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Weekly Trash - Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit

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15 Dec 2008 15:07 #15370 by ChristopherMD
Ken B. wrote:
Hard to find, OOP, but worth it.

This game simulates the ending of Episode I. Whatever your opinion of that film is, there's no denying that this is an awesome game.

You have four battles simultaneously going on, and you have to balance your card play to try and either win or hold your own in each arena. You've got the war on the plains with the Trade Federation and the Gungans, where the Gungans are hopelessly outmatched and are merely hoping to distract the TF long enough for the Queen to accomplish her goals. You have the Queen, her decoy, Panaka and a legion of guards trying to scale the palace and reach the top floor where the viceroys are holed up. You've got Anakin in his ship, racing through screens of starfighters in an attempt to destroy the Trade Federation Control Ship. And in the core, you have the duel to the death between Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Darth Maul.

You take turns activating characters in the different arenas by playing cards that are much like Memoir '44. Move your guys, take your shots, try to accomplish your goals.

The only knock would be the static setup might get stale over time, but there's so much going on that it will probably take awhile for that to happen.

Highest recommendation to pick this one up, even at OOP prices. If you're actually a Star Wars fan, the recommendation is all the stronger--sell blood to get it, whatever it takes. Just a great, great game.




Weekly Trash is a series of discussion threads in the F:AT forums. Each week a comment from the recommendations database is highlighted here. Don't be shy about posting further comments, questions, answers, funny stories, pictures, "this game sucks", or anything else related to the game.

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15 Dec 2008 16:30 #15377 by Octavian
I've played Queen's Gambit a dozen or more times and the static setup hasn't gotten old. The cards, the dice results, and most of all your opponent force you to prioritize differently from game to game.

Great game.

-MMM

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15 Dec 2008 17:14 #15380 by quozl
I am not a fan. Too constricted. I much prefer Battle Cry and its progeny than Queen's Gambit.

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15 Dec 2008 17:17 - 15 Dec 2008 17:18 #15381 by Michael Barnes
Better than all the prequels put together. Ten years from now this is going to be a $500 game on Ebay because it will probably never ever be released due to the licensing and there's almost no way the theme could be changed. Plus no company in their right mind would release any product connected to Episode I at this point.

I haven't played it in years, but I really liked it a lot even though the whole time I was thinking how awesome the game would be if it were OT. It is pretty restrictive in a lot of ways, but the way it depicts four parallel battles is super cool even if the space part is really abstract.

It's pretty much not possible to play the game without bellowing "Duel of the Fates" at some point.
Last edit: 15 Dec 2008 17:18 by Michael Barnes.

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15 Dec 2008 18:38 #15382 by jeb
Yeah, this is one that'll never see the light of day again. I've given up hope of obtaining a copy. This one is relegated to the "fantasy yard sale find" along with 60GB PS3's with full backwards compatibility.

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15 Dec 2008 19:38 #15385 by tomvasel
Yeah, I found copies at a blow-out sale at a Korean game convention a few years ago, and I urged my friends to buy copies on the spot, even at $60. My copy is all beat up from the number of times we play it, and I despair at ever getting another - with the price going up.

You might say that the game is "constricted", but that's the perfect matching of a theme, I'd say. No matter what your opinion on the movie - they turned the end of the movie into a board game, and it works. (Except in my version, the Gungans are wiped off the map, and nobody weeps for them.)

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15 Dec 2008 19:56 #15386 by Michael Barnes
But that degree of constriction begs the question- how much does the theme need to be on rails and how much can it get off that and allow for more fluidity in terms of player decisions and creative strategy? WAR OF THE RING (reference #429,349,981,232 in a discussion about theme and mechanics for those keeping track) does that well and it never really feels like it's restrictive.

BSG is another example...by the QG model, XXXXXX would always be a Cylon. In the game, it isn't necessary but the theme is still there.

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15 Dec 2008 21:19 #15387 by clockwirk
I was lucky enough to be one of a few people on BGG who scored a copy from a game shop in Canada for $80 U.S. shipped. I'm totally stoked to try this one out, but so far I've only gotten to play with the bits with my three year old. Still pretty fun, although I'm constantly fighting the urge to tell my son to "play gently with the Jedi".

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15 Dec 2008 21:22 #15388 by clockwirk
I'm wondering about the space battle mechanism with Anakin vs. the Trade Federation ship. Is there really any strategic decisions to make, or is that just the luck of the dice?

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16 Dec 2008 02:11 #15390 by tomvasel
Michael Barnes wrote:

But that degree of constriction begs the question- how much does the theme need to be on rails and how much can it get off that and allow for more fluidity in terms of player decisions and creative strategy? WAR OF THE RING (reference #429,349,981,232 in a discussion about theme and mechanics for those keeping track) does that well and it never really feels like it's restrictive.

BSG is another example...by the QG model, XXXXXX would always be a Cylon. In the game, it isn't necessary but the theme is still there.


