Battlelore: Days of Wonder releases another tepid expansion

I saw this on BGG and all I can think is that battlelore continues to sink to new lows. We talked about this in the comments of the Days of Wonder front page post but I can't help it.

A new epic map. With preprinted start locations. And a troll.

This game was slightly promising, a promised Warhammer style boardgame with the solid C+C system. It is fucking *stunning* to me that Days of Wonder haven't even introduced any new races. I mean, if my view was of Days of Wonder as expansion hungry rip off artists, that would have been the first thing to come, is endless poorly balanced races. But no. Still nothing. Just goblin and dwarf drum players. It has been, what, 2 fucking years since Battlelore has been released?

Now I just think they're incompetent. Thank god I didn't buy Battlelore, I was tempted by the hype machine when it first came out. Days of Wonder has no intention of going anywhere interesting with it... fucking a, I even think that adding GW style endless races to the game would be better than this.

That expansion sounds way lame. What's the point of preprinting the map? Yeah OK, one of the things that bothers me about Battlelore is the amount of time setting up vs. game time, but don't we already have all the tools to properly play a scenario? As far as I can recall the base game comes with all sorts of terrain.

So far the only expansion I bought was the Call to Arms expansion. So I don't even have the epic expansion. Also for the record, the Hill Giant and Earth Elemental haven't ever done anything crucial in any of the games I've played either.

I'm just happy I traded it away for C&C:A when I saw the writing on the wall.

It's a good game without any expansions. You guyz have a strange approach to boardgames, you're treating them like a sports team. "COACH JONES REALLY FUCKED UP TODAY, WE ARE 8-5 BUT HE JUST CUT THE 4TH STRING BACKUP QB, HE MUST BE FIRED!"

It's a good game without expansions but it has great potential and so far very little of that potential has been realized.

Octavian wrote:

It's a good game without expansions but it has great potential and so far very little of that potential has been realized.

I think that's probably it's biggest flaw: under delivery. There is so much potential there for an awesome game and they perpetually disappoint. It's akin to Magic:the Gathering delivering only "Core Sets". You get the Core Set--it's pretty good, offers a design space with a lot of room, and then they announce... another Core Set! The same space is explored--some errata is whipped up, some confusing bits excised, then... another Core Set! I sure hoped you liked that gameplay in the first ed--cause here's more! No, instead, they publish a Core Set to establish a base, and then expand it with more complicated crazy Expert Sets. This is what BattleLore is missing--the expert "next level" of game.

Compare also to Arkham Horror. The original is a solid enterprise, quite enjoyable. For those that want, there's Dunwich to deliver a new experience that both adds to and develops the original game.

The real problem is that the base set is a good game that is inferior to C+C Ancients. The payoff was supposed to be the direction it was going to go in expansions and it didn't do that, as Octavian said.

If I was going to play base battlelore, I'd just play C+C Ancients instead.

Actually, that brings up a very interesting point. I've never played Memoir, but has there ever been a worthwhile expansion for a C+C game? I have one but I don't think any of the Ancients expansions have been worth something besides the new scenarios, and Battlelore has certainly been a failure... maybe Memoir's are good? People talk all about them.

Of Memoir, BattleCry, C&C:A, and Battlelore, Memoir is easily my least favorite. The system works fine and the scenarios are interesting enough, but it just doesn't FEEL right for a WWII game. The card driven stuff fits much better with pre-mechanized combat.

Battlelore was always sold, and rated, on it being a system. As a stand alone it is weak, Memoir 44 feels complete, battlelore with its one creature and interchangeable sides never did.
Battlelore is currently a clusterfuck. First game Im seriously considering getting rid of.

all you knuckle heads who think this is a good game are welcome to buy my copy.(hill giant and earth elem included) It sucks, and I just went out and got all 4 of the C&C:A games so I will not be needing it any longer.

Make me an offer.

what i need now is an indentured servant to sticker all those blocks.

-M