Flashback Friday - Mage Knight

Does anyone still play Mage Knight?

Nope. Definitely don’t play it anymore. I really enjoyed it at the time. But yeah - it’s multiplayer solitaire, and truthfully, unnecessarily complicated.

I played once, in 2-player game with Rliyen at the original FFG event center. Yeah, there was no interaction so it was like playing solitaire. Also, every turn was a new efficiency puzzle to maximize the utility of my current hand of cards. Too much work to be fun.

I've never played MK, but I have Star Trek Frontiers, which is a pretty literal reskinning of MK with some features added and removed. I've never played the latter at anything but solo, and only a couple of times at that so far, but I really liked it that way and will probably play it again soon. (I was just trying to slog through the full rulebook the other day.) Based on just the introductory scenario, for which there's a walkthrough, I found it to be one of the few games I'd actually bother to play solo, because it's that good. The transition to the Star Trek setting has been done pretty well, and there are only a few things that are odd from a thematic sense.

This is probably a little blunt & missing some nuance in MK, but to me it became obsolete when Gloomhaven was released. GH took some cues from MK with the cardplay-centric engine but made it a bit looser & more reactive, or at least accommodated that style if people wanted to play that way. Then it added fun elements in nearly all other aspects where MK felt dry & static: varied scenarios, card upgrades, persistent legacy elements in the game world, more character variety, etc.

I personally stopped playing MK long before Gloomhaven was released (Shadows of Malice & Runebound pulled me away from this style of design in adventure games) but when I looked back at the game & pondered whether I wanted to try it out again, I couldn't see any unique aspects in the design that I couldn't just get from Gloomhaven now, with the added bonus that I wouldn't need to go through the rules digestion process that MK confronted me with every time I pulled it back down from the shelf to convince myself it wasn't a toad.

I still own my copy of Mage Knight, but that is only because I have failed to sell it. I really admire the design, but I just don't think I have the energy for it anymore. I have read the rule book SO many times, simply because I have to re-read it every time I try to get that game off of the shelf.

I finally said enough.

hotseatgames gets it for me as well--it's exhausting. I like it, I like playing it, but it's work. The movement is a major pain in the ass and you are fragile to anything but the dopiest enemies for far too long into the game. Spend two turns and like six cards to get to a castle, and find out it's a Poisony Fireproof guy, oh well, can't beat that, maybe I can get over here by the next two turns, and let's stuff my deck with trash so I can't move OR fight until I get to heal in four turns. Once you are going, it's cool, but it takes a while to get there.

Having just spent the last year playing about 40 some odd Gloomhaven sessions, I am finding it hard to summon up the energy to try MK again. I have both it and the Star Trek reskin - the latter may be worth trying because the theme may enable remembering the rules a tad easier. But yeah in thinking about it vs Gloomhaven it may go into the sell pile for me too.

I like Mage Knight a lot but it's not something that hits the table often. It's a lot to remember/relearn. It's also a game that I would almost never try to play nonsolo.

Ah_Pook wrote: I like Mage Knight a lot but it's not something that hits the table often. It's a lot to remember/relearn. It's also a game that I would almost never try to play nonsolo.

I play it as often as it takes for me to forget the last time I played it.