Hallowe'en Gaming 2015 - Psycho Raiders
Game Information
What better way to get into the spirit of Halloween, as a gamer, than to get some friends together huddled in a darkened room and play some horror boardgames.
Psycho Raiders (2014) by The Eternal Emperors of Evil
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Wicker Man, Rosemary’s Baby, Eden Lake and other films of this ilk have clearly left their indelible terror-inducing hands (and maws) all over the making of Psycho Raiders. In it, one player takes on the roles of the title characters and the other player (or players) is/are the hapless Campers caught in the middle of nowhere, in a van with a flat tire. The Campers win if at least one of them can make their way to the top of the map… while running through darkened dense woods…and a tiny town with questionable locals…. while also being hunted down by the Raiders. The Psycho Raider player is simply tasked with killing every last one of the Campers in horribly delightful ways.
This is a super fun and brutally violent magazine game (that’s right it comes in its own magazine) with pretty good components,(you do have to photocopy the character stat sheets, but whatever) and a light wargaming sensibility. The aesthetics are bang on in terms of the look and feel of the overall package. Not surprising really when one considers the game’s design team at Eternal Emperors of Evil has already established themselves with their now sold out 2nd edition of the magnificent Black Metal Necromancing game: Cave Evil. The stark colour palette of red, black and orange really suits this game and its dark, ominous setting. The comic in the magazine sets up the story and you as the players finish it off.
The gameplay is asymmetrical as the Raiders come armed to the teeth right out the gate with a butcher’s delight of assorted blades, a pyromaniac’s wet dream in a deadly flame thrower while sporting a sadist’s fervour. The Campers on the other hand start with very little and will need to search the woods, buildings or even try to kill a Raider (HAHAHA good luck with that) in order to take his weapons in a bid to stay alive. The Campers do have a couple of cool defensive actions they can take in order to stave off death. The first is the ability to “Hide”, which I really dig, this mechanic instantly reminded me of the hidden counters that were used in the old wargame Squad Leader. The way it works here is when a character is not in the line of sight of the Raiders, they can Hide by adding one hide token per turn (maximum of three tokens per character) on their current location and move those counters as a way to bluff where they really are on the map. A Raider has to land on that counter’s space and take a Search in order to reveal it. C’mon, that is fucking awesome. The other action Campers can perform is the ability to Scream, which they will use to try to alert nearby townsfolk. Successfully alerting townsfolk allow Campers to give actions to them, granting the Camper players instant access to buildings and special equipment they would otherwise have difficulty getting on their own. The flipside is that the Raider player knows which townsfolk the Campers can trust and which are Sinister and laying in wait to aid the Raiders. Also, by taking this action that character is no longer hidden and must discard any hidden tokens on the board. This adds a touch a wonderful sense of uncertainty in whether to alert the townsfolk at all.
Combat is pretty straightforward, as the attacker will roll a six-sided die and will add the weapon and/or the character’s strength to the result. The defender rolls defensive dice based on the same criteria as the attacker. The higher roll wins and the difference is the damage dealt. The loser must reduce their stats according to the number of hits taken which of course will make them weaker. If a Camper loses all points on her stat sheet as a result of combat, the Raider draws a Kill card deck and reveals at it, if a symbol on the card matches the symbol on the weapon the Camper dies a horrific death as pictured in gloriously graphic detail. If not the Camper regains the points lost on that attack thus surviving to see another minute…or two.
This game kicks ass and makes a perfect Halloween game to play with a group of friends. I skipped over the special abilities and random events but know that they also help to throw players deeper into this film... er game without too much overhead. I dig that EEE chose this to be a hex and counter game and added light wargame elements but on the whole is very much an Ameritrash game. It definitely doesn’t let up and with a playtime of between 15 minutes to an hour, it doesn’t overstay its welcome. My only gripe would be that the rules are a little muddy in places and needed a bit of tightening up, especially with a number of optional rules. I’ve never a fan of games that include a whole bunch of optional rules, I would prefer game designers to select the best "options" during playtesting and integrating as a part of the main rules, but that’s just my hang-up.
Get this game. Play this game. Rip someone’s face off using a hook and chain... in this game.
