Barnes on Games Catchup Post- DOOM, Ogre, TMNT, Acquire, Armada Wave 5, Dreamlands, Conan Expansions...
Game Information
"Monolithic and Unstoppable"
So I've gotten lazy about posting my reviews here...time to play some catchup with a digest post!
There's some good ones in here. First up, a H2H with my good friend Charlie Theel on DOOM. All caps. Because the game is awesome. Of the recent rash of Guys on a Grid games, it's my favorite. It's ruthlessly violent, it incentivizes close quarters fighting, and it has a lot of cool and fun things going on. I especially like how your weapon loadout determines your overall moving and shooting strategy. I think this is a MUCH better game than Imperial Assault and I wish that it was the chassis upon which Star Wars was built. It has the best minis FFG has ever produced and the whole thing is...a whole thing! There are no character packs or backer-only areas of the game. And it doesn't have that "needs an expansion" feeling. Which is all to say that it will probably be on the Christmas sale at the end of the year, which is a shame because this is one of FFG's best in recent years. Really like this one a lot. One knock is that it is kind of long-ish. But there is also more game here than in similar titles.
Charlie and I have another Hug 2 Hug over TMNT. I liked this one a lot too, but a couple of elements keep it from greatness. The production is half awesome- REAL comics art, cool comics-style presentation of scenarios...but then half terrible. The miniatures are horrendous and the component quality in general makes it feel like a typical mainstream licensed game. It looks cheap. But the game is really good, and I especially like that each scenario is presented as the climactic fight at key points in an ongoing story. I LOVE how it tracks the campaign...nope, no mountains of cards to show for your victories...you just flip this bookmark over to whoever won the last time so you know where to go on the next game. The dice sharing mechanic is near-brilliant, and there's lots of fun action in this one. Really hate that a lot of it is Kickstartered away, rendering it incomplete.
Speaking of Kickstarted away...I gave one star to the first two Conan expansions, Yogah of Yag and Crossbowmen. These $25 additions are a complete ripoff and should be avoided. Yogah is literally one really shitty, cheap looking figure and a card in a box big enough to put five of that figure in. There is no actual content in the expansion, it's just the figure. No scenario, no rules, no background information. The Crossbowmen you get ten figures but hey, they really aren't that much different than the archers in the base game. Not $25 different. Because of these expansions, I decided to ditch the game altogether. I wanted to see more, but if this is how they are going with it I can't be bothered with it. I hear that you can download scenarios for these but I shouldn't have to do that. The Imperial Assault expansions are like $8, you get multiple figures and you get two skirmish maps AND cards AND other game materials. Or, looking at GW, $25 gets you a really awesome hobby-quality figure or almost gets you to a unit box.
Further on expansion packs, Armada wave 5 is pretty great- the big winners are the Phoenix Home (a new large ship for the Rebels, from the show Rebels) and the new squadrons. The squadrons give you some of the more specialized ships like the Z-95s and TIE variants. I am, however, getting to the saturation point with Armada- I kind of wish they would just put the brakes on it. Well, maybe just the Hammerhead Corvette from R1 and then stop. I assigned the Corellian Conflict campaign expansion to my man Craig, because this is the dude that worked out a way to play the entire Battle of Endor using Armada, X-Wing and Imperial Assault. Plus I don't really care about playing campaigns like this.
And then there is the Dreamlands expansion for Eldritch Horror. A big "meh" on this one. I was excited to check it out, but just like with Mountains of Madness it adds a stupid side board (PLEASE GOD NO) and some super conditional content that may or may not have an impact on the game, particularly if it is diluted with other expansion content. There's new Dreamquest cards, whoopee. So much redundancy in this game at this point. As usual, the advisement here is to stick with the small box expansions and avoid the big ones.
Back on to the good stuff- Kyle and I talk about Acquire since there's a new edition. There are a couple of changes that may or may not cheese off longtime fans- the board is smaller and third place gets a dividend, but it is all still Acquire. I can't say that I'll be divesting myself of the never-bested 1999 edition, but at least the new version is better than the one before which was just ugly and chintzy looking.
Finally, Ogre. Yep, there is ANOTHER edition out. This time it is the same components and all from the Designer's Edition, but it's JUST Ogre. Which is kind of cool because it is back to basics and it avoids all of the idiotic excess of the Designer's Edition, but you get the cool cardboard Ogres and overall high quality components. But it is JUST Ogre. So none of the GEV content, which is IMO what makes Ogre go from great to Great. But then again, the classic MKIII versus Command Post scenario is iconic, and the thematic concept is the strongest in the bare bones edition. Still one of the best games ever published, and one that goes strangely underappreciated by modern gamers.
