How the Game is played:

Nightfall is a game for 2-5 players. Each player starts the game with the same 12 cards (2 of each of the 6 starting minion cards) and tries to build their deck as the game unfolds. Rather than having a defined amount of health, each player receives one of three types of wound cards (bite, bleed, and burn) as they are dealt damage during the game and the player with the least amount of wound cards wins the game. The number of wound cards used per game depends on the number of players. You start with 10 wound cards per player so 2-player games will have 20 wound cards while 5-player games will have 50 wound cards.

One area in which Nightfall differs from other deck-building card games is in the private archive. Before the game begins a draft is held to determine which cards will be available for everybody to recruit, known as the commons, and which cards will only be available to each particular player, known as the private archive. It’s a neat little gameplay mechanic that offers each player a jumping off point for the type of deck they want to build during the game. Once the commons and private archives are established it is time to play the game.

Players take turns in a clockwise order. Each turn consists of 4 phases; the combat phase, the chain phase, the claim phase, and the cleanup phase. During the combat phase a player can attack other players with their minions if they have any in play. They can have their minions attack any of the players and they can spread out their attack against more than one player. So a player with 3 minions in play can attack Player A with 2 minions and Player B with 1 minion.  In this scenario Player A and Player B are then able to block these attacks with their own minions they have in play. Any unblocked damage will result in one wound card per unblocked damage point for the defending player. Once all damage is done you must discard all of your minions in play unless their card text dictates that they stay in play.

The next phase is the chain phase and it is another area where Nightfall differs from most other deck-building card games. Each card has a big, colored moon in the top-left corner which displays the color card it is. Each card also has two smaller moons of different colors underneath the big, colored moon. These smaller moons represent the link colors for that card. The player whose turn it is starts a chain with the card of their choosing and then links as many cards as they can, depending on which eligible link cards they have in their hand. Once they can no longer continue the chain the other player(s) are allowed the opportunity to continue the chain with cards in their hand(s). Once the chain has ended the cards in the chain are played out in reverse order, or last in – first out. Effects are placed on the top of the owner’s discard pile after they are resolved while minions are placed in play after they are resolved. Any effects cannot be applied to unresolved minions.

Next up is the claim phase. During the claim phase the player whose turn it is uses any influence they have to add cards to their deck. Each player starts their turn with 2 influence points but can add influence points with cards they added to the chain or by discarding any remaining cards in their hand. Each discarded card gains them 1 influence point. Part of the strategy is not only trying to attain cards with certain powers but also paying attention to what cards you have in your deck that will help build longer chains. As mentioned before cards that are part of the commons can be attained by any player but cards in a player’s private archive are only available to attain by that player.

Finally we have the cleanup phase. In the cleanup phase the player draws cards to build their hand back up to 5 cards. If a player draws a wound card they can play the effect of that wound card at this time. A wound card allows you to discard all wound cards in your hand and draw 2 cards per wound card discarded. So if you have 3 wound cards in your hand you will discard them and redraw 6 cards to your hand for a total of 8 cards in your hand. Any wound cards at this point cannot be discarded for another 2 cards but they can be discarded during your next claim phase to gain 1 influence point per wound card discarded. This gameplay mechanic gives players with more wounds the potential to stack their deck and pull off some pretty powerful turns subscribing to the old “there’s nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal” theory.

Play continues until the end of the turn where all wound cards have been assigned.  It is possible for more wounds to be assigned then the number of wound cards the game started with. So in a 2-player game, for example, when the 20^th wound card has been assigned the game will end at the end of that turn but any damage dealt before the end of that turn will also be added to the game. At the end of the game the player with the least amount of wound cards is the winner. If there is a tie then each type of wound card is tallied and each player’s highest count for the 3 wound types is used and the player with the lowest high count is the winner.

As an app:

One thing that is very noticeable is that Nightfall just feels like a bigger budget title than Playdek’s two previous releases. That’s not to say that A:CotG and Food Fight come off as low-budget, it’s just that Nightfall takes the excellent foundation of those games and ups the ante. The menu system will have players of their previous titles feeling right at home but once the game starts, the higher ante starts to show itself. There are a lot of transition animations between phases that really bring the game to life.

At first it will take newer players a while to catch on as the slick animations and transitions are quick but once you have a solid grasp of the game mechanics it really adds to the polish of the game. As with their previous releases, there is an option to slow down the game speed and animation speed to help take it all in as you are learning the game.

The standard game modes are available with the ability to play offline with up to 4 other human or AI controlled players or asynchronous online. Visually, the artwork is fantastic and really pulls you into the Nightfall world. It feels like a cross between Magic: the Gathering and Shadowrun. The music matches the vibe perfectly and rounds out the great package.

Final Thoughts:

Being a fan of Playdek, Inc’s previous releases I had some pretty high expectations for Nightfall going in. They are really coming into their own with their digital adaptations of card games and Nightfall proves to be their piéce de résistance. It definitely helps that the game itself is a lot of fun to play, but regardless Playdek has shown why it is the premiere developer of digital card games with this release.

Grade: A

Nightfall

Playdek, Inc.

$4.99

iPhone/iPad universal

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nightfall/id493828796?mt=8

Recently, I pulled the trigger on A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition). I have (and love) the original, and both of the previous expansions (Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords), so I had an internal debate on if I should or did I even need to buy the Second Edition. Need clearly won out, so I made the mouse click and added it to a recent game order.

I did something a little different when it came in though, I decided to break out the original edition(s) and unbox the Second Edition at the same time to see what was actually new and what was “borrowed” from the original game. Much to my surprise, a lot of the “new” was there already. Anyway, here are the Top 10 things that caught my eye with the Second Edition and I will tell you if they are new to the AGoT Board Game or if they are merged from a previous expansion.

One of the most requested changes for this game. . .

1. Player Screens

Player Screens are a NEW element.

These had to be one of the biggest requests from the original game. The first edition forced you to come up with a system to hide what actions you placed on the board and caused for a lot of confusion and wasted a bit of time as folks fumbled with their piles. A much needed and welcome addition for sure.

2.On Board Victory Track

The Victory Track is a NEW element.

This is “New” to the Base Board Game, but there was technically a victory track on the 4-Player Expansion Board that came with A Storm of Swords Expansion, a good idea from a very well done expansion board. In the original, you kind of had to take a break after a number of turns to see where everyone was. . .this keeps score in real-time and will certainly help move the game along.

3. Wildlings Deck

The Wildlings Deck is Borrowed

At first glance, I thought this was a new element, but it actually was introduced in the Storm of Swords Expansion. The Wildlings Deck will make bidding for the wildling attacks much more interesting as the bonus(es) for bidding the most will be variable and not simply gain back a house card.

4. The Garrison Token

The Garrison Token is Borrowed

This great concept was first introduced in the 4-Player Variant found in A Storm of Swords. Essentially, it allows for you to have a standing defense at your home castle and send more troops into the field–more carnage is a good thing in my book.

Did Fantasy Flight do a good job of turning three games into one?

5.  Neutral Force Tokens and additional Map Locations

Technically the Neutral Force Tokens are Old and the Additional Map Locations are Borrowed

There were Neutral Force Tokens in the First Edition, but the Second Edition Expands the amount of tokens and makes them variable to the number of players in the game. The reason for this is that the New Board is actually the board as it looks if you were playing the original 6-Player Variant found in the Clash of Kings Expansion, which was an overlay that was set on top of the board. This expansion (rightly) added a number of valuable territories in the south and it looks like taking these over will be a bit harder now in the Second Edition. So, if you’ve only seen the First Edition, the new map is significantly different from the original board, but it’s not going to be new to folks who have played AGoT with six.

6. The Siege Engine

The Siege Engine is Borrowed.

The Siege Engine was an often over-looked addition via the Clash of Kings Expansion. It is an offensive only tool to add +4 attacks against Castles and Strongholds. It has no defensive value and is likely best used in support. Anyway, it’s a fun piece that adds some strategic flavor but I’m on the fence if it is better than just using your two muster points for a Knight.

7. Ports

Ports are a Borrowed element.

Ports were the most welcome and most used addition to the original game introduced in the Clash of Kings expansion. In the original game, if a House held a sea space and another house bordered it, they couldn’t muster boats without going into immediate conflict. Ports fixed this and were a welcome sight when I saw that these were blended into the map in the Second Edition–a well thought out fix rightfully lives on.

8. Variable Westeros Cards

Variable Westeros Cards are Borrowed

Variable Westeros Cards were actually introduced in the Storm of Swords Expansion. Basically, what these do is allows for the leader of the three influence tracks to manipulate the Westeros phase. Essentially, it makes bidding for the seats of power more important than ever.

One of these just got a lot stronger. . .

9. Special Order and Dominance Token Changes

These Changes are New

These aren’t really new physical elements to the game, but rather critical changes to what you can do on your turn–all of these are new and certainly significant.

The Messenger Raven now allows you to either change an order or look in the Wildling Deck–as we mentioned before, these cards greatly award the high bidder and having the Raven will allow you to look at and put the top card of the Wildling deck on the bottom if it might be in someone else’s favor.

The Special Raid can now remove an opponent’s Defensive Order. A huge change to the previous edition of the AGoT rules.

The Special Consolidate Power can now MUSTER a  unit at a Castle or Stronghold region instead of providing just additional power. This can certainly change the tide of battle if you are stuck without a special token and the Mustering Card does not come up in the Westeros phase. A huge change, but a great one in my opinion.

10. Tides of Battle Cards

Tides of Battle is a NEW element.

This is the one new, and optional rule, that took me by surprise. These cards add a significant amount of luck and chance into the battles, which I am not sure will work well or not (just haven’t had the chance to try it yet) . Anyway, how I read it is that these cards add additional strength and carnage to the battles. Basically, when this option is used, both the attacker and defender will draw a card and apply that to the battle. . .it will add number to the house card, an additional sword or castle icon or worst yet a skull which forces the opponent–WIN or LOSE–to take a casualty. Anyway, this certainly will add some chaos to the current battle process, so it’ll be interesting to see how well this may work out.

The Final Count

So, upon further review, we have 10 elements that stand out in the Second Edition of A Game of Thrones and here is how it breaks out:

NEW Elements: 4

Borrowed Elements: 5.5

Old Elements: 0.5

Some are clearly well thought out and I love all of the borrowed elements from the original expansions, right now, I am really happy with the purchase and look forward to testing out those Tides of Battle Cards real soon.

