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- southernman
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- TOTALLY WiReD
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VonTush wrote: RE: Blood Rage
I've been thinking about the strategy of killing your dudes for Glory...And I think it is one of those early one strategies that is potent, but also one of those where as players becomes more proficient it won't pan out as well. I feel it'll end up being a solid 3rd place strategy over time. In a game where you have maybe 20-25 Rage total to spend all game, spending 4 or 5 each turn to get your defeated troops back out means you're spending a large percentage of your limited resource just to bring out stuff to kill it again.
Meanwhile you're also not gaining Glory and clan stat increases since you're looking to lose the battle. And give your opponent's opportunity to pillage and gain stat increases which also give bonus Glory at the end. Also, it's an easy strategy to stop because it doesn't have much flexibility. Once players know you're going for death a flexible clan can spend a turn keeping of those Valhalla Quests from you.
Just some thoughts I've had thinking about the game.
The missions (or whatever they are called) that give the points for dead dudes only requires four at then end, most players ended up with that many deaths without even trying. I still managed to take regions and get my stats up, I actually had two of the stats in the +20 VP column at the end.
It was my first game but the guy I just nudged into 2nd had the immortal ship upgrade so was also going down the same path.
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Every combo can feel overpowered if someone drafts into that position. The draft is a huge part of this game.
Dying and going to Valhalla can be crazy.
So can having two warriors with 6 strength and everytime you lose a fight getting free warriors on the board.
I've won by going low on upgrades and being the only player to draft huge battle cards, completing quests and owning Yggdrasil.
I've also seen players dominate with the multiple pillage cards (pillage again with your leader) or the big giant that lets you pillage twice.
It kind of has that Glory to Rome feel where ridiculous combos are there waiting to be unlocked.
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There's a lot of things going on in the game with different kinds of attack (challenges), plot cards (you pick one each round and it grants you your income for the round and a special ability), and lots of cards abilities, obviously. But it felt quite clean nonetheless and while we had to reference the rules a few times nothing caused us to question what would be the right ruling.
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I dunno about this one. The second encounter the heroes just need to escape off a very small map to win. They did so in like 4 turns. I'll admit to choosing a dumb open group and not playing well. But it was pretty easy for the heroes anyway. No big deal. Next encounter. The two heroes must slay the boss before he kills the npc guards. First turn the archer girl nails the boss for 5-6 dam. He runs away, only having like 4 hp left, to attack one of the guards. He fails to kill it. I block the room entrance with a dragon. Boss is slain by npc guard. OL loss in TWO TURNS. Next encounter. Boss summons and releases four zombies to the exit. Heroes lose in five turns. FIVE TURNS.
Truly, I made some dumb errors and so did my fiance. But fucking hell, sessions lasting from 2-5 game turns? Takes longer to set up, learn new scenario rules, and level up than it does to play a fucking game. Kind of retarded. These are just the opening quests so I'll see how it progresses. I do like some of the changes from 1st edition but uh....
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- san il defanso
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- ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
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Put it this way: I think this will have the same effect that Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition had on that franchise, ensuring that only people like Pete Ruth will want to play previous editions.
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Hex Sinister wrote: I borrowed Descent 2nd Edition from my pal.
I dunno about this one. The second encounter the heroes just need to escape off a very small map to win. They did so in like 4 turns. I'll admit to choosing a dumb open group and not playing well. But it was pretty easy for the heroes anyway. No big deal. Next encounter. The two heroes must slay the boss before he kills the npc guards. First turn the archer girl nails the boss for 5-6 dam. He runs away, only having like 4 hp left, to attack one of the guards. He fails to kill it. I block the room entrance with a dragon. Boss is slain by npc guard. OL loss in TWO TURNS. Next encounter. Boss summons and releases four zombies to the exit. Heroes lose in five turns. FIVE TURNS.
Truly, I made some dumb errors and so did my fiance. But fucking hell, sessions lasting from 2-5 game turns? Takes longer to set up, learn new scenario rules, and level up than it does to play a fucking game. Kind of retarded. These are just the opening quests so I'll see how it progresses. I do like some of the changes from 1st edition but uh....
Yeah I'm currently running through the base game campaign right now and I agree with many of your criticisms. One that thing that really bugs me is that there is zero exploration. In fact you really don't have time for much (as you said). Each side has an objective and if you waste any time you'll probably lose. It's got some good ideas and I like how simple the campaign rules are. However, it doesn't really feel like a dungeon crawl. I'd hesitate to call it a major improvement over 1st Edition.
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- Legomancer
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- Dave Lartigue
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I am not a fan of BSG (and it doesn't get play with this group) but mostly because of the length. Dark Moon I liked because it was shorter and, in my opinion, more interesting. In our game the humans did fabulously well on repair tasks, and the infected just could not slow them down. They breezed through tasks and events in no time. I finally revealed myself as Infected, hoping the other would as well so we could get more direct, but it was too late. We just didn't have enough time or power to really hurt them. As a result, there wasn't much challenge, decisions weren't tough, and the hidden roles weren't that interesting.
Thankfully I got it for cheap, if it comes to that. It's been a while since I had something I was so personally excited about just crash and burn.
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DungeonQuest probably is the game that feels the best, but for different reasons. There, it's just the satisfaction of moving to the next room without outright dying that feels good.
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- SuperflyPete
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Legomancer wrote: I played and enjoyed Dark Moon at TFNE, and bought a copy for sale there. On Sunday I brought it out to my regular group and it kind of flopped. We played a key rule wrong (re-doing the Task deck for the final event) but I'm not sure it will make a difference, as I don't think the folks who played will be eager to give it another try.
I am not a fan of BSG (and it doesn't get play with this group) but mostly because of the length. Dark Moon I liked because it was shorter and, in my opinion, more interesting. In our game the humans did fabulously well on repair tasks, and the infected just could not slow them down. They breezed through tasks and events in no time. I finally revealed myself as Infected, hoping the other would as well so we could get more direct, but it was too late. We just didn't have enough time or power to really hurt them. As a result, there wasn't much challenge, decisions weren't tough, and the hidden roles weren't that interesting.
Thankfully I got it for cheap, if it comes to that. It's been a while since I had something I was so personally excited about just crash and burn.
I passed on a cheap copy a month ago because of the truncation. IMHO, Battlestar worked not because of the "time investment" as much as the fact that it allows enough time for the traitors to set up a human defeat. Dark Moon just seems like it truncates too much, and with it being dice-based, you end up in situations where traitors don't have enough time to really put the screws to the uninfected before time runs out. Thus, you're