WizKids called Dicebot Megafun (see “WizKids Offers ‘Dicebot Megafun’”).