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The hex people never stop coming and never stop getting stranger (in mechanisms, at least.)
Last time I talked about this, it was to discuss two new factions and the occasionally hard to find Doomsday collective. (The times before that were here, here and here.) Since that point, despite Ignacy Trzewiczek claiming that Portal had to move on from many of their classics (like Imperial Settlers) because people only wanted to join the Cult of the New, Neuroshima Hex has been regularly turning out new armies to play and finding new ways to break the game's rules and essential tenets with each one. It's like a constant paean to Cosmic Encounter from a designer's standpoint and one that shows no sign of slowing down. Just like with my last missive, I can't say that I've been universally thrilled with all of the continuing releases, but at least we know that the game and the NH universe are still expanding or, in the case of one of these factions, reaching back to a favorite from another linchpin in the NH world, 51st State, the greatest engine builder ever made. So today we're going to talk about four new factions, one of which brings the NH battle to the water (and outside the normal confines of the board), one of which takes it back to the sands (and repeatedly conceals its tiles), one of which renews our affection with that other game's people and reexamines the discard action, and finally one that makes action tiles far more useful than they've ever been before.
Pirates
Warriors: 2 x Motorboat, 1 x Fisherman, 2 x Harpoon, 2 x Crocodile, 3 x Helmsman, 3 x Smuggler, 1 x Bossman, 1 x Water Gun; Modules: 2 x Mother, 2 x Officer I, 3 x Saboteur, 2 x Medic; Implants: 1 x Tavern; Actions: 5 x Battle, 3 x Move, 1 x Wave
Beginning our descent into the weird, Pirates uses the ring outside the regular board of 19 spaces. When the 6 Water Adjacency tokens are placed at the 12, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 position on the clock face that is the NH board, all of those spaces between those tokens (12 of them) are considered water spaces and anything with the Drift ability can move on them and only them (i.e. Drift units can't be placed on the regular board.) Also, at the end of a battle, anything on the water spaces (ahem) drifts to the next adjacent space, clockwise. (See? This is why knowing an analog clock is useful, Gen-Z types!) The Adjacency spaces are only there to link the other spaces, which means you can't ever be in an Adjacency token space. What does that mean for positioning? Well, it means that if your opponent places their HQ in the center space of the board, none of your Drift units that can shoot will ever be able to hit it. That's not great but not devastating, either. The required movement of all Drift units is also occasionally an aggravating factor when you've set up nicely on the rest of your opponent's army and they haven't been able to cover something important but instead of exploiting that for as long as you can, after the latest battle, you're moving away. (You can rotate freely as you drift.) Drift units are also unaffected by position change tokens, including your opponent's Push Back and Grab, but also your Moves. However, given that your own HQ also has Drift, that means that the oppoinent is also never going to set up a consistent shooting nest on your HQ, since it will be moving throughout the game (and has only one, mono-directional shooting attack, for obvious reasons.) This creates an NH game that is both hard to predict, but also incredibly dynamic. 5 of your 15 warriors have the Drift trait.
This army does other weird things, too, as it's the only one to use the Grab ability other than Beasts, as the Harpoons can use the inverse of Push Back to bring enemies in close to their double power melee attack. And you're largely focused on melee, with your trio of five-direction attack Helmsmen, the ability of the Crocs to Charge (take the place of a unit they've killed, which means they can attack on initiative 1, kill something, move up and then attack again on initiative 0) and the Smugglers' two-direction, double strength attacks. But you do have shooting from the HQ, Harpoons, Motorboats and Smugglers, as well as the amazing Water Gun, which hits a cone of six spaces for 3, 2, and 1 wounds, depending on distance of the target just like New York's Shotgun. None of these attacks come at an Initiative higher than 2, so you're suffering a bit on tempo there. But they're also the only army with 3 Saboteur modules (reduce opponent's Initiative by 1) and having 2 Mothers (extra attack) helps with that initiative shortfall, too. But the biggest counter to that is the high level of macro initiative. With 5 Battle actions, the Bossman (can start a fight as soon as he's placed), and the Tavern implant (activate to start a battle), you should have a significant edge in determining when fights are started (akin to Moloch and Dancer) and, consequently, how they're ended. It took me a bit to grasp the nuances of the Pirates but once I did, it's been a repeated choice for really interesting (and usually successful) games.