I haven't played BSG yet (stinkin' slow post office!), but much as I like War of the Ring, there's still a lot of constriction. The Fellowship HAS to go to Mount Doom, and while you can split people off - it's usually wise to send them to specific areas, etc.

It DOES have a better flow, and more freedom than Queen's Gambit, and that's probably why I like it more. But I still don't think constriction is always bad.

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16 Dec 2008 02:54 #15391 by Octavian
It doesn't feel so constricted when Maul defeats both Jedi. Or when Destroyer Droids cut down the Queen thanks to all the Gungan blood on the battlefield. Or when Panaka and a few pGs are holed up in the Throne Room trying to stave off the slow but inevitable trickle of droids aiming to pick them off...praying that an obviously inept 8 year old kid somehow manages to luck his way through a swarm of fighters that have kept him at bay five consecutive times.

Events in the game can and do differ, sometimes wildly, from what happened in the movie. I'm not buying "the QG model would have XXXXXX always be a Cylon" as being fair to QG at all.

I'm wondering about the space battle mechanism with Anakin vs. the Trade Federation ship. Is there really any strategic decisions to make, or is that just the luck of the dice?


Completely luck of the dice. Even the TF player has only very basic "decisions" to be made, but they are still completely luck based (and that's only if the TF player decides to ignore following what probability dictates).

-MMM

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16 Dec 2008 10:20 #15402 by Ken B.
The Trade Federation does have to commit an action to playing the blocking starships that will help delay Anakin. When you consider how much a Destroyer Droid/Battle Droid card or a Maul card especially can do, sometimes that's a rough trade off for something that's not even guaranteed (Anakin could luck through every card you play anyway.)

I think TQG does a fantastic job forcing you to balance your efforts. I've heard that the Gungans should never bother activating, but if you let the TF milk free actions from there at their whim, your other forces are going to get beat up because of that. A single squad of Destroyers can easily take out a Gungan squad, making for a 1-for-1 exchange and meaning the Federation barely loses pace.

I found out also just how POWERFUL the Gungan catapults are if you take the effort to bring them to bear.

The constriction gives it a nice "I can learn this" feel for repeat plays. There's a lot of variance but you start to pick up on strategies...moving droids over to the third floor windows to block them is something you won't think of on your very first game but I guarantee you about your third game you're going to pick up on that.



It's funny how often War of the Ring comes up when discussing Queen's Gambit...they have always felt like sister games to me even though they had nothing to do with each other and their mechanics differ wildly. Yet they're my two favorite games, and there is a "feel" to them that is very similar. Taking a framework of story, mixing in your forces, giving you some cards, and turning you loose. The scale is much different with TQG covering the last fifteen minutes of a two-hour movie while War of the Ring takes you from the halfway point of Fellowship of the Ring (at Rivendell) and takes you all the way to Mount Doom itself.


They've very much "system" games, and I don't mean that in a 'franchise' sense. What I mean is that a world is created, and it's up to you to manipulate the pieces as you see fit, with the rules stepping in as necessary to define and resolve those interactions. That sounds just like any boardgame by that description but compare it to something really tightly constrained like an auction Euro where the game ticks along on its own and you're just along for the ride, interjecting with your limited ability to respond as the situation merits.

That's why I love Ra and don't really dig many of the other auction Euros. Ra understands its own system, and understands really that the only choices players have are to bid, or to draw a tile. Because of that, all the bullshit is stripped out and the game just screams right along. A game like that should never be a ninety minute affair when you can interject yourself in such a limited fashion.


TQG and War of the Ring are fairly lush treatments of their subject matters, and they give a large degree of freedom to how you proceed. You can do stupid stuff like march the Fellowship around through Isengard and Helm's Deep if you feel like it (though that's stupid, there's nothing in the game to constrain this.) In the Queen's Gambit you can ignore a theater altogether, or focus intently on just one, or march your Gungans straight out from the shield to punch the droids in the teeth, whatever.


Both strike a "just right" time frame for their systems. TQG, once you get proficient, can be put up, played, and taken down in 2 hours, easily (if not sooner.) War of the Ring between two players who know what's going on can be played in 3 hours or less. When I played Will Kenyon in Atlanta, it was so refreshing because I wasn't teaching anyone anything. He was teaching me the expansion but that took very little time and we just screamed through a game.


Both are games worth owning, worth learning, and worth playing. Two of my favorites, bar none.

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16 Dec 2008 15:50 #15423 by Mr. Bistro
I should love this game - I'm a nerd, I love board games, and I think Craig VanNess is a great designer - but I just can't. There is some very clever stuff happening in this game and the balance is brilliant in many ways. But the whole Anakin thing just blows it for me. The entire good guy victory hangs upon a completely random element that not only do they not control, but the other player can make even harder. I know I sound like a Euro-lover here, but it's too much. I put in hard time and effort only to have this game waggle its privates at me. It's madness!

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