Coming up next- Escape from Colditz (another one with Charlie), Assault of the Giants and...maybe Gloomhaven?
I REALLY wanna get that new DOOM game. It's pretty much the only thing FFG has released recently that I have any interest in. It sounds like a hell of a lot of fun...and honestly I don't mind that it runs long. As long as the pacing is fine and your having fun the whole time, I don't see a problem with a game that skitters past the 2 hour mark.
TMNT is kind of brilliant and I think its the best original design that Kevin Wilson has ever done. It perfectly captures the feel of the turtles and the dice sharing mechanic is a genuine stroke of genius. I actually don't think the production is all that bad...but I get what you're saying. And yeah it sucks that lots of cool shit was only offered to KS backers.
I know you hated The Others, but I still think it's the best 1 vs all game to come out in the last year or so. I don't think its in the same category as DOOM, Conan or TMNT...it just feels completely unique compared to those. Still as a big fan of 1 vs All style games I'm glad to see this type of game come back into fashion. Though at the end of the day I think most people still prefer co-op games.
Sucks to hear that the Dreamlands expansion is a bust. The only big box expansion I own is the Pyramids and I've barely played it. Honestly, EH has so much shit already that I sort of wish they'd stop. They already have another small box expansion on the way....
MattDP wrote: You've piqued my interest in Doom. When you say it runs a little long, would you care to put a rough figure on that?
I don't think it's out of the ordinary for a scenario to go 2 hours, when they seem like they should be about an hour. There ends up being a bit of a push and pull going on, even when it is fairly obvious which side will be the victor. I haven't played enough to give a better answer than that yet.
That said, at no point during the game that goes on longer than you think it will, is anyone not having fun.
My thoughts on Conan - I really liked this game mechanically. Kickstarter ruined it, and I'm glad I dumped mine.
TMNT - this game is great, and I don't mind the minis. The tiles are hideous though.
hotseatgames wrote: TMNT - this game is great, and I don't mind the minis. The tiles are hideous though.
Yeah the tiles are pretty much the only thing about the production that I dislike. When we played the first scenario I stared at the tiles for a solid 15 minutes before realizing we were starting on a rooftop. I felt like it was a fucking magic eye painting that all the sudden came into focus.
Due to it being extremely allocated (all retailers got 8% of what they ordered and Miniature Market already receive and shipped theirs last week), unfortunately we may not get to hear your take.
The original has more interesting scenarios (especially the expansion), is much more brutal, and was really crazy for the time.
I think I'd probably rather play the new one if given the choice but this doesn't exactly replace that. Unless you're only interested in one sci-fi dungeon crawler then maybe it does.
New DOOM is much different, very much a new design and not a retread of the 2005 game. It's more detailed and mechanical, but also more fun to play and interesting. It also feels more like DOOM.
That said, I like Dreamlands, and I don't see this dilution problem. It's nicely modular. Perhaps too modular, in that if you go full random on setup you'll barely see all that cool stuff you paid for. But if you just grab the relevant preludes, Dreamlands is great: the sideboard is easy to get to, the stories fit the HPL Dream Cycle, and both new AOs are pretty cool.
My issue is with the value proposition. The small-box expansions give you way more bang for your buck. Dreamlands was particularly light on overall content. But what was there, was good (IMO).
I usually just stack the decks with something new like this though, at least to a minimum degree...just so some of that new stuff is guaranteed to show up.
I kind of wish they were more modular in that you could just plug in a set of cards rather than have this all-in orgy of cards from years' worth of expansions. That was what made Arkham Horror untenable.
I could wish that when they introduce something new that they would keep it in relative sync variety-wise. It's kind of weird to have 13 unique Debts, but only 4 Blights. But it's a hard call, as some people don't want any new Blights, as they never bought Signs of Carcosa. But as long as it's internally consistent (encounters don't reference things you don't have) I think it's fine, and they've been careful about that. That's where Arkham went off the rails, unless you do some curating and pre-game prep.
I think the way to look at the big boxes is that you get one very specific scenario, one generic scenario using the setting, and a bunch of extra general stuff you'll always use. So if you're not that into the scenario, avoid, as the small boxes give you the general stuff without the extra cost/overhead.