Purchase game here: http://summoning-of-evil.myshopify.com/products/psycho-raiders
I played as the campers and I can tell you that no other game captures the terror of being hunted down and murdered by amoral psychopaths better. The hiding, the possibility of sinister townsfolk, hoping that Joey shows up in his Camaro...this is a game that has rules for answering the phone and unsafe driving.
It's early on in my relationship with the game, but I would be comfortable with declaring it the best horror game I've ever played. Shit that happens I. This game is WAY scarier and more terrifying than anything in any other horror game to date. It nails the psychological simulation.
And the package...the way the comic leads into literally turn 1 of the game...fucking brilliant. All of the abhorrent, sloppy artwork, the crude "funnies", the disturbing piece of fiction...it's one of the best-packaged games I've ever seen. The whole thing is evocative and _rude.
This game is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.
Some things need to be grimy, atavistic, and unpleasant. This is one of them.
Besides, the game is completely up to the level of aesthetics that used to be considered acceptable (or even good) in hobby games.
I'll take a distinctive, highly stylized look over FFG/Thomas Kinkade quality illustrations nine times out of ten.
After Betrayal we are going to try Cthulhu's Vault for the first time.
Shellhead wrote:
charlest wrote: Where were all you people last year when Calendale and myself were raving about it?
I read your review last year with great interest, but I was still recovering from being unemployed for 10 months.
By "all you people" I mostly meant Mr. Barnes.
'All those people' like Mr. Barnes generally likes to wait for more important and influential voices in the game review world to say their piece about a game before looking into and falling in love with this reviewer's "Jeu du jour" as we commonly say in our tiny circle of Gaming Literati (see my Barnes endorsed Horus Heresy review).charlest wrote: Where were all you people last year when Calendale and myself were raving about it?
Don't be mad at me, bro.
Michael Barnes wrote: I played one on one last night. This game is totay renegade. It's ironic that one of the most progressive, innovative and maverick designs of the past several years is, for all intents and purposes, a design 35 years out of date by most standards. It has more to do with Legend of Robin Hood than Betrayal at the House on the Hill. All of these "dripping with theme" buffoons and anyone that thinks that a big FFG (or Kickstarter) production is necessary for atmosphere or storytelling needs to take a hard look at this brilliant.
I played as the campers and I can tell you that no other game captures the terror of being hunted down and murdered by amoral psychopaths better. The hiding, the possibility of sinister townsfolk, hoping that Joey shows up in his Camaro...this is a game that has rules for answering the phone and unsafe driving.
It's early on in my relationship with the game, but I would be comfortable with declaring it the best horror game I've ever played. Shit that happens I. This game is WAY scarier and more terrifying than anything in any other horror game to date. It nails the psychological simulation.
And the package...the way the comic leads into literally turn 1 of the game...fucking brilliant. All of the abhorrent, sloppy artwork, the crude "funnies", the disturbing piece of fiction...it's one of the best-packaged games I've ever seen. The whole thing is evocative and _rude.
This game is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.
Thank-you for out reviewing my review in five short paragraphs. You should give writing reviews a shot sometime.
True story and I don't give a crap how cheesy this sounds but last year while gearing up for my review asnd playing tons of solo games, one night I decided to post updates on facebook as the game progressed. The response was pretty cool and at one point a buddy of mine typed something, akin to screaming at the screen, to the lone Camper not to trust the Sheriff. When he turned out to be Sinister he responded "I TOLD YOU!!!" Awesome.
This is THE game of the year, IMO. I've played it twice now, once as the Raiders and once as two of the townsfolk (we played a 9 player game and I chose to sit out until they were activated....note that I was Sinister). Mike nailed it: it delivers a sense of doom like no other, to the campers, and delivers a sense of purpose and straight-up evil to the Raider player.
If you miss out on this, you suck at life.
Michael is wrong about one thing: If this had really nice, 100$ bits, it would be just as good or better. I've already considered ways to make that happen, such as translucent miniatures for each "hidden" marker, etc. The art couldn't change, and the magazine would have to be included.
Masterpiece.
charlest wrote: Where were all you people last year when Calendale and myself were raving about it?
To be fair, you weren't really a "Fort Guy" then, really. You should know by now that the Fort is a very exclusive club consisting of people who are natural-born cynics, who see the hypewagon, laugh, and rarely get upon it for a ride, and that are VERY selective on whom they seek out advice from, let alone trust that advice as valuable.