In fact, I ordered some games last Sunday and received them on Friday morning, so that was pretty sweet, but something I saw on Saturday struck me as odd and inspired these thoughts: what if Target or some other local retailer expanded their Toy Section to include Hobby Board Games and how would that affect the current landscape.

Per the picture I snapped below, there were around 10 or so what I would call “Hobby Games” on the shelves at my local Target on Saturday. This has grown from “occasionally  just a few” over the past couple of months.

It’s always a bit of a shock to see “real” board games at the store and clearly, it’s a small and odd cross-section of games. The weirdest being the Fantasy Flight Mix of games where you can buy Rune Age, Lord of the Rings (that old co-op game–not the LCG) or Deadwood (and something else that is escaping me at the moment).

So, the question is, if this section was expanded, what would that mean for the boardgame hobbyist, the online game store, and the local game store?

First, the Hobbyist

Assuming the games were reasonably priced, and more broadly available, I could certainly see new titles finding their way into my cart during the weekly grocery run. Who needs steak if there was a fresh copy of Rex, 7 Wonders or the latest Dominion Expansion staring you down in the game aisle.

That being said, I think this would be great for the hobbyist in two ways, one it would give them broader access to their favorite games and second (and likely more important) it would give more exposure of great games to the public. So hopefully, instead of buying a boring classic, someone might grab Ticket to Ride or Catan for their Son/Daughter/Nephew/Niece/Family Friend and introduce their world to a different side of gaming.

Impact: Mostly Positive

Next, the Online Game Retailer

I kind of touched on this before, but it’s worth stating again. Why do people go to Online Shops for games? The price and the volume of game available. Thus, I doubt that if Target (or other Retailers) having games will stop people from going to their favorite online shop to put in their massive game orders. If anything it might make those orders a bit smaller from time to time when the game they are looking for again, mysteriously finds itself next to the bread and Apple Jacks.

Impact: Mostly Neutral

Finally, the Local Game Retailer

If anyone would be affected by an expansion of hobby games into the Big Box retailers, it would be the local game shop. But even so, I don’t think their core customer would abandon them for the toy aisle. In fact, it might be a net positive if people stumble into a couple of cool new board games at Target or Wal-mart and then subsequently seek out more of these games at their local game shop.

Ultimately, it would take a huge expansion into gaming to take a huge chunk of share from the local game store, and this is something that I frankly don’t expect to see anytime soon.

Impact: Neutral with a slight edge toward negative

Anyway, I think seeing games at my local Target is generally a welcome sight. I think as boardgamers, we need to embrace any effort someone (or in this case a corporation) out there takes in bringing positive publicity and awareness to the hobby. There are way too many great games out there and far too people actually playing them for us to complain about something like this. For now, I will keep an eye on this and let you know what I see over the next few weeks/months.

Something funny happened after that exchange as we started to play. That bystander was joined by two more. Around 90 minutes later all 3 of them had decided to watch Lord’s being played then start up some other game of their own. There was a similar experience with the four players who were all new to the game. During turns one and two (LOWD is played over 8 turns) I heard things like “This could be a game about selling vegetables” or “I don’t really see the logic in only allowing one player to purchase a building a turn”  This is not true by the way, intrigue cards can circumvent this but I’m getting off point.

Somewhere around turn 3 or 4 is when things start to change. The game starts to pick up, the strategies needed to win start to make more sense and the theme that some commented felt pasted on at the beginning is starting to shine threw in player reactions and responses.

Around turn 7 the game is a heated affair, as heated as a Euro game can get anyway. Players are vying to get on certain buildings to collect adventures or they are working their plans via intrigue cards trying to slow down another players bid to complete a 25 point quest.

Waterdeep in it's glory

When round 8 is complete and the secret Lord cards are revealed, victory point totals are finalized. This is when the full weight of Lord’s of Waterdeep game play can be felt. Players talk about their moves, things they could have done better or plans that were thwarted. The player who made the vegetable comment earlier comments on how well the theme makes the whole game work. “I don’t know if this game would be this much fun if it had a different theme.”

Players who chided the game because it was D&D themed are now talking about how well it plays. One day someone will need to explain to me why a majority of  board gamers seem to think it is uncool to play role playing games.  In the end players walk away satisfied with what they just played.  It was fast, easy to understand, the theme worked incredibly well and above all it was fun. Those bystanders who watched the whole game look at me wondering if I’ll play another. Why of course I will, step right up gentlemen…

Components

Lords of Waterdeep comes in an unusual box which is oddly sized. It is meant to look like a large book or tome. The lid is roughly a quarter of the size of the rest of the box. Inside you’re going to find a well laid out insert that at first glance will make you think if used, your pieces will end up everywhere during transport. That once again is a misconception because the insert works like a charm, as long as no one picks up the box and flips it over.

The game comes with a nicely illustrated board which is clearly laid out. In an era of over art production it is nice to see a game that keeps it simple but retains a great artistic feel.  Spaces are labeled on the board clearly. There is no guessing at what cards are what. Quest cards say quest on the back, intrigue say intrigue and, well you get the idea. There are components for 5 players. These consist of a player mat, a scoring token, 5 wooden agent markers, card board chits to maker building ownership and to indicate passing 100 victory points.

Box and insert

In addition to this you have wooden markers for Start Player as well as an Ambassador and Lieutenant marker which act as extra agents in some games. Card board chits for gold pieces and victory points are also included. There are 100 adventure cubes, 25 in each color. Purple for wizards, white for clerics, black for rogues and orange for fighters. There are 24 building tiles that add a random element to the games as not every building will come into play.

Finally for cards you have 11 Lords of Waterdeep cards which represent each players secret end of game victory point scoring. 50 intrigue cards which can be used for things such as attacking other players cube supply to bolstering your own. Last but certainly not least, 60 quest cards that are the main way to score victory points during the game.

Everything in my copy was of excellent quality. I fully expect to hear noise on the card material as it is pretty much the same that Wizards uses in the D&D adventure games but I don’t have an issue with it. I give the game high marks from a quality perspective and equally high from an artistic one. While you can only make a map of a city so interesting the card art work is fantastic.

Game Play

Players start the game with some gold, 2 face up quests, their secret Lord card and 2 intrigue cards. They also start with a number of agents which is based on the how many players are in the game.  In a five player game they get 2 agents and in a two player game they start with 4.

Placing an agent.

No matter how many agents they start with an extra agent is placed near turn 5 on the turn track and all players get that extra agent on that turn. The game plays very differently with more players. In a 2 player game you’ll be making 4 and then 5 actions in a round so you get to do a lot more. In contrast in a 5 player game you only get 2 and then 3 actions. You also have 4 other players to keep tabs on which can often result in your plans being altered by another players move.

On a turn you can place an agent and then if you can solve an available quest you control. Of course you need to meet the requirements to solve these quests. That is paid off with adventure cubes and sometimes gold as well.  There are also quest types such as piety, warfare and commerce.  Those Lord cards you received at the start of game give you an end of game scoring bonus. For example one Lord might say score 4 vp for each skulldugery and commerce quest you have completed.

Builders Hall

The game board has some basic building on it that grant various items or benefits. For example the Blackstaff Tower lets you take one wizard (purple cube) into your tavern, think supply but it’s aptly named tavern for theme purposes. While Builders Hall lets you pay for and build one of the 3 buildings currently available. Buying buildings is something usually done by the start player for the round as it grants several benefits. First on the game round track there are 3 victory point tokens and at the start of each round you put one vp token on each building in builders hall.

This grants an immediate vp boost for the player buying the building but it also makes buildings that sit in builders hall longer more enticing as they start to accumulate vp tokens each round. When you buy a building you put it on one of the blank building spots and mark it with your control marker.  At this point you have opened a shop for other players to visit and these building offer lots of neat things. It is also beneficial to you because there is an owner payout each time someone visits.

Game in action

Lets use the House of Heroes as an example. Once in play a player may place an agent there and then take 1 white and 2 orange cubes from the supply. As payment the owner may take either a white or orange cube from the supply. Building give out different owner benefits beside cubes,. Some offer money, intrigue cards or even victory points.

In case you haven’t figured it out by now you can only place one agent on a building. So if another player places where you wanted to first you’re out of luck. There are a few building which adjust this rule. One is Cliffwatch Inn and it accepts 3 players. The inn is where you get more quest cards and each space on the inn provides a different reward. One space gets you a quest card of your choice and two gold. I should note there are always 4 face up quest in the inn. Another gets you a quest card of your choice and an intrigue card. The last lets you sweep away all 4 available quest, put out 4 news ones and claim one of them.

The second building which accepts 3 people is Waterdeep Harbor and using the spot is crucial to winning the game in my opinion. Waterdeep Harbor is the only place you can play an intrigue card and those cards are usually very good. The other bonus of going to the harbor is after everyone has placed all their agents you can then reassign your agent from the harbor to an empty space. In essence you get to play an intrigue card and get another play. The Harbor only takes 3 agents and has spots labeled 1, 2 and 3. So reassignment is done in order. First in, first out so to speak.

A quest card

After all the reassignments are done the round ends. Players take back their agents and a new round commences. The game mechanics are incredibly simple, so much so that the rules reference on the back is all you need to refer to 99% of the time. The rule book does contain every building description in case the iconography doesn’t make sense. There are also some clarifications as well. The Palace of Waterdeep is one building you should read in the rules if it comes into play as it has a lot of clarifications.

Final Thoughts

In case there is any doubt I am enamored beyond belief with this game. If you’re a long time reader you know “euro’s” aren’t my thing but Lords of Waterdeep doesn’t elicited any of the feelings I usually have when playing that genre of game. Maybe it is the theme. There is something far more interesting in the idea of hiring mercenaries to conduct elicited operations on my behalf then say harvesting coffee beans.  Perhaps it’s the simple mechanics but thought provoking game play. It certainly doesn’t hurt that a game can be finished in 60-90 minutes.

In the end I can’t put my finger on what makes Lords of Waterdeep so special. It’s a mash up of mechanics, simplicity and theme that is thrown together to deliver a well thought out and fun experience. I keep thinking back to my first 5 player game and those three guys watching and then longing to play. I have never watched a complete game being played when I could of done something else.  With the game releasing today I fully expect to see many glowing reviews coming soon and Lords deserves the praise.

