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What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?
I think it's a fantastic system for tactical combat and character advancement, way more fun than your Gloomhavens or your GW boxed crawls. Combat moves super fast and requires minimal co-op game maintenance, allowing for the focus to be on making really tough choices and chucking fistfuls of dice. There's not a single point where it ever feels like you aren't doing something cool, important, or both. It's also actually challenging which seems increasingly rare for co-ops. Sometimes the stars align and you get completely fucked over, but the opposite happens too so I don't care.
Cindy made an interesting point regarding the production - it's overproduced for sure, and yet every production decision does actually make the game better. This isn't a meaningless miniatures situation. The custom dice mean you don't constantly need to use ref tables, the mats don't slide around and fuck up your game, the chips are way easier to use and read than cardboard chits are, etc. It's a ridiculous grandiose thing but only in ways that actually improve the play of it.
We picked up a couple more characters for variety and managed to just barely cram 'em into the base box. Any more than this and we'd have to multi-box it, which I hate. We'll see. For now I think that's enough.
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Gary Sax wrote: ^Bigney from So Very Wrong About Games raves about that game every third podcast, so it's interesting to hear how it is from forumgoers. I think the price barrier has really insulated some of the good press it could be getting if the game is actually good.
Oh probably. In a perfect world the Undertow box could have been a nice entry point, but from what I can tell it introduces more complexity (as it's an expandalone that can combine with the base) and it's still like $90. It's a shame because I really do think this thing's great but I'd never begrudge anyone for not taking a chance on a game that's this pricy. It's got that Cadillac Game problem that Cthulhu Wars has.
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I know that the big problem I had with it was that it was hard for me to tell exactly what we was fighting and how scared of it we should be. Granted, experience would fix that. I did like the concept though, and the components were top-notch. My brother has a copy and loves his, though.
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Gregarius wrote: How hard was it to learn? I checked it out at a con once, but the rulebook was just walls of text so I took it right back.
It's not an overly complex game compared to most like it, but it's not a "pull off the shelf and learn on the fly" kind of thing either. I think I have a second edition so maybe the rulebook is better, but I found it really well organized if a bit dense.
charlest wrote: I think I'm one of the few people who didn't like Too Many Bones. The abstract combat didn't grab me and the particular ability combos of the character I played felt kind of repetitive and restricted.
Nah that makes sense. It's very much a video gamey tactics-on-a-grid situation. Doesn't really try to be richly thematic as much as it just prods the "ooh cool combo" and "yes I made the good decision" parts of your brain.
Some characters are really simple. Patches in particular stood out as being as close to braindead as TMB gets, though Picket eats almost as much lead paint. Boomer and Tantrum are both pretty nuanced though and the expansion characters I've tried (Ghillie and Nugget so far) offer that same level of flexibility.
RobertB wrote: I'm kind of in charlest's corner on this one, but I'd have to play it a few more times to be sure.
I know that the big problem I had with it was that it was hard for me to tell exactly what we was fighting and how scared of it we should be. Granted, experience would fix that. I did like the concept though, and the components were top-notch. My brother has a copy and loves his, though.
Totally agree on the first couple plays being rough with regard to ascertaining threats. Scouting enemies felt borderline worthless until I'd actually fought against most things at least once. You eventually get a feel for which things are scary (eg: Poison's not that big a deal VS Break being the worst thing ever), as well as how best to maneuver around those problems with whoever you're playing.
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Also, I've mentioned this before, but if you ever wanted SEAL Team Flix without dexterity, it's this game. The connections are irrefutable, up to and including that the designer was the graphic designer on Flix.
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Even the bosses are absolutely mechanically identical. Maybe there is some variety baked into the cards but otherwise there is no gameplay variation between characters or between bosses. This is very disappointing, especially for a co-op game where game balance isn't as critical IMHO. Players of this game will not grok the idea of a glass cannon sorcerer, tank dragonborn or dwarf, or lithe elven archer. They are all the same. I suppose this was somewhat the case with Dungeon Mayhem as well (the early characters at least, the monster decks were quite varied) with the card art doing most of the heavy lifting in character differentiation, but even in that game characters played quite differently overall. And that is a competitive game where game balance is critical. I think DnDAB needed a few more passes by a designer with a stronger math aptitude to give some mechanical differences in the characters that still balance out over the course of the game.
There is also no real reason why all the characters shouldn't spam each monster space, unless one is really injured. Otherwise the more characters that participate, the less damage each one ought to take and they all get the same amount of treasure, so monsters don't scale but rewards do.
The production quality is fine for the price ($25). There is a nice molded insert to hold everything but there is a half inch gap from it to the top of the box, so I anticipate stuff mixing up as soon as I tilt the box vertical unless I put some filler in the bottom.
Still, once I run my kids through it maybe they won't care. The role play aspect might compensate for the roll play. It should be good for a couple plays at least and perhaps any expansions will start to add some diversity.
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They really could have made the various elements.... different from each other. That's a head scratcher.
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hotseatgames wrote: I agree with the complaints, but yeah, for $25 I think it's a great package. It has a nice structure to the gameplay and I think I'll get my money's worth.
They really could have made the various elements.... different from each other. That's a head scratcher.
Yeah, I think they wanted to minimize the mathematical tactical combat aspect and really dial up the imagination creativity. It's too bad because Dungeon Mayhem is AMAZING and nails both repeat playability and creativity (my kid will lightning bolt all night long after a round as the sorcerer and really likes gelantinous cubes...).
No one is credited either, not even the artist (that I can tell). I think this was just a low ball effort. But I like the bones, it just needs to be punched up. Simple to understand actions, a little bit of power economy to manage, dice chucking, bad guys to demolish, and treasure to be earned, how hard is it???
Anyway, like I said, maybe the magic is in the cards. I'll give it a spin this weekend if I can.
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Jexik wrote: Been playing a ton of That's Pretty Clever, a cool little multicolored dice game. It's great for what it is. Current 2p high score is 338- it's on the refrigerator.
therewillbe.games/forum/video-games/2041...of-champions?start=0
It's free online here .
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