'Sup, Holmes.
Man, Study in Emerald is really good. It took a couple of games for it to bring it home, but once you get a handle on its eccentricities, I think it is probably Martin Wallace's best game yet. I think it feels like a culmination of what he's been trying to do since A Few Acres of Snow. Yeah, it's deckbuilding... but it's very different than what that usually means. It's also an unusually confrontational area control game. With secret agendas, intrigue and Great Old Ones. And Sherlock Holmes! Lots going on, and this is the "streamlined" second edition. I'd like to try the original just for the sake of comparison, but I'm not sure I want this one to be any more complicated. So this is in the "love" column- review over at Miniature Market.
I've been playing a prototype of the new Climate expansion for Dom Crapuchette's Evolution, and it is really good so far. It adds a bunch of new climate-oriented trait cards to the mix of things you mutate your animals with, while pulling some out of the base game for balancing purposes. Interestingly, it doesn't mix with Flight at all but the tradeoff is that this expansion is quite a bit more extensive in terms of how it impacts the game. It adds a completely new tracking board that gauges the overall climate (obviously) and not only does this impact food supply, it also impacts animals based on their size. Small animals die in the cold, large animals die in the heat. So where the climate marker rests on a turn can have a critical effect on what traits are or are not favorable, and you've got to plan accordingly.
There are also event cards that can be triggered if the climate marker moves into specifically keyworded spaces, and there is one face-up, locked and loaded for both the "hot" side and the "cold" side. Volcanoes erupt, there are cold snaps, asteroids hit the planet. Generally effects that make it hard on living things that aren't adapted to the changes or new situations impacting food, population and size. Climate changes as a result of playing cards during the food supply phase, which adds another facet to selecting which card you throw into the pile. Not only are you looking at what you are adding to the available food, you also have to consider how the climate marker might move based on snowflake and sun icons. And of course, if you have animals with traits like Heavy Fur that thrive in the cold... maybe put a snowflake in there for your heat-loving opponents.
This all adds a compelling strategic layer to trait selection and I think it greatly enhances the sense that you are, with the other players, developing a living biosphere throughout play. Your biosphere might be in a long, protracted ice age and that will influence the kinds of animals that emerge. Or it may be hot, meaning that larger, carnivorous animals are more common. The theme of evolution now includes adapting to climate change as well as in response to other animals, and I think it feels like a richer and more complete game because of it. Rules-wise, it's only about a page worth of additions but the gain feels much greater. I got a message from Dom the other day that they are changing it somewhat to be less dramatic, which I find kind of disappointing but the track and the event cards could be pretty serious in terms of consequences. And the event cards weren't actually a part of the original design, but were added as a variant in the stretch goals for it. But they need to be there as part of the core design in my opinion, because they're great.
Dom told me that more expansions are coming and eventually some WILL allow for combining different add-ons, which is something I am very interested to see. Flight didn't really change the game dramatically or add any weight to the core game and anything that expands the game vertically without bloating it can only make this one even better.
So yeah, more Evolution is coming, and that's good because it is a great card game.
I have finally, thanks to gaming magnate Stephen Buonocore, played Stronghold. He sent over a copy of the new 2nd edition and this time I actually made it further than the rulebook, which is where I ran aground back in the second edition.
So far, so good after 1 ½ solo runs through it. I think it might be awesome except for the rules are still horrible. It seems a little smoother and a little cleaner than the previous edition (in other words, I actually understood the process of playing it from reading them) but I still found myself with furrowed brow, pouring over the rules to figure out what the hell was going on. For example- cannons. You draw a card. They shoot a cube "of the color shown". Nowhere does it specify what to do if it shows THREE CUBES. One of each? Choose one? And it was not clear at all that invader cubes are OUT OF THE GAME when spent or killed. There's like a tiny line buried in text that states that. And why does a card reference a "carpenter" when there's not even one in the game?
But get through that, and there are some brilliant things going on. I love the time trade-off in the preparation, I love the flow of seven prep rounds, seven assault rounds. I like all of the options available, I like the simple battles for advantage at the walls. The invaders have some interesting decisions in terms of focusing force or spreading out. The defender has to figure out how to marshal their resources to the right place at the right time. Lots of tension, drama and tough choices.
Definitely looking forward to exploring it more.
Out of nowhere, a box came from Poland on Saturday. In it was the new edition of Assault on Doomrock and its new expansion, Doompocalypse. Tom Stasiak of BD Games had mentioned sending me the new version last year, but I sort of forgot about it. I really liked this game a lot but felt like it needed some work, so I was pretty stoked to try it out again. There aren't that many changes, but the new expansion does a lot for the game. It adds terrain to the tactical battles, adds two new heroes (including a heavy metal bard), increases all the card decks, adds new minions and bosses, more of everything. One new ability for all of the classes, so you can choose three out of four. More crossbow axes and hilarious magical items of doom. A Cheat Code treasure card (IDKFA). Big cards for the encounters that have more detailed setups. I've played it a couple of times over the past few days and have just been, of course, beaten to death by the game. It is hard as balls, that much has not changed. But strangely, it feels fair and never capricious. On the second go-round, I think I like it even more.
Hooray, I just got word that HABA is sending me Titus Tentacle. Mexica came from MM and I'm really digging going back in time for that one. And for some reason I traded for Shadowrun Crossfire. I don't even like Shadowrun!