What’s Good

• Fast game play
• Great and simple mechanics
• Variety of building and Lord cards to keep game fresh
• Theme

What’s Not so Good

When I write about board games I often find myself pondering the consequences of flavor-of-the-month trends and the hive mentality of gamers like myself. I know what I want, but why? Why did I buy half a dozen deck-building games? Why do I buy expansion after expansion for games that I rarely play? How is the next-great-thing any different than the last-great-thing? And why, oh why, did I pine so long and hard for a re-release of a 30+ year old design of a game that I actually own but I’d never managed to play?

Rex: Final Days of an Empire

Original Design: Bill Eberle, Jack Kittredge and Peter Olotka

FFG Redevelopment: Corey Konieczka and John Goodenough

For 3-6 Player, 5 or more highly recommended

Playtime 3-4 Hours

Expect to pay $60 Local, around $40 Online

33 Years Old and 4 Years in the Making

Fans of the original Dune as well as of publisher Fantasy Flight are undoubtedly aware of the whole Dune-to-Rex debacle as it were, so I won’t waste a lot of words on it. The key to the story is that FFG were so anxious to spill the beans about securing the license of the game and then they couldn’t even get it to the market for four years. Delays weren’t even due to the Dune license that proved legally unattainable, as that was part of the original announcement if my memory serves. Instead, the games existence was relegated to being referred to simply as “Not-Dune” on the old BGN website for what seemed like forever. It wasn’t until last year’s GenCon that gamers even saw their first proof that the game wasn’t just a figment of their over desirous imaginations.  So let’s check in with “Not Dune” and see if the four year production schedule left it any worse for wear.

Note: Through the remainder of this review I’ll try and separate commentary and comparison to the original game as much as possible, BBG user Tempus42 has done a series of side by-side comparisons between the mechanics and components of the two games, it’s far more through and complete than I could ever touch upon here and recommend it to anyone interested.

Moving On Up to Mecatol City

Rex finds the FFG development team air lifting the original Dune design off the planet Arrakis and dropping it smack into the middle of Mecatol City, set in the Twilight Imperium universe. Here players represent one of six of the greater TI factions vying for control of the city, and by extension the galaxy. This is a pure conflict driven game; players win with tenuous alliances, betrayal and combat. There is no turtle strategy, timid players will find no refuge, and one does not simply make friends and play nice: you could try, but the dagger you’ll find in your back will be well earned. In this I found Rex playing much like its FFG cousin-by-marriage A Game of Thrones, both games rely on a steady stream of area control, influence brokering and tense, diceless combat with limited hidden information.

Rules Overview

Gameplay of Rex lasts a maximum of 8 turns, but can end sooner if, at the end of a turn a single player controls 3 of the 5 strongholds, a dual alliance holds 4, or a three way alliance controls all 5. Turns of Rex are blissfully procedural and flow smoothly along and, save for combat heavy rounds, downtime and analysis paralysis is nearly non-existent save for those with excessively ponderous players in their groups.

At the start of a round influence (read: money) is placed in two spaces on the board for players to move to and gather. Occasionally the influence deck will grant players an opportunity to publicly discuss and form alliances by trading alliance cards that also grant an ability to joined players. These are the only binding alliances you can make, and you can’t just break them whenever you like, so players are advised to make them with care and caution.

After the influence phase players will blindly bid, one at a time, on number of strategy cards equal to the number of players. These cards are split between combat attack and defense cards that do things like kill or protect leaders and grant combat bonuses. The remainder of the deck is one use cards that do various things during various game phases, such as recruit extra units or grant an additional movement step.

Over the next two phases players will, in turn, recruit lost units and leaders then make a single movement and a single deployment onto a single space on the board. Recruiting and deploying both cost influence and special care must be spent to ensure one doesn’t pick foolish battles; they cost too much and can leave you reeling and struggling to regain footing.

The “Battle Dial Combat System” as it is referred is clearly one of the strongest elements of the design of Rex. Both combatants will, in secret, select a number of troops to commit to a battle. While the loser in a combat takes all units in the space off the board the winner will also lose the number of troops they selected on the battle dial, hence if you commit too few and lose you lose everything in the space. If you commit too many and win, you lose a large chunk of expensive troops and are left with a poorly defended location.  In addition to committing troops to battle both players will commit a leader token onto the battle dial, this placement also determines if the player will play no strategy cards, an attack, a defense or both types of cards. Once revealed and cards committed conflict is resolved. Strategy cards will frequently kill or protect leaders, once these are resolved the victor is determined. Troop value + leader value (if surviving), higher value wins, the losing faction discards all troops and cards. The final aspect of combat is the traitor cards. At game start each player selects a single traitor from 4 that they are dealt, this traitor represents one of the leaders an opponent may play in combat. If you find yourself in a combat facing this leader playing this card wins the combat outright, with no loses on your side.

To end a round players collect influence from their locations, 2 influence per unit located there, plus 2 just for being a participating contestant, after that, the top card of the Bombardment deck is revealed, and the Sol Dreadnaught Fleet sweets across the board 1 to 6 spaces and destroys all influence and units in unshielded locations.  At this point players check to see if a single player or alliance has scored a victory.

As I stated earlier it takes a single player 3 strongholds to win the game, while a two and 3 player alliance 4 or 5 stronghold respectively. After 8 turns if there is no straight up victory the Sol player can win by controlling 2 specific locations, and if he cannot, then the Hacan player wins automatically. While all players on an alliance will share victory Rex also includes a set of 8 optional (read: delightful) Betrayal cards. Once an alliance has won a player can declare betrayal if they meet the conditions stated on the card they received at game start, if multiple players betray the most difficult betrayal will decide the winner.

Mixing it up a Little

Like the other game designed by the original design team, Cosmic Encounter, Rex sets up the rules, but then gives each player a unique faction that immediately alters and breaks the rules, so fans/haters of variable player power games will equally have plenty to be thrilled/irritated by. Of the six included factions they run the gamut from bland, such as the Lazax, who get money when other players win influence card bids and they also have 5 mechanized (double-strength) units. To the treacherous Barony of Letnev who receives 4 times as many traitor cards and receive a free strategy card whenever they buy one.  Most of the powers and abilities seemed to be fairly balanced, however, I felt like the Federation of Sol was weakened by lack of money through most games and crippled because even though they deploy for free, they can only do so on one section of the game board. Sol seemed built to delay the game to turn 8 and try for their victory to control the Imperial Palace and Mecatol Power South.  The Hacan, however, receive all influence from player deployment and were always flush with cash to purchase strategy cards, units and lost leaders and as such seemed to have an edge in combat.

Commentary

So, as my gamer group friends are well aware I’ve been waiting with anticipation for this game to finally be released. I own a classic copy of the original Dune but have been reluctant to get past just reading it mostly due to its pristine, unpunched condition, it seemed like a waste to destroy something so collectable buy, gasp, actually playing it. This edition is a godsend, I’ll admit, I crave the chrome of the modern era of games, and the archaic style of rules production remains complicated and unintuitive, yes, there’s a reason they don’t write them that way anymore. For their part, this has got to be the most clean and concise set of rules I’ve seen come out of FFG perhaps ever. There is a short clarification sheet included, however, only one item is actually a correction of a misprint, the remainder are simply clarifications.

It isn’t fair to consider Rex to be a descendent of Diplomacy style games, the triggered alliance formation phase of the game and the binding nature of Alliances in play make outright deception unlikely. The game rules likewise rule out any secretive talk or side conversations, so the initial impression of the sneaky deals, negotiations and betrayals I had in my head didn’t pan out once the game was on the table and that’s probably, in the end, for the best. Since the heart of the game lies in careful expense of resources and managing combat with minimal losses anyone foolish enough to make risky gambits over non-binding table alliances deserves the die by the sword.

As for the gameplay itself, Rex definitely felt “Classic” without feeling “Old”, and I’ll put that all on the redevelopment team focusing their efforts on modernizing the components and the rules while largely leaving the core of the game untouched. When photos of the Rex game board first hit the web you could nearly hear the audible gasp across the interwebs over the decidedly Arkham Horror-esque board, the extreme shock and dismay in such a drastic change from the original boards planetary surface replaced by boring circles and paths between them, but the end result, while visually a flat, dull yellow, it serves as a perfect modernization in terms of gameplay.

For me the heart of the gameplay of Rex resides in the clever execution of the Battle Dial system, the elements all work together to be a little more than the sum of their parts. The strategy cards add a double sided ‘rock-paper-scissors’ element to the use of leaders while the dial adds a ‘risk management’ element and traitors provide that little extra gamble that can make for some fun moments. However, combat does lead to an amount of downtime that can bore non-participating players, especially in the late game when the alliances have to pull out all stops to secure the stronghold locations. Further, when a player gets pounded on their stance is so weakened that they may have difficult time recovering, if at all. Their best hope at that point is to be a member of an alliance that can work together to protect its interests while rebuilding.

Where it Works

Combat is compelling and risky, but not overly complicated. This is an aggressive game that leaves no room for passive strategies and conflict fans and grudge holders will eat this up. Components are of top-notch quality as expected. I feel like Rex can provide many repeated plays and a reasonable pace once players are familiar with the rules, without needing half a dozen expansions to keep players interested.

Where it Falls Short

While Rex plays with as little as three players, the six player test game we played was by far the best, and players may have a hard time twisting 5 other arms into playing a four hour game. Also, the Dreadnaught Fleet figure stand is clumsy, and hard to move without grabbing them by the ships themselves, I fear every time they get handled roughly the plastic could snap and break. I would have rather had this component be a cardboard cutout stand or token. Player factions seem fairly balanced, but some seem bent to a less flexible strategy. Alliance forming is dependent on an action card appearing from the influence deck, our first test play didn’t see any alliances until the near end of the game.

Over All – B+

Everything old is new again. Rex won’t be a top 10 game for me, but it definitely fills a hole in my game collection. A longer playing conflict game that all but requires 6 players, Rex is full of vicious, fun and engaging gameplay marred by some lesser, superficial quibbles. Not for the faint of heart or short of attention span.

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a cooperative card game for 2-5 players. Unlike most CCG’s or the ever popular LCG’s. Sentinels is a fixed deck card game.  Each player takes on the role as one of 10 heroes the game comes with.  They will then attempt to stop the evil plans of one of the 4 villains which are run by the games mechanics. These battles takes place in one of 4 different  environments which also effect how the game unfolds.

