Warlords: Crystals of Power Review

Warlords: Crystals of Power is a video slot from NetEnt with 5 reels and 30 paylines. You’ll be able to play Warlords: Crystals of Power at online casinos such as LV Bet, Zulabet or Leo Vegas.

Theme and game basics

Warlords is an epic fantasy battle slot that looks absolutely fantastic. This is one of the NetEnt games where the developer truly shows what they are capable of. The impressive background sound fits the theme very well and the graphics and visual effects are top-notch. The reels are set in front of a battle background, with soldiers slugging along on the right-hand side and two warlords overlooking the battleground. Every once in a while, arrows, spears and rocks fly through the air, adding to the overall look and feel.

On the reels we find three battle heroes, the Samurai, the Priestess and the Barbarian, who all appear as stacked symbols. Their three companion animals, wolf, warthog and panther are also on the reels alongside their three helmets and masks. The Samurai is the most valuable symbol, paying 300 coins in 5-of-a-kind win. The Priestess follows with 200 coins and the Barbarian still pays 150 coins in such a combination. The wild is the Crystals of Power symbol and there are three scatters, one for each of the warriors.

Gameplay and features

In the base game you will get random wild features. They may appear on any spin and may show up as follows:
Barbarian Hammer – a block of 4 wilds appears on reel 1 to 4
Priestess Arrows – 2 to 5 overlay wilds appear on reels 1 to 5
Samurai Sword – between 2 and 5 wilds are sliced on reels 1 to 4

We have mostly seen the Barbarian Hammer and it can pay out quite nicely.

The free spins features are triggered when you get at least three scatters of the same colour. However, you’ll find that you will never just spin three scatters onto the reels randomly. Almost always you’ll trigger the free spins via the Battle feature. Here two different scatters land on the reels and the two associated warriors will go to battle. Whichever one wins will take over the other scatter as well. Then you get several re-spins where hopefully another scatter will land on the reels. If that doesn’t happen, a final attempt will see a rock thrown at the reels, which will either reveal a third scatter or a random coin prize.

However, if further scatters land on the reels, you may get not just three scatters but four, five or even more.

In any case, one of the three following free spin features will be activated depending on the colour of the scatters:
Barbarian Free Spins – You get a minimum of 9 spins and three extra spins with every further scatter that lands on the reels. We managed to get as many as 39 spins in one round.

Priestess Free Spins – Here you get at least 7 free spins with each scatter giving you a 1x multiplier. That means you start off with at least a 3x multiplier. We once started with a 6x multiplier and since every further scatter will add another 1x multiplier, we ended up with a 9x multiplier.

Samurai Free Spins – You get 5 free spins and every scatter becomes a sticky wild, giving you at least three sticky wilds to start with. More are possible

Whilst we found the Priestess spins to be by far the most lucrative feature, giving us over 120x our bet once, the Samurai spins have great potential as well, though they didn’t show up once during 500 spins. Free spins will on average be activated once or twice every 100 spins, sometimes more often.

Conclusion

The theoretical RTP (return to player) of Warlords: Crystals of Power is 96.89%. That is excellent value and the slot will be worthwhile, but only if you manage to score a big win early on. Otherwise it may feel a bit of a drag for a while. The Barbarian free spins are also not exactly what you might want because you may get two dozen spins but only about 30x your stake in wins. But this is kind of our only complaint. Warlords is a fantastic game that reels you right in. The action is constant, the atmosphere is epic and the RTP is excellent. We were never once bored with the game, just frustrated every now and then when we missed out on the Samurai spins yet again. Hang in there and you’ll get to try them eventually.