Desert Tribes
Warriors: 1 x Scalpel, 2 x Coyote, 2 x Dust Arrow, 2 x Younglings, 3 x Shaman, 2 x Nomad, 1 x Rattlesnake, 3 x Maggot Clan Warrior; Modules: 2 x Fletcher, 1 x Hideout, 2 x Officer, 2 x Scout; Actions: 5 x Battle, 4 x Move, 2 x Mirage
The Desert Tribes use Foundation tiles, which isn't a big deal, since we've had those since Vegas and most opponents just tend to not bother placing on them when they're put on the board unless they think they can get a good hit in before whatever it is will be activated. But the Tribes take it one step further in that any non-HQ Tribes unit, warrior or module, can become a Foundation tile with the Hide ability. Once per turn, the Tribes player can just turn a unit over and that becomes, effectively, an empty space. They can deploy onto it and so can the opponent. But then, as long as there are no units on top of them, the hidden Tribes units can Reveal during a battle and freely rotate, just in time to make a killer attack. Keeping track of which unit is hiding where is a big part of the challenge when playing the Tribes. They also have the longest list of special abilities for different units of any faction in the game, so don't be surprised if you forget things in your first few go-rounds. Their shooting attacks, with the exception of the two Nomads, are also all Thrower attacks, an ability we first saw with Troglodytes, so that's another variation to keep in mind when placing them. The HQ's attacks are exclusively Throwers, in fact, except for its Self-Defense ability which simply lets it destroy one adjacent unit on its Initiative phase.
Speaking of which, Tribes are pretty solid, Initiative-wise, being all 3s and 2s except for the Rattlesnake and the Maggot Clan Warriors, in addition to having two Scouts (+1 Initiative.) Two of those 3s are the Coyotes, which can make a free move once per turn as long as they stay in touch with the HQ (kinda like Cerberus from Beasts), while the Younglings can Dodge (ignore the first source of wounds during a battle) and the Shamans get +1 to both their Initiative and the strength of their melee attacks if they're standing on a friendly Foundation tile. On top of that (Tribes joke), the Nomads, Rattlesnake, and Maggot Clan Warriors all have Ambush abilities, which let them use special abilities (immobilize, attack, place in any space on the board that has another unit(!)) right before they Hide. That latter move, of course, is amazing for mid-range planning, since you can try to set up your Maggots beneath opposing units that are likely to die in the next fight and automatically have another unit there when the next battle begins, as long as it hasn't become occupied again. Helping maintain that freedom are your two Mirage tiles, which can either pull a unit onto your Foundation tiles or destroy a unit sitting on one. The pile of tricks possible with Tribes is enormous and I'm still working my way through them, but it's certainly a way to encourage more Hex people games.
Merchants Guild
Warriors: 3 x Bomber Chris, 2 x Welder, 1 x Black Box, 1 x Daredevil, 2 x Scout Leader, 1 x Hacker, 1 x Tank, 2 x Highway Cruiser, 1 x Debt Hunter, 1 x Automatic Turret; Modules: 1 x Scout, 2 x Commander, 4 x Boss; Implants: 1 x Strategist, 1 x Briber; Actions: 1 x Paid Sniper, 1 x Black Market, 2 x Battle, 5 x Move.
A basic element of the game since its release has been the draw: Each turn, you draw three tiles, discard one, and decide to either play or save the remaining two. (The "save" option is not used nearly enough by most NH players, IMO.) Merchants Guild alters that basic formula with a new option called Gambles. Many of their units have special abilities that can only be activated when deployed by using Gambles. The only way to gain Gambles to spend (other than the two that the HQ provides at the start of the game) is to discard tiles. If you discard a warrior, you gain Gambles equal to its Initiative. If you discard a module, you only gain Gambles if it provides an Initiative boost (a Scout or a Boss.) But you gain those Gambles even while following the basic game rule of discarding one of your three tiles on a draw, so the choice becomes not simply what's most useful at the moment, but also how you can take advantage of the rest of what's in your hand or even future draws, which is an interesting variation on what is often an obvious choice (I say 'often' because it isn't always the case, which is part of what gives the game some of its tension in the first place.) A third method is the HQ's basic ability, which is that if it destroys at least one enemy unit in a battle, you gain a Gamble. A variation on this variation is the Contract ability. Most Gambles are options. Even if you have them to spend, you're not required to do so. It just means that the unit's deployment ability won't activate and/or you can't use its regular Paid ability (which you indicate by placing a Deactivation marker on the unit.) With Contract, OTOH, you have to pay the Gamble cost for that unit to even fight in a declared battle. If you don't pay, they leave the board. So as much as it seems like an inherent advantage for Guild simply following the rules that everyone else already does, it's also often a significant cost to be paid and canny players can save(!) their Battle tokens for when the Guild player is low on Gambles to use.