In one recent playing of Sentinels a player called it “card chaos” and that is a perfect way to sum up how a game of Sentinels plays. It has a definite comic book feel that comes through in the art work and characters in the game.

Components

This could be one of the quickest component sections break downs of all time. Sentinels comes with 578 cards in a box. A box to small to fit those 578 cards in any organized manner. There is also a full color rule book which in my opinion is not well laid out and is missing clarifications to some basic game mechanics. Fortunately the game can be figured out fairly easily and if you just follow the rules without assuming intent, even if the intent makes a lot of sense you will be fine.

However the heroes, villains and many of the other cards have hit points and the game give you nothing to track them with.  They suggest using a pen and paper which is ridiculous as you often want to look at a mobile defense platform card and see how many hits are on it.  Bottom line is you will need something like glass beads or hit counters from another game. There are some clever fan made dials for the heroes and of course endless ways to track these items. I just find it really unacceptable that no solution was included for a game whose main mechanic is killing villains and heroes.

One of many fan made files for donwload

In terms of style Sentinels has it going on big time. The rule book, the art work on the cards all look just like the super hero comic books I read growing up. While some of the names and art work might be a bit on the corny side, they are very well done.

Game Play

First of all this game is hard, very hard. The more players you have the easier time you will have with the game. I find 2 player games almost impossible and 3 player games are a crap shoot. I’m not citing this as a bad thing, the last thing you want out of a cooperative game is it being too easy. Having said that the game doesn’t seem to scale very well to the amount of players so that is something to consider.

The game comes with 4 villains and 4 environments and this is what your team of super heroes will be battling.  Each villain is progressively harder and has specific set up conditions and rules on his card. For example Baron Blade is trying to pull the moon into the sun to destroy the world or something like that.  He has a front side and back side to his card. Once you deal him enough HP on the front side he flips and then you continue to pound on him. Like I said they all have special rules and The Barron wins the game if he gets so many card in his discard pile.

Cover of rule book

The environments also throw challenges as the players and sometimes the bad guys as well. Some environment cards stay out until you do something, others happen and get discarded. The effects are not always bad but seldom are they beneficial to your team without some consequence.

A turn is Sentinels is broken down as follows.

1. Villain Turn – The villain turn is broken into 3 phases. At the start phase you follow any instructions on cards in the villains play area that say start of turn. You then play a card from the top of the villain deck. Finally you follow any instructions on cards in play that say end or turn.

2. Hero Turn – Now proceeding clockwise from the Villain deck each hero takes a turn. A hero’s turn is broken into 5 phases. There is a start and end phase just like the villain. The hero may also play a card from their hand, these cards vary in what they do. Some are instant and discarded, some go into the play area and have powers on them. After choosing to play(or not play) a card the hero may activate a power from a card in play. Typically heroes can only use one power but some heroes or situations dictate the use of more. Regardless of how many powers a hero can use, each card in the play area may only be activated once.  Finally there is the draw phase where the hero may draw the top card from his deck to his hand. To avoid confusion here is the hero turn phases in order: Start, Play, Power, Draw and End.

3. Environment Phase – This phase is identical to the villain pahse except you’re drawing from the environment deck.

Summary

As you can see the game turn and mechanics are very simple. There are a few more rules like the Nemesis rule in that certain villains and heroes do more damage against each other but these additional rules are easy to follow. The game however can get crazy in a hurry. As cards come into play and powers are used you will constantly have to recall all of these effects that are going on not only with your character but also the villain and environment.

As I said my friend had the perfect description in that Sentinels is card chaos.  There can be so many modifiers and adjustments going on at once the game can feel beyond chaotic. Also keep in mind there are a whole slew of keywords for cards that are found in the rules. There are different types of damage and defenses. This is not a game for the person who doesn’t like to calculate because you will be doing it a lot. The game can fall apart very easily and very fast due to card combinations that you sometimes have no chance of defending against because they just happen on the draw.

This is also not a game for the over analyzer. We all know that player, we dread playing certain games with him or her because they analyze every move. Sentinels is not a game for analysis it’s game to be played for the fun and chaotic nature of it.  For this reason alone Sentinels is a game you should at least try but it certainly will not be for everyone.

What I Liked

The game is fun if you’re in the right mindset and it tells a real campy comic book super hero story. The art work on the cards and the character bios show a lot of thought went into this game.

What I Didn’t Like

I’m sorry no way to track health is inexcusable. The box is useless once the game is opened. I understand there are close to 600 cards in the game and a majority of them have unique art work but you could at least release some free pdf download for keeping hits. As I said the fans have done the job for yet another company but just keep this in mind before buying.

Over All – C+

Sentinels is a good game but it revolves around a lot of luck and is chaotic in nature. Some may argue the best super hero comic books and movies do the same but those are different mediums, they are not games. If your group enjoys a game that just delivers a good beer & pretzels experience where you can laugh at your utter destruction and cheer when you win the day without having any clue how it happened then this is a game you’ll enjoy.  With more components and a usable storage solution then Sentinels is a B but as delivered it gets marked down for me. Your mileage may vary depending upon how strongly you feel about having to supply bits for a new game.

Playdek, a leading mobile video game publisher, today announced it has partnered with GMT Games, a leading developer of multiple award-winning wargames and strategy board games, to bring the company’s popular Commands & Colors franchise to the digital platform. The first game released  will be based on the wildly successful  Commands & Colors: Ancients and will allow mobile gamers to experience the intensity of ancient warfare virtually anywhere via smart phone or tablet device.

The Commands & Colors: Ancients game allows players to experience the rush of ancient battle and gain insights into the tactics of the great Greek and Roman military leaders.  The game is fast-playing yet historically detailed and its faithful audience has clamored for multiple printings and expansion packs. Based on the success of this series, GMT released Commands & Colors: Napoleonics allowing players to relive the intense strategic world of the Napoleonic battlefield.

“GMT’s wargames series are phenomenally detailed and historically accurate. The games translate well into the digital realm and will make amazing mobile games,” said, Joel Goodman, CEO, Playdek. “We respect GMT’s great game design and are honored to bring these to life in a new format to reach all new audiences.”

“We are thrilled to be working with the outstanding professional team at Playdek. They have a passion for games and they pay extreme attention to detail,” said Gene Billingsley, founder, GMT Games. “When the opportunity came to work with such a talented group with a track record of creating immersive, well-designed, and thoroughly-tested games, we jumped at the chance.”

Look for the first games from the Playdek and GMT Games partnership to arrive later in 2012. For more information, please go to www.playdekgames.com.

“Mobile gamers everywhere get ready to battle vampires, werewolves, and ghouls as Playdek and AEG’s  Nightfall will soon launch on iOS gaming devices. In this all new deck-building game, based on the popular board game by AEG, the un-dead creatures of night come out in a post-apocalyptic world to battle each other and you as their Master must be cunning, strategic and just as bloodthirsty to stop them.

 Today we are revealing screenshots to give you and your readers a taste of the chilling new game”

You can also find these images on our facebook page.

Countless games have been made recreating this famous campaign. Paul Koenig’s Market Garden: Arnhem Bridge is the first in a series of games covering the battles of Market Garden. What sets Arnhem Bridge Apart from many other games on the subject matter it is geared towards introductory war gamers. It also plays very fast and exceptionally well from a solitaire perspective.

Components

Arnhem Bridge is  typical Victory Point Games component quality. You’ll get one 11×17 map printed on a thicker card stock. The map is nicely done and easy to read. The top half of the map contains  the tables you will need to play the game. There are 40 1/2″ double sided sqaure counter to represent the forces in the game. There are also 28 round marker to represent things like Artillery, Allied support, hits and game turn.

Also included is a 4 page rules summary for the system in general and then a single sheet rules pull out for this specific scenario. This scenario specific insert will contain set up information and any deviation in rules.  So again if you’re the type of gamer that is looking for mounted map boards with double thick counters then victory point games is not going to be the company for you. However if you’re looking for well designed, fast playing games then you should continue to read.

Game Play

Arnhem Bridge is a two player war game but as I previously stated it plays a hell of a solo game. You can literally be up in playing in 30 minutes or even less once you take everything out of the bag and read the short rule set. Arnhem Bridge is a chit pull game which is part of the reason it works as a solo game. Units are assigned to a division, regiment and battalion all of which are printed on the chits. They are also color coded for even easier reference.

Each division has an HQ chit which ends up in a cup (not included) or some other opaque container you can pull them from. At the start of the game there are a few German units on the board, and there are several Allied units that can come in from off board. The Allies has the element of surprise so this first batch of airborne troops is safely on the ground, more on that in a minute. So at games start there are HQ chits in the cup for the German troops on the board and Allied units off board.

Players then pull a chit from the cup and that division is now active. The controlling player can then take turns with all the units for that division.  Each unit can move up to it’s full movement allowance which is printed on it’s chit. Movement is modified by terrain and also night turns. A unit can also choose not to move and conduct a full fire attack on an adjacent hex. A unit can also do a combined action where it moves using half of it’s movement allowance and then can attack using half of it’s combat strength. Finally a unit can move into an enemy units hex for 2 movement points to conduct close combat.

Moving into an enemy hex is not something typically found in this level of game. Usually you have zones of control which force players to stop their units if adjacent to an enemy.  Arnhem Bridge goes another route entirely. Each hex has a stacking limit of 2 units. It doesn’t matter if those units are enemy or friendly. So you could prevent close combat by having two friendly units stacked together and on the flip side you could not command 2 friendly units to enter melee with one enemy unit.  Because there are no Zones of Control you can also leave exposed areas in your line that the enemy can slip through.

All of this is important because one of the ways to score huge victory points in this game is by eliminating, or if you’re the German player, escaping a lone German unit. On turn 2 of the game the German 9th SS Recon division enters at the top of the map. The German player needs to get this unit to exit the bottom edge of the map at any of the road side hexes before the end of the game. Failure to do so results in 10 victory points for the Allies. In effect this is the game. The Germans will try to screen this unit and the Allies will do their best to prevent it from escaping.

A typical turn sequence in the game after turn one goes like this. First there is a paratroop landing phase. In this phase the allied player needs to roll on the landing table for each unit arriving. The unit can come in at full strength, half strength or not arrive at all. This mechanic abstractly resoles units that were shot down or lost during the landings.

Next during day turns only there is the support phase. First the German player rolls on a table to see how much artillery support he receives. Then the allies roll to see how much general support they receive. These limited resources can be assigned during battles on this turn to increase or reduce the attack factor. Next is the operations phase which I described above as players pull chits and activate units. Finally the clean up phase where the turn marker advanced, markers remove and on the last turn victory checked for.

Combat is  a simple affair once you learn the different types. You have full combat which is conducted by units who haven’t moved. Mobile which is done by units who have done a combined action and then close combat by units that have moved into the same hex as an enemy.

When attacking the attacker declares which hex he is attacking and with which units. Units can be combined to attack but types can’t be mixed. So I couldn’t take a combined action and move adjacent to an enemy but into the same hex as a friendly unit and then combine my mobile attack with them, since they didn’t move and will use a full attack.

You can however take a combined action, perform a mobile fire attack (those attacks are halved) and then move into close combat. Regardless you total the strength of the unis attacking, adjust it by calls for support and terrain and determine the attack factor. You then roll a single 6 sided die and if the result is less then the attack factor you score a hit. If it is equal an exchange result is applied where both attacker and defender take a hit. Anything above is a outright miss.

Close combat works much the same except the defender is going to get to conduct a close fire attack first. If he hits the attacker must retreat, if he doesn’t the attacker conducts a close fire attack. If neither hit then both players, starting with the defender may opt to retreat if neither do then you rinse and repeat. You might be thinking close combat sounds very risky and it is, unfortunately it is a tactic the Allied player is going to have to use if he wants any chance of getting to that Recon unit.

What I Like

The game is very simple to learn but does an excellent job of using traditional war gaming mechanics with a few wrinkles thrown in. I loved the fact that zones of control where not a part of the game and that there is a risk reward you have to balance with close combat attacks. The German player has to be on his toes to not leave any gaps in his line, while the Allied player must get very creative to try and stop that pesky recon unit.  I can’t stress enough how well this game plays solitaire if that is your cup of tea.

What I didn’t like

I’m really stretching here but there is not much variety to the initial set up and the avenues of attack on to the board. I was expecting a little more variety on where units started considering it was an airborne operation. However the mechanics totally fit for the scenario. Like I said I am stretching to find something I didn’t like.

Over All – A

Paul Koenig’s Market Garden: Arnhem Bridge is a solid effort. As an introductory game, as a fast playing game and just as a division level game in general. It concentrates on one part of the overall campaign and it does it well. The mechanic of the 9th SS recon division also gives players a more defined goal which is something new gamers to the genre often need.  It’s a game well worth your time, my only regret is not getting the sequel Eindhoven with it.

How the Game is played:

The game is set up with 9 village cards played into the center of the board in a square with one different colored (red, green, yellow, and blue)monk board on each side of the square. Each village card has a villager with special powers that the monks can activate if they are on that villagers tile. For instance, one villager has the power to banish a ghost at the expense of 1 of the monks Qi tokens.

Each monk has two different special skills, one of which must be chosen before the start of the game. For example the red monks Taoist powers are Dance of the Twin Winds and Dance of the Peaks. Dance of the Twin Winds allows him to move another monk before taking his turn while Dance of the Peaks allows him to reach any of the village tiles, not just adjacent ones. Picking the right power for each monk and knowing how to use them is crucial to having any success in this game.

Each player starts the game on the center village tile with 4 Qi tokens, the Yin-Yang token of his/her monks color, a Tao token of his/her monks color, and a black Tao token. The Qi tokens represent the life of the monk. When a monk loses all of their Qi tokens they die. The Yin-Yang token allows a monk to use the power of any villager without being on that villager’s tile or it allows the monk to change a haunted tile back to normal. Tao tokens are used to exorcise ghosts.

At the start of each monks turn the ghosts take their actions and then the monk draws a ghost card that is then placed based upon the color of the ghost card. This is known as the Yin phase.  If the ghost card is red then it must be placed on the board of the red. If there are no open spaces on the red board then the ghost may be played anywhere else that there is an opening. If it is a neutral color ghost card it must be played on the active player’s board if there is an open space. If a player has all three of their board spaces occupied by a ghost at the start of their turn they will lose one Qi token.

There are several different types of ghosts that the monks will have to contend with. There are haunting ghosts which come into play with a haunting token. After each turn the token moves one step closer to the village tiles. If it makes it to the village tiles it haunts the first village tile that is not haunted. Once the ghost has haunted a village the haunting token starts back at the beginning and will start moving towards the village tiles again until it has been banished. It takes three turns for the ghost to make it to the village tiles unless it is a quick haunting ghost which only takes two turns.

There are ghosts with the Tormentor ability. These ghosts roll a cursed die during the ghost movement phase which has one of 5 different effects. Their effects are: the first active village tile in front of the ghost becomes haunted, the player must bring a ghost into play, the player must discard all of their Tao tokens, the player loses one Qi token, or no effect.

There are also ghosts who curse player boards rendering them unable to use their special skill or sometimes restricting the use of Tao tokens and making players rely solely on dice roles to banish ghosts.  If you are beginning to think that this game has it out for you, you are correct. This game hates you.

Once all ghost actions have been carried out and all new ghosts have been placed the monk whose turn it is finally gets to take action. This is known as the Yang phase. The Yang phase consists of the following actions in this order; move your monk, request help from a villager or attempt an exorcism, place a Buddha. Movement is optional and the player can only move to any adjacent village tile unless they have a special skill which allows them to move elsewhere.

As mentioned earlier, each village tile has a villager with a special power. To use a villager’s power you must be on their village tile. If you decide to perform an exorcism to banish a ghost then you must be on the village adjacent to them. If you are on a corner village tile you may perform a dual exorcism if there is a ghost on each side of the village tile.

An exorcism is performed by rolling the three Tao dice in the hopes of matching the color rolled to the color of the ghost being exorcised. Each ghost has a resistance number so if you are trying to exorcise a red ghost with a resistance of 3 you will need 3 red Tao tokens in the form of the 3 dice rolled along with any Tao tokens the exorcising player has. If a Tao token is rolled and comes up white it can be used as a wildcard.  So in this case if the player rolls a red, white, and green and has 1 red Tao token they can exorcise this particular ghost.

The last thing a player can do during the Yang phase is place a Buddha statue if they have one.  A Buddha statue may be placed on any open space on a player’s board but the player must be on the village tile in front of it to place it there. A Buddha statue allows a ghost to be instantly banished before coming into play as long as it is eligible to be placed where the Buddha statue is. Once banished the Buddha statue is placed back on the village tile where it belongs and a player must move to that village tile to pick it up. There are 2 Buddha statues in play.

In order to win the game Wu-Feng must be summoned and defeated in the same manner that all ghosts are exorcised.  In order to summon Wu-Feng all of the ghost cards before Wu-Feng must be played.  There can be ghosts still remaining on the board but all ghosts must be summoned before Wu-Feng will appear. The game is lost if all of the monks are dead or three village tiles become haunted.

As an app:

Ghost Stories is a prime example of how a board game should be translated to digital form. It is also a prime example of why companies should consider translating their games into digital form. The artwork remains faithful to the original and is top notch. The touchscreen controls work seamlessly. They also did a great job of allowing the player to look at help text at any point during the game and with as challenging as this game is that is a much-needed feature. An interactive tutorial would be nice but is not completely necessary as everything you need to know to play and learn this game is available to the player in-app. This type of game just works on this medium and offers a fun cooperative or solo experience.

Final Thoughts:

I won’t sugarcoat it, Ghost Stories is hard. Damn hard. But players willing to take their lumps and learn the game will be rewarded with a fantastic game that can be enjoyed alone or with up to three friends. This is the game that showed me the potential of board games in digital form and it looks like more games of this type are on their way. A portable version of a niche title like this is a wonderful thing. Grade: A

Ghost Stories

Repos Production

$5.99

iPad

Link: Ghost Stories

5. Hannibal Rome vs Carthage

In 2007 Valley Games released a new version of the Avalon Hill classic Hannibal Rome vs Carthage. This game is a treasure that should be added to any war or strategy gamers arsenal.  The game depicts the events of the second punic war which took place roughly around 200 B.C.  Hannibal is an area control game which uses strategic card play to handle battles and events.

Cards have events printed on them or “OPS” values which are operation points that can be used for more generic actions. What makes Hannibal a great game is the way the various elements found in other games blend together so perfectly. The art work for the map of this game is brilliant and was done  by Kurt Miller. I love this map so much I tried for the longest time to acquire a print of it to frame.

The game can be a tad long on your first few plays, but two experience players can knock it out in 2 – 2.5 hours with no problem. It’s usually a very tense game and often early game mistakes will not mean a guaranteed loss 2 hours later.   In terms of complexity Hannibal tends towards the easier side and it’s a great game covering some very good subject matter.

Why Play? One of the best games around at blending area control with CDG elements. Fantastic art values and tense game play that is fun each and every time out.

4. Command and Color Ancients Series

GMT Games is a company synonymous with war games and in 2006 they released the Command and Color Ancients series upon their fans and block gaming hasn’t been the same since. I’m not a big fan of block games, plainly put it’s a pain in the ass to affix stickers to blocks and with this series you will be spending a lot of time preparing your game for play. So the fact that two block games made this list tells you they are special.

In C&C Ancients or any of the 6 expansion packs you’ll be facing another player in fast, tactical scenarios. The base game comes with 15 scenarios of varying scale representing battles fought between Hannibal and Rome. However the expansion packs explore other battlefields and you will find yourself in Greece or using the mighty Spartans. The system uses command cards to order armies to move and attack. The game is very simple to pick up and play (after putting on those damn stickers) and is a mini history lesson in each scenario. If you’re looking for a very good, in depth game with a very small learning curve and an overwhelming number of scenario options the C&C system should not be missed.

Why Play? It’s history in a box, it’s expandable, it’s fast and it has a small learning curve which opens it up to new players.

3.  No Retreat! The Russian Front

No Retreat is a game covering the struggle between invading Nazi Germany and Russia in World War 2. Originally published by Victory Point games and picked up last years as a Deluxe Edition by GMT this game is solid gold in it’s deluxe form.

The game is a blending of classic hex and card driven war games. While the game uses cards to assit game play it should not be consider a card driven game (CDG). The game itself comes with six scenarios that can be played in 1-2 hours or so each time out. The Deluxe edition includes both expansion and the solitaire rules as a free download.

The game not only plays well as a 2 player affair but also as a solitaire excursion.  Offering a challenge each time out without being overwhelming.  Players will need to think on their feet and the cards and dice add just enough of a luck factor to keep this game from developing a go to strategy.

The components in the GMT version are on par with Twillight Struggle which means they are really, really nice. There is no way to express how thoughtful a design this game is without a full fledged 1000 word review.  No Retreat is one of those games that I look at on my shelf every 3 or 4 weeks and say “yeah you need to be played” and pull it down, set up and go.

Why Buy? It’s a perfect game to get new players into hex wargames. It’s fast to play compared to other games cover the same topic matter. Overall a top level design that offers strategic depth to keep you playing again and again.

2. Band of Brothers

It’s absolutely criminal that this game is not receiving more attention. I gave Band of Brothers our editors seal and went over it’s fantastic game play in detail during my review.  It holds a very high geek rating over at BGG so why is this game not talked about among the elite in squad level 2 player games? Simple supply.

The game is really hard to find and I’m not sure when a reprint is on the way. Band of Brothers takes the conventional approach found in other hex level squad games and turns it on it’s ear. Hours of research went into creating this game and it shows. The game revolves around suppression of the enemy and then eliminating them by melee combat. Seldom is a ranged fire fight going to product positive results.

Because most of BOB’s scenarios revolve around the attacker taking positions before the game turn track expires you’ll become an expert at cover and flanking tactics. Things found in other games like smoke and random battle field chaos are either missing or replaced with simpler, more realistic mechanics. A squad who is heavily suppressed is not necessarily going to follow your orders. Units will never simply be overrun without the ability to defend themselves. Combat in BOB is up close, quick and deadly just like it was in WW2.

I hate to sound like I am picking on a publisher I have no gripes with but this game deserves better. Better maps, better components and better marketing. If this game was published by anyone else the chatter for an expansion or the next game in the series would be at a high level. As it stands now BOB is just a game only the cool kids know about.

Why Buy? One of the best squad level design put out in recent memory,  this is coming front a Combat Commander junkie.  Fast, fun and hisorically accurate. If you see it buy on sight and then send me a thank you.

 1. Sekigahara Unification of Japan

About 15 of my friends just feel off their chairs reading I put a block game at the top of this list. Those people have never played Sekigahara Unification of Japan a 2011 game from who else but GMT. Sekigahara is a block game but that’s not really an issue in this case as it’s going to only take you about 30 minutes to get the blocks set up.

Sekigahara topic matter is going to be obscure to most which is what makes it all the more special. The game covers Toyotomi Hideyoshi campaign that occured around 1600 and would unify Japan for the next 250 years.

The game is very simple to learn which make it’s mechanics all the more impressive.  I’ve taught Sekigahara  to my wife in 20 minutes and she enjoyed the game which in itself should immediately make it #1 on this list. However it’s the mechanics which make it shine. The blocks represent armies and the players have cards. The cards are equivalent to the armies motivation.

You might find yourself in a battle with superior forces but those forces might not be motivated to fight if you don’t have the proper cards. Control of castles determines hand size and changes weekly during the campaign. The suggested playing time is 3 hours which based on my experience is high. Most games of Sekigahara can be completed in around 2 hours.

My only regret with this game is having the opportunity to play it more. In fact the only reason I have not reviewed it is because of our 5 play rule. However here is a sneak peek, Sekigahara  is one play away from an editors seal.

Why Buy? Attractive block game that is so simple to teach it might lead veteran wargamers thinking this game lacks substance which couldn’t be further from the truth.  It’s an excellent bridge game into the genre that should be in any wargamers library.

Gameplay

Nefarious turns have four simple parts:

1. Pick your action and then reveal them
2. Collect money from investments
3. Execute actions
4. Check for victory conditions

Selecting actions is simple. There are four types of actions to select from:

• Speculate –You place minions to collect money that other players select on future turns.
• Invent –You complete blueprints and execute their effects.
• Research – You draw blueprints off the deck and collect two coins.
• Work – you collect four coins.

The main type that propels you towards victory is Invent with the other actions supporting the requirements to execute the Invent action. Money is needed to complete the invention, which you can get through Speculate, Research and Work. Speculate is a passive income based on what your neighbors choose in future turns. Research gains a small amount of money. Work gains a larger amount of money. A blueprint is acquired only through Research.

The game ends when one single person has 20 or more victory points. I haven’t seen the same tie breaker mechanism in other games like the one in Nefarious. If there are ties then you play another round and check for victory again. This victory isn’t limited to the players who previously tied. So you can have a situation come up where two people tie and a third person wins the game on the next turn.

When you complete an invention there are 3 parts to the card, the cost you must pay to play the card, the victory points you score and the effects that will execute. These effects can be combinations of things that happen to you and things that happen to every other player. Since all inventing is done simultaneously you’ll execute your own effects first and then go around the table clockwise executing the other player’s effects. This causes different players around the table to have different overall effects than each other. One player might gain a card and then choose a blueprint to discard but another player will discard a card from their hand and then draw one. The effects on the blueprints are also used to balance the cards a little. The cost of the card relative to the victory points adjusts with the type of effects. A card that has negative effects for you and/or positive effects for the other players will be cheaper than a card of the same point value with no effects. Also one with positive effects for you and/or negative effects for the other players will cost more.

Thoughts

One of the strengths of Nefarious is that you pick two Twist cards from a stack of 36 which have a variety of impacts on the game and each other. This causes the game to play differently every time you play it, which looks to be the staple of a Donald X Vaccarino game now that Kingdom Builder, Dominion and Nefarious are released. These twist cards do a good job of changing the strategy of the game. Sometimes you’ll want to quickly research and invent machines and other times you’ll want to do a lot of research first and then build them in increasing victory point order. Some might keep everyone wealthy or everyone broke. Much the same way that the huge combinations of cards in Dominion keep it fresh so many years later is because each game has a new set of cards that change the strategy in different ways each game. Well, and all the expansions don’t hurt its replay either.

One of the disappointing parts of Nefarious is that all the inventions are money based. So you’re not collecting parts for your machines like a reflector dish and lasers. You’re just saving cash (from your legitimate corporate front that makes petroleum products and volatile chemicals?) and then apparently placing an order at Grainger for those parts. I shouldn’t be expecting more from a lighter game like this, but it would have been intriguing to see how the game played if there were components that you had to send your minions to steal scattered around the world.

What’s to like: A lot of combinations of Twist cards keep each game fresh. Handles six players very well. Little down time even with six players. Makes a good light game or filler.

What’s not to like: Theme can be a little pasted on.

Overall: B+

A short while ago Victory Point Games sent me a little care package of games to check out. I warned them ahead of time that even though I am an avid strategy gamer our site doesn’t cover a lot of these types of games because of our 5 play policy. As I would soon discover VPG is known for a few things. Excellent game play, varied subject matter and very approachable, quicker playing games. They also have a whole slew of games that play well solitaire.

Legions of Darkness happened to be the first game I opened because I have a penchant for fantasy strategy games. That could be a very big mistake because it has taken my time away from other games.  LOD, besides having cool acronym, can best be described as a tower defense game and boy is it a load of fun.

It’s a challenge making a solitaire board game because by nature board gaming is not a solitary hobby.  A good solitaire game is one that is variable  and challenging each time you play it without being impossible.  Nothing is worse then playing a game solo that is a long time commitment and uses an impossible difficulty curve as it’s selling point.

Fortunately Legions of Darkness does none of this. The game offers 2 scenarios with additional random setup options and uses card play to make the game play differently every time. Throw in heroes and spells to the mix and the experience is fun, fast and unique each time out. If there is a “winning strategy” to LOD I haven’t found it yet.

Components

Victory Point Games is a small publishing house so you’ll need to temper your expectations when it comes to components. I’m old school, so I recall the days of not only getting boards games in baggies but computer games as well. A lot of our readers are not going to be accustom to this and expect every game to have the component quality of an FFG title.

Victory Point Games come in zip lock baggies. The rule book is in full color but it’s nothing you couldn’t produce at home on your own printer.  The card board chits can best be described as passable in quality. I often found myself having a hard time removing the soft chits from the sheets and would end up with a lot of frayed edges.

My main complaint with LOD is the main map. It’s printed on an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper that is folded over into a small baggie. While the stock is a little higher then normal paper it was clear to me by about my 10th play that the map wasn’t going to last.  Since I realized I was going to be playing this game a lot after this review was submitted I scanned the map, printed it out on 110 lb stock and then laminated it…problem solved.

The full component list is as follows:

• One 6-page full color Rules booklet with Examples of play
• One 8.5” x 11” map
• One 8.5″ x 5.5″ double-sided player aid card
• 12 single-sided 3/4″ army counters
• 28 double-sided 5/8″ round markers
•  36 Event cards

Since playing Legions of Darkness I have opened some of the other games from victory point and they are all the same in quality, though some of the maps in other games seem to be printed on heavier stock.  Having said that I can deal with adequate components for stellar game play and it is here where LOD shines.

Game Play

In Legion of Darkness your job is to defend a castle for 3 days and prevent the enemies from breaching it’s walls. The enemy force is large in number and you can never actually defeat them, you just constantly drive them back.

The Legion of Darkness Map

The enemy is relentless and they approach from 4 sides. There is an East and West track, a sky track and the ever challenging gate track. At night the enemy usually unleashes an even greater foe who come in along the terror track. All the while you are defending with your men at arms who can deal melee attacks. Your archers who can rain arrows down with ranged attacks and you also have some heroes of different classes who all add special abilities.  Having a wizard lets you cast arcane spells, having a cleric lets you cast divine spells and so on.

Game play in LOD is driven by event cards. You have two decks or cards, one for day and the other for night. The main difference with the day night cards is the terror track only moves at night.  A turn consists of flipping an appropriate card and then following it from top to bottom.

The first thing you’ll need to do is move the enemy legions on each track indicated on the card. In the example above the West track would move a space and the sky track 2 spaces. Before moving on to the rest of the card lets talk about the tracks since this is the main way to win or lose the game. If the East, West or Gate track get to your walls they will create a breach and once there is a breach if a card would have them move from the one space they enter the castle and you lose.

Adding to this is the gate track houses two enemy legions, it is the main entrance to the castle after all, and these legions when on the same space of the track move together. However when you push them back you always push the closest one back, not both. There is a whole balancing act to managing the gate track during play.

The Sky and Terror tracks act a little differently. Instead of creating a breach they just eliminate some of your troops. Your troops are men at arms, archers and clerics. The men at arms dictate how many melee attacks you can make a turn, archers ranged attacks and the clerics well they just chant and boost your divine spell points.  When a Sky or Terror track reaches the castle you must eliminate one troop, thus reducing your attack strength.

The next portion of the card may contain an event. The event is simply read and followed. Typically the events are not good for the defenders. What’s uncanny for a random deck driven game is they always seem to hit at the worst time possible…

Next is the action line and this tells you how many regular actions you can take and how many heroic actions.  Regular actions consists of Attacks, Build, Cast Spell, Chant, Memorize and Pray for Spells.  The attack actions lets you try and drive an enemy back either by a melee or range attack. You look at there the enemy legion is on the board and then attack with the appropriate type. An attack is conducted by rolling a 6 sided die and then adding any die roll modifiers and if you roll higher then the enemy units strength it is moved back a space.

Build allows you roll and try to build castle defenses like oil, grease and lava. Cast spell allows you to cast one of your arcane or divine spells assuming you can pay the cost in spell points which are also tracked on the board. Spells are one shot deals, once cast they are gone so use them wisely. Chant as mentioned earlier increases your divine spell points, arcane spell points are increased each day / night cycle. Memorize and Pray let you randomly select one of the spell tokens to add to your arsenal.

Heroic Actions are limited to just four. They can attack and usually do so with some good drm’s. They can cast a spells which uses the more powerful effect of the spell. They can move which allows them to get out of the reserve space where they start and onto a castle track. Finally they can rally. A hero can attempt to rally which when successful bumps up the morale. Morale is either high (+1 regular action), regular or low (-1 regular action).  I can’t stress how much having extra regular actions can help so don’t ignore rallying early.

Some cards might have quest and these can really benefit the player. However to do a quest you have to roll high (typically better then 6) so you need to commit regular and / or heroic actions to the roll. A regular action adds a +1 drm and a heroic a +2.  Again quests are really beneficial and if they come up early commit your forces to them.

Finally the last thing on the card could be the time advancement or bloody battle marker. The time advancement means you simply advance the time track, if you recall you need to last 3 days. The bloody battle marker gets placed on the legion on a certain track and it means when fighting that legion you will lose a troop. Some attacks negate this very bad effect but if a bloody battle marker makes it’s way to a troop moving in close you’re in for a hurting.

Final Thoughts

Legions of Darkness is an exciting game for those looking for a good solo experience. The game is going to likely take an hour your first play and then will scale down until you can usually knock out a game in 20-30 minutes. There is a real addictive quality to it, I have 17 games in and I’ve only had it for 2 weeks!  However it is a solo experience and while a good one I couldn’t help thinking how much I would rather be playing this game on my iPad, but that holds true for most solo games.  Some might find the game a bit mechanical, but what solo game doesn’t feel that way when your taking turn after turn.

What I liked

Fast and exciting game play. Well thought out design that is challenging without the feeling the game is stacked in difficulty.

What I Didn’t like

The components left something to be desired. Again they will get the job done but if this is a selling point for you on games then be warned.

Over All: B+

The best praise I can give Legions of Darkness is I have played the ever living crap out of it for 2 weeks. I’ve chosen to play this over many other games both board and video variety. I’ve won more then I lost but not a single game wasn’t exciting until the end. I know VPG is doing some of their game on the iPad and they have my vote on this one.

These are the kinds of stories that a game of Mage Knight, a late 2011 release by Wiz Kids and designer Vlaada Chvatil can weave. Through its interesting and complex game play, Mage Knight tells a story that is inevitably different every time you play.  Make no mistake however that Mage Knight is a brain burner of a game. One that will have you making calculations and checking reference cards over and over again. In fact Mage Knight is the one game in my collection I will not teach to new players.

You heard me correctly. I insist if someone wants to play Mage Knight with me they read the rule books, yes that is plural, and have a basic understanding of the game.  The game has 2 rule books and multiple reference cards.  While the mechanics of play are simple once you know how, the getting there can be daunting.

I won’t go so far as to call the game fiddly or say the rule books are a mess but there are a lot of items you will be constantly checking on your first plays. Remembering where to find a rule is often more challenging then the rules explanation. Is it on a site card? The walk thru book or the main rule book?   If you go great lengths of time between play sessions you’ll more then likely find you need to look up many items you once knew.

It’s why I have waited so long to review this game and why this review will be very light on rules explanation.  You might ask yourself why keep a game in your collection that you refuse to teach and the answer is simple, solitaire play. Mage Knight has one of the best solitaire mechanics around. The game plays significantly quicker alone then with friends. Multiplayer games are going to be long. I played a shortened scenario this past weekend with 2 other experienced players and it took 4 hours. However in the end the experience is worth the time, at least for me.

Components

I’d like to say Mage Knight comes with a lot of components and leave it at that but lets just try and capture them all. First the game comes with a handy insert, actually inserts as they are in pieces. It’s very easy to customize your box and have a good storage solution.

You’ll receive 4 figures representing the various Mage Knights and you also receive 4 click figures for the cities. The click portion of this game is only to tell you what level the city is at and what kind of enemies you have to defeat when trying to take one down.

A shot of the many components

There are 20 sturdy hexagonal tiles.  One is a starting tile, 11 are green backed basic tiles and 8 are brown backed core tiles. These tiles are randomly picked based on the scenario chosen.

There are seven mana dice which you roll to form the source. This is where you draw mana for your spells and abilities. There are a lot of crystals to represent the various mana types. Crystals can be gained by abilities and they are stored on your player card. Unlike mana die they stay with you until used.

For each of the 4 players there is a player card, skill card and a set of tokens for various game tasks. Each players mage knight has different skills adding even more variety to the game. Then you have card board tokens for all the different enemies you will face. Green ones for marauding orcs, white ones for cities, purple for mage towers and so on.  There are also turn order cards for day and night plus site reference cards which contain the rules for the spaces on the board.

This tile contains some nice location very close to each other

Finally you have the cards and there are a lot of them. Each player has a starting deck. There are unit cards in two different skill levels and these cards you recruit to build your army. There are spell cards, artifact cards, wound cards and advanced ability cards.  There is also a day / night board to indicate which cycle it is and also tell you movement cost. Last but not least in the main scoring track which is where you fame and reputation are tracked.

My only complaint is the card quality. If you told me at the beginning of 2011 two of my top five games would be produced by Wiz-Kids I would of thought you crazy but here we have it.

Unfortunately the card quality of Mage Knight is the same strange and easy to tear material found in Star Fleet Captains and Expeditions.  You’re on a roll Wiz-Kids time to step up the quality on the cards.

Impressions

At it’s core Mage Knight is sort of a deck building game. What I mean by that is while you’ll add cards to your deck and recruit units to play in front of you. You never really create large cumbersome decks and you don’t cycle threw them multiple times.

In fact when a players deck is empty he may call for an end of turn and if his hand is empty he must call for it. Because the game is broken into day and night turns and there are typically 2-4 days in a scenario. At most you’ll be going through your deck 8 times.

Ice Mages are a nice unit to have

A player turn in Mage Knight (there will be multiple for each day / night turn) is pretty simple you may move and then do one interaction. What that interaction may be depend upon where you end your turn. If you’re next to orcs you can fight them. If you’re on a dungeon or tomb you may explore it and fight the monster within. On a Monastery you can burn it down or just visit for healing or to recruit units.  Some locations need to be conquered before they can become useful. For example the mage towers that dot the landscape are covered with purple enemy tokens and these are tougher then your standard green enemy. Once you defeat them the mage tower opens to all to sell spells or recruit units.

Whether you conquer a keep or explore a tomb when you do so you mark it with one of your shields. this doesn’t prevent other players from using it’s benefit but it counts towards end of game scoring.  There are bonuses for different things like the person who is the biggest adventurer or collected the most artifacts. Just about every place you visit or monster you defeat benefits you in some way by either increasing your fame, awarding you items or boosting (and in cases of burning a monastery lowering) your reputation.

The Mage Tower reference card

Each turn there is a unit offering row of cards. Some of these unit can be recruited in villages, others in mage towers and some in multiple places. You recruit a unit by visiting one of these locations and paying the influence cost. At first level you can only have one unit in your army but as you get more powerful you can add more. Units are very valuable when fighting tougher monsters and pretty much required for taking a city.

Let me take a moment to get back to the basic game play mechanic of playing cards. The card you play will allow you to do things like move, attack, block or influence. Each card has a basic effect and a boosted effect and you boost them by supplying mana to them.

You get the mana by using the one die you can pull from the source or crystals you have acquired. So one card might be a move 2 but when boosted with a green mana be a move 4.

If you run into a situation where you need more points in something you can take a non related card from your hand and play it sideways for a point. So if I needed 6 movement points to get somewhere and I only had a single move card giving me 4 points. I could play 2 other cards sideays for 2 more movement points.

It is here where Mage Knight differs from other deck building games. There are going to be turns where you can’t do what you want or doing so is going to cost you a lot of cards. You have to be able to adapt and plan ahead with your hand because your often not cycling many new cards into it. Often the assault on a keep is not done in one turn. It might be a turn moving next to it and then another turn attacking it.

I’m almost crazy attempting to explain combat in this review but let me try. Enemies have an armor value at the top of their chit. This is how much damage you need to do to beat them. They may also have added armor bonuses or resistances.  They the have an attack strength on the left, a fame value on the bottom and possible special abilities on the right.

A combat round is broken down as follows.

1. Range and Siege Attack Phase is the only chance you have to attacked an enemy with ranged or siege attack cards and defeat them before they can attack you. As with anything in combat it’s all or nothing. If I can give 4 or more ranged damage to the Orc summoner above then he is dead. If I can only do 3 it’s not worth it because damage doesn’t carry over. Some monster are fortified against ranged attacked like the Crypt Worm above so only siege attacks work on them.
2. Block Phase is next and any enemies that survived the attack now apply damage. Again it is all or nothing, you block all the damage or you take it. The Crypt Worm above is going to deal 6 damage and if i can only find 5 block I need to assign 6 damage.
3. Assign Damage is next an anything not completely blocked in step 2 is assigned.  Damage can be assigned to units or to your Mage Knight. The higher the Mage Knights level the more wounds he can soak up.  Wounds card go either on a unit making them useless or into your hand which can be bad since they count against your hand limit.
4. Attack phase is last and it is here you can now fight back with any attack cards, even ranged. So above I had a 3 ranged card that couldn’t kill the orc but now I can play it with my 2 attack card to defeat him.  Monster can be resistant to various forms of attack. For example the Ice Golem, he is resistant to cold and physical attacks meaning those do half damage to him.  So while a 4 fire attack would kill him you would need 8 regular attacks to do the same.

Confused yet? The whole thing can be overwhelming when you have multiple monsters with various types of resistances. This is why I called Mage Knight a brain burner your constantly calculating results not just in combat but even in movement. In fact Mage Knight is one of the few games that explicitly states in the rules to let players play their turns out to calculate them and if they are wrong start over.

Obviously you need to use judgement here, if someones turn has passed and then they figure out they could of won a combat well too bad. However if someone moves to a comabat spot and then realizes before starting the combat they were wrong your best to let them start their turn over.  As odd as this may seem not doing so slows down the game as it becomes analysis paralysis while people do the numbers in their head.

Summary

Mage Knight is a really good game with some very interesting mechanics. I’ve probably played more games of Mage Knight in the last 3 months then anything else in my collection. The unfortunate part of that is 99% of them have been solo. The one thing that detracts from the multiplayer element is downtime between turns that escalates as the game goes on. The game gets progressively harder as more tiles are put in play and then the core tiles start to show up. Monster get tougher, battles take longer, choices get tougher.

All of these things make the game great but from a multiplayer aspect it gets slow, long and tedious. Nothing feels worse then watching someone play out their combat to realize they made a miscalculation and then try over and over again to see if they missed something. It feels even worse when you’re the player in that situation. None of these things matter when playing solo as you can take all the time you like without worrying about others.

In the end you need to determine if Mage Knight provides enough interest for you to invest the time and energy in not only playing the game, but also learning the game and becoming a better player. For me that answer is a resounding yes as I enjoy it immensely. For others they may find their adventure in lighter fare and honestly I couldn’t blame them one bit.

I think 5 years from now Mage Knight players will be looked at as being in a special club, those only brave (or crazy) enough to withstand the obstacles this game wants to throw at players to enjoy the experience. I hope when that time comes I’m still among them.

What I like

The mechanics are wonderful once you learn them. The game really feels different each time you play. The multiple scenarios provide different challenges.

What I didn’t Like

Card stock, down time and I think the combat resistances could of been done in a more accessible manner.

Over All – A

In the end Mage Knight is a game that is an achievement in design for this reviewer. However it is one that may be lost due to the step learning curve with the game. It’s not surprising that Mage Knight owners seek each other out for games. It plays best solo and the best way to learn the game is to play.

Components

As with generally any FFG game you buy the components are top notch. What you usually need to look out for are the mis-prints and errata that seem to pile up the longer a new FFG game is on the shelf. This was something I was concerned with since an official FAQ was released at the same time the game started hitting stores.  Luckily, at least so far, I haven’t seen many reports of issues. The game comes with four player boards that are doubled sided. One side matches the setup from the original game and the other is the “new” side.

You have four plastic figures for your wizards that fit into one of the four colored bases. You also have five figures for different creatures your wizards can polymorph into.  There are four card board doors with plastic stands to represent the portals in the maze. There is a slew of other card board tokens to represent things from doors, cracks in the wall as well as chits to track energy on a spell.  Finally you have the cards which drive the game play. The cards represent the spells and the items you’ll be using to either eliminate the other wizards or impede them as you try and grab their treasures. There are 8 spell decks or various schools of magic such as cantrips or mutation, all told there are 168 magic cards.

Aside from yet another useless FFG insert in the box the components are all of good quality. I’ve had several players mentioned they would of liked to see plastic sculpts for the objects in the maze like the blocks and doors but I don’t think it is necessary for a game of this nature as it would inevitably make the game more expensive.

General Impressions

One of the first things you’re going to notice is that FFG changed some of the rules. You can find these missing or altered rules in the back of the rule book. FFG has marked them as optional rules but to their credit they have identified each rule that was in the original game.

I mention this because I am rightfully approaching Wiz-War from the eyes of a new player. Someone who hasn’t played the original game and wouldn’t know what rules were changes and missing, pretty much FFG’s target audience. Even if you disagree with the notion that new Wiz-War players are the target audience of this game, as a company you would have to offer veteran players something new.  Unfortunately for FFG these rules changes make the game too bland and near unplayable as a 2 player game but I’ll get to that later.

The object of Wiz-War is simple score 2 victory points or eliminate all the other wizards. You score a victory point for killing another wizard or taking another wizards treasure and having it in your base. Think of it as an old school capture the flag scenario.  Scoring a victory point for killing another wizard is new to the game and I would guess its intent is to speed up game play, which it certainly does and possibly make it easier for new players to compete. However it comes at the cost of making the game a little less chaotic and fun. Yes those are two words seldom used together but ask most Wiz-War players what they like about the game and you’ll most likely here those two words in their description.

Two optional rules will bring the game back to it’s intended form. One is that you only get a victory point for having a wizards treasure in your home base. The other rule is if both of your treasure are in other players bases you die.  These rules may seem like nothing but minor tweaks but it adds a whole new level of play to the game.

You now have to balance making another treasure run against guarding your own stash.  While you can win by eliminating the other players, you will die if your treasures are lost. It’s a fine balance between being aggressive and reading the flow of the game.  Again I can understand why these rules are left out of the new version as standard rules but honestly the game feels a little less exciting without them.

One of the first things you’re going to do during setup is create the magic deck. As previously noted there are 8 magic decks of 24 cards each. One of these decks, the black cantrip deck is only used with the optional new custom spell books rule . The White cantrip deck is used in every game and then the players are suppose to determine 3 other decks to use. You then shuffle these 3 decks with the cantrip deck to from the magic deck.

Again the original rules vary here in that the magic deck is comprised of all the spell decks not a select 4. Using the FFG rules 72 cards are not available during each game. This makes the game a little less chaotic for sure but again at what cost? I honestly don’t know as we have yet to play a game with ever spell deck in play but I can say this. Completely ignore the suggested 3 decks they tell you to use for your first game(s) unless you want to be utterly disappointed.

An unwritten rule we have here at OBGB is we try to play a game at least 5 times before reviewing it. I don’t care if we are first out of the gate, I just want our reviews to be more then the initial impressions that you typically find on other sites because 9 times out of 10 initial impressions are positive. In the case of Wiz-War if I based my review off of my first 3 plays which were all 2 player with the suggested deck this game would be receiving at best a D score from me.

A turn in Wiz-War is pretty simple there are 3 phases.

1. Time Passes Phase
2. Move and Cast Phase
3. Discard and Draw Phase.

The time passes phase is where you resolve any spell effects that could happen during this timing. You also remove any stun markers on wizards and finally remove energy from maintained spells.  We finally hit the first new rule of the FFG version that I find a great addition and that is maintaining spells.  While each player starts with a 5 card hand they have a maximum hand size which is usually 7 but can be altered by spells and items.  Spells themselves besides having line of sight rules also have durations. Some are permanent, other instantaneous and a good deal of these spells need to be charged by energy to be maintained.

You can get energy from energy cards in your hand or some spell cards can also be used as energy. So I might cast a spell that needs to be maintained and give it 4 energy which means it last for 4 turns. What’s new in this version is a maintained spell counts against your hand limit. Having tried a game without this rule where some wizards had a half dozen maintained spells I found this rule to be a much welcomed addition.

During the movement phase a player can move. Make one attack, either physical or via spell and  then cast other non-attack spells. What’s nice about Wiz-War is you can break this up however you want. I could move 2, cast an attack spell then move one more space and cast a non-attack spell. You can also use the energy I mentioned above to boost your movement or supercharge spells. Finally during the discard and draw phase a player can dump as many cards as he wants and then draw up to 2 cards. The only rules is you can go past your maximum hand size and you must discard before drawing. I like the discard before drawing rule because it puts some risk into dumping a decent spell in the hopes of trying to get a better one.

Game Play & Over All Impressions

Like I said earlier Wiz-War is the classic example of my unwritten rule saving a game from my initial impression of it. First of all I think the game is far less interesting as a 2 player game regardless of whether you use the new rules or put in the optional old rules. In a 2 player affair it’s either an all out battle to someone is left standing or a race to grab the other players treasures first. I’ve played at least a half a dozen 2 player games and they always evolve into one of the two scenarios and I’d imagine if by some chance they didn’t and one person tried to play it both ways by scoring and killing the game would still be a lot less fun then a 4 player game.

In a 4 player game with the original scoring options the game really shines. There is constant adaptation to what is going on during the game. Your initial strategy might be to make a dash for one players treasure or to guard your own until others are beat down but you must always be paying attention to what is happening or you might find yourself dropping dead when both of your own treasures are secured. The chaotic, frenzied affair a 4 player game turns into is just a lot of fun.

If you throw out the old scoring system and play a 4 player game with the new scoring rules you’ll still enjoy it more then a 2 player game but it definitely cuts down on the strategy and craziness that makes Wiz-War shine when it’s at it’s best.

In the end it’s easy to see why people who play Wiz-War love the game it’s just a good time.  The whole beat the living piss out of your friends somehow plays better in a light hearted game of crazy wizards battling it out in a dungeon maze. There is just something funny about your friend slowing your way with a rose bush and then hitting you with a fireball spell that doesn’t leave a lot of bad feeling post game.

What I liked

I like the chaotic nature of the 4 player games with original scoring rules. I liked being able to boost moves and spells and in general the game being more strategic then I ever thought it would be when played with the right set of rules.

What I didn’t like

I don’t care for the new scoring rules. I would of rather had another spell deck then a black cantrip deck that is utilized in one custom variant. Two player games are a waste of time in my opinion.  Finally I’d like FFG to included an insert that is useful or just get rid of them altogether.

Over All – B

Wiz-War is a solid game and it shines when played with some of the original rules. The game is also very flexible and you can easily add and subtract rules as you see fit, making custom game types should be fairly easy as well. Knowing what I do now about the game if I were FFG I would of concentrated on adding to the game instead of streamlining it.  Possibly by adding unique wizards with their own personal spell decks or adding familiar and minions to the mix but that’s what expansion are for right?