Don't take it personally, but until you've proven yourself here at the Fort, you're just another piece of shit huckster selling people what they want to hear. That's how many of the F:ATties that I've spoken with feel, at least.
The townsfolk switching thing...oh my god, that is genius. You've got the campers running toward the town (Crucible, which is a GENIUS name for it given how it becomes a crucible for ridiculously emergent gameplay), and maybe even phoning them. Or screaming for them. They may even come out to help. But then they can just turn on you at the whim of the Raider player or whoever is controlling a Sinister character. You are never safe.
There was one bit in my first game that just really stuck with me. Ginger screamed for the mechanic, he came running out of the gas station after grabbing a hammer. Randy ran toward him, Dawn was in the woods (where she ran across a body) hiding with Spud in pursuit, and Ginger was also heading up to the gas station. The mechanic threw the keys to Randy, he and Ginger caught into the fixer-upper parked outside. Dawn had used a hide token to fool Spud and wound up making it to the car too. Randy floored it...and immediately flipped the car on the turn just north of the gas station. Randy was pretty badly hurt so he told the girls to run and he got out of the flipped car to confront Torch and Beau and stall them. Torch set him on fire with the flamethrower. Beau stood by and laughed. But the kill draw missed. Randy had one point of speed left at this point, and the damage roll on the fire would have put him down on the next turn. But it started raining, and it put him out. It's like he just wouldn't die, and he gained a little will back to clobber Torch with the tire iron. Beau tried to stab him, but missed because Randy used a once-per-game dodge. Randy fought back, but dropped the tire iron on a natural one.. Beau ran the saber through his eyes. It was strangely sad, grim and utterly brutal in a way that board games NEVER are.
It was such a narratively specific turn of events...but it could have unfolded 1000 other ways up to that point, and that exact situation will likely not happen again. It was thrilling too, even though there was no chance for Randy to win in this situation...but we played it out because we _had_ to. We had to see what happened, and it was crucial to the themes that Randy keep fighting, keep trying to survive. Because he stalled them, it did actually turn into a win for the campers, Ginger ran through the chapel, hidden, and off the map. Just after the Raiders walkie-talkied to the Gravedigger, who was sinister. He was coming into the church with a shovel when she got out. Skin of the teeth.
I'm revising my GOTY 2014 picks. It's a joint win for Psycho Raiders and Mushroom Eaters. I can do that, it's my award.
Have 2 players as Raiders and 1 each play a camper. When a camper dies, they play a townsfolk...not knowing what their role is until the point where a Raider tells them that their specific guy is evil. Raiders can't play townsfolk until after a reveal, IMO, and when a townsfolk turns, the Raider takes them over and the dead camper player takes over a different townsfolk.
It works pretty well because campers don't seem to die until they've already gotten most of the way to town. That's a limited view, only 2 plays, but it worked for us.
Good times
Nate and his crew KNOW what they are doing.
The whole package is phenomenal.
UPDATE: Found a bit of the soundtrack here:
microtoxin.bandcamp.com/album/psycho-raiders-radio-tracks
Damn, I would need to subscribe to Billboard.com to get that official chart. Looking elsewhere, I at least found a top 40 for 1978, which includes these possible appropriate or ironic candidates:
Stayin Alive / the Bee Gees
Hot Blooded / Foreigner
Miss You / The Rolling Stones
We Will Rock You / Queen
We Are The Champions / Queen
Two Out of Three Ain't Bad / Meatloaf
Dust In the Wind / Kansas
Love is Like Oxygen / Sweet
Three Times a Lady / the Commodores
Baby Come Back / Player
Expanding it to include 1977:
Torn Between Two Lovers / Mary MacGregor
I'm Your Boogie Man / KC & the Sunshine Band
Hotel California / the Eagles
Easy / the Commodores
Fly Like an Eagle / Steve Miller
Looks Like We Made It / Barry Manilow
So Into You / Altanta Rhythm Section
Dreams / Fleetwood Mac
Don't Give Up On Us / David Soul
Mr. Breeze / Lynyrd Skynyrd (Didn't make the Top 40, but deserves inclusion)