Guild warriors are on the low side of the Initiative scale, by and large, which is an upside for Gamble costs but the usual downside in actual fights. It also explains why they have not only a Scout module (+1 Initiative) but no less than four Boss modules (+1 Initiative and +1 melee strength), most of anyone in the game. But their macro-initiative is also pretty limited with only 2 Battle tiles, the lowest of any army in the game. As you might expect, careful and methodical play is the order of the day with the Guild. That's borne out by a lot of their units, like Bomber Chris who's a dual-direction melee attacker on Initiative 2 that can also simply explode (like Sharrash Explosives) if they're not going to get the chance to attack. The Black Box is also interesting. It's only a mono-directional melee on Initiative 2, but it can swap places with an enemy when deployed (as long as you pay for it...) The Highway Cruiser alleviates some of those Battle token issues, since it can start one as soon as it's placed (as long as you pay for it...) and the Scout Leader can retrieve something you either discarded or lost in a fight (as long as you pay for it...) But the most interesting unit might be the Debt Hunter, since it's a double-strength shooting attack that has Sharpshooter (i.e. can pick its target, as long as...) The Briber module that lets you pay 2 Gambles to rotate an enemy has also been a key piece of our games, especially against other shooting armies and the Paid Sniper is an excellent special attack, since it's not just 1 hit like usual Sniper tiles, but up to 3, depending on how much you pay for it... Anyway, MG is definitely a thinky faction and not one I would ever hand off to a new or even relatively new player but, like Desert Tribes, can produce some really cool games.
Wiremen
Warriors: 1 x Sentinel, 2 x Machine Slayer, 2 x Psychocyborg, 2 x Scorpio, 3 x Tetra, 2 x Wasp, 3 x Mourner, 2 x Umo Soldier, 1 x Error, 1 x Wiremen; Actions: 1 x Sniper, 2 x Castling, 3 x Push Back, 4 x Move, 5 x Battle
In the same way that Pirates and Desert Tribes alter the confines of the board and placement and Merchants Guild changes the way you look at discarding, Wiremen are kind of the ultimate answer to the mulligan rule. A rule adopted with NH 3.0 was that if your opening hand was all Action tiles (Unlucky Draw), you could toss them and draw a new hand. Well, now that Wiremen action tiles are also Technology tiles, you may be far less interested in getting rid of two things that could significantly adjust the playing area in your favor until at least the end of the next battle and possibly the next two. Each Action tile, including Battle, will have at least one module-like effect (+1 strength of melee/shooting, +1 Initiative, +1 attack in the next phase, or a Saboteur function (reduce opponent's initiative.)) Those Technology tiles are placed on specific spaces outside the confines of the playing area which are the same as Pirates' Water Adjacency tokens (12, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 on the clock.) As long as that Technology is present, all Wiremen (or allied, if you're playing 4-player (does anyone do that?)) units gain that enhancement if they're in the straight line of hexes proceeding from that space (so between the 12 and 6, 10 and 4, 2 and 8.) At the start of the game, the Wiremen player also puts down three Time tokens on any three Technology spaces. If a Technology tile has a Time token with it in its space, that tile will be discarded at the end of the next battle. If not, the Time tokens get rotated clockwise (See, kids?!) and those still in play will be there for the next battle, too. So, it's basically like having modules with much greater range that can't be destroyed, but also don't stick around for longer than two fights. Also, the Sniper, Castling, Push Back, and Move tiles only have one ability, while the Battles have two, one on each side, that you choose when you place them. Oh, and the "Saboteur function" doesn't just reduce affected enemies' Initiative in the row by 1. It reduces all enemy Initiatives in that row to 0.
The HQ ability is called Inspirator and, once per turn, the Wiremen player can place or move the Inspiration token to any Technology tile and any unit that has Inspiration (Psychocyborg, Scorpio, Error, Wiremen) on the board(!) gets to use the base function of the Technology tile (Mobility. Push Back, or Castling; Sniper and Battle have no effect.) So, suddenly, all of your Psychocyborgs (dual-direction melee on Initiative 2 with Toughness) and Scorpios (single-direction shooting on Initiative 2 and 0) and your Error (six-direction melee, 3 of them double strength on 0) and your Wireman (net fighter) could be moving around the board at will before you use that Technology- ahem, Battle token to inflict maximum casualties on your opponent. Your Umo Soldiers are also cool (single-direction melee at +1 on 1) since their Extraction can be used when they're destroyed to pull either another unit or a Technology off the board and put it into your next draw. What it adds up to in my few games with them is an almost constant level of surprise and uncertainty for your opponent, even if the overall army, both Initiative- and strength-wise is pretty middle of the road. The versaility created by the Technology and the Inspiration warriors can easily give you the fine margins needed to push the game in your direction. The overall theme for Wiremen is kind of a fusion of Outpost and Borgo (based in the underground of Seattle, living in the shadow of Moloch, cyborgs and mutants) so that's a bit recycled, but what they bring to the game mechanically is as new as anything that Pirates, Desert Tribes, or Merchants Guild offers. All in all, it's a cool new(er) collection of armies for the dedicated Hex player.
