The Edge: Dawnfall

Any of y'all ever play this? I've got a chance to buy the Warchest + stretch goals for a comparative song, and I'm mighty tempted. It's still $140 though, which is a big chunk of change for a game. Was hoping for some real talk re whether it's worth getting.

All depends if you love big and detailed miniatures as that's what you're paying for, although $140 seems an absolute steal from looking at the KS page www.kickstarter.com/projects/awakenrealms/the-edge-dawnfall

It's Awaken Realms so you will get a ton of content and a good game system plus it has big love in the BGG ratings ... I'd probably buy it at that price for just those reasons only

Heard good things about it, never played it.

I would buy it for that price, simply because it's from my favorite designer, Michal Oracz. Its ridiculous price is the only reason I don't already own it.

Alright well, I'll let you guys know how it is. The place knocked off another $10 and well... Here we are.

A game that fills you car's boot/trunk and you aren't sure if it is worth it !

Rules learned, stage set, carnage is go. The flow of the game is super straightforward once you're in it, I think the skill ceiling is going to come from learning the decks of each faction, and building a deck to counter the faction you're up against etc. That's for later, for now I'm going to play this game with the precon armies/decks and see how it goes

I didn't realize there was deck customization out of game. For that kind of thing you really need dedicated opponents.

Yea each faction has like 80 cards and you make a 25 card deck. A lot of the cards are tied to specific units, so your deck choices are constrained by what units you draft. There are a bunch of different cards per unit so you can go different directions even with the same units.

Edit: there are precon decks for each faction, so you can just roll with those and have a good time I'm sure

First game impressions, playing 2 handed: fast and brutal. Your big guy is 4 points if he gets killed, and you only need 6 to win (it's a tug of war vp track, so actually probably more than 6 ). The melee around the econ generating spots on the board is hot from the word go, as the game starts with all your units on the board with basically no build up. You're instantly in the fray, which is fun. The card play is fun and the cards are impactful, and the tactical decision of which unit to activate each turn is never not painful. So yea, seems fun. I haven't played many games to directly compare it to (Shadespire looks like an obvious comparison point) so I'm not much for expert opinions in the matter, but I think this one's real fun first blush. Maybe not for the eye watering asking price 0_0 I think this would make a really nice rationally priced game though.

Edit: one usability nitpick, the board is laid out to go long ways with each player sitting at one of the short ends and there's spots there for all your cards and stuff. The board is way too long to fit in most tables that orientation though. Just seems like a weird choice.

Also, the amount of stuff in the box to support the non skirmish gameplay is wild. A million like campaign maps and books and sheets of stickers and stuff that all just seem like 100% wasted effort/Kickstarter bloat. The skirmish mode is the good bit, you don't need this to also be 10 story driven campaigns that no one is ever going to care about and on and on.

Also, while far from the most visually stunning mini in the box for whatever reason I really like this little demon cultist guy's design

I would love to see them release a tokens version. I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Cthulhu Wars just got a standee version so we can dare to dream.

Ah_Pook wrote: ...
Also, the amount of stuff in the box to support the non skirmish gameplay is wild. A million like campaign maps and books and sheets of stickers and stuff that all just seem like 100% wasted effort/Kickstarter bloat. The skirmish mode is the good bit, you don't need this to also be 10 story driven campaigns that no one is ever going to care about and on and on.

Also, while far from the most visually stunning mini in the box for whatever reason I really like this little demon cultist guy's design

Just for a different point of view I'd probably have more interest in the different campaigns, if it was just skirmish I'd likely skip, so perhaps they did do market analysis and put enough in to get the maximum interest.

southernman wrote:

Ah_Pook wrote: ...
Also, the amount of stuff in the box to support the non skirmish gameplay is wild. A million like campaign maps and books and sheets of stickers and stuff that all just seem like 100% wasted effort/Kickstarter bloat. The skirmish mode is the good bit, you don't need this to also be 10 story driven campaigns that no one is ever going to care about and on and on.

Also, while far from the most visually stunning mini in the box for whatever reason I really like this little demon cultist guy's design

Just for a different point of view I'd probably have more interest in the different campaigns, if it was just skirmish I'd likely skip, so perhaps they did do market analysis and put enough in to get the maximum interest.

The campaigns are just the skirmish gameplay with a lot of the interesting decisions removed and replaced with pages and pages of flavor text though. They are there to get people to back the Kickstarter because of all the perceived value even if they're not sold on the core game concept (which I'm pretty sure is what you said, rephrased). I mean I get it from a business perspective, but also I don't ever back this kind of big Kickstarter for exactly this reason. I'm typically not interested in overpaying by hundreds of dollars for a game with a crapload of half baked content bolted onto it for the express purpose of milking money out of suckers Kickstarter whales. I think we're just never going to see eye to eye on Kickstarter games though

Well, to be fair, they're not milking anyone because it is minis loving people buying it mostly, just like games from Mythic Games and everything GW do. These companies doing the KSers know that the KS model allows them to access minis lovers worldwide without having to go the retail mode and ship smaller lots to countries all around the world.
And when I see the excited posts of people about the mini quality and how they intend to paint them I know that I'm in a different world then my normal gaming.

And Awaken Realms were a quality miniatures selling company before they decided to provide something in the box that people could do with them (don't know about Mythic, I think they just make hundreds per game for the money from the guaranteed market) so I don't really think they can be accused of anything apart from identifying a market that was available to them.

And I still would still play the campaigns rather than just skirmish, I enjoy a good setting that maybe my imagination isn't good enough to create.

I taught @hotseatgames this one TTS yesterday afternoon, and had fun doing so. Pretty sure it didn't grab him like Neuroshima Hex does, but I'll let him say more we ran the suggested intro game setup, Demon's vs Chapter. Didn't finish the game but I think my Chapter wins if we play it out? Chapter has solid defense and good offensive options once they're kinda set up, and I had an economic advantage and was whittling down Demon's offensive powerhouses. More early offense before Chapter can get established is probably the move, but I'm not at all an expert so take that for what you will. Balancing your board play with timing Passive turns to get your crystal economy going is a tricky puzzle, especially since you can only activate 1 squad a turn.

Offer still stands, I'm happy to teach anyone that wants to try this thing out on TTS, or just play some rounds if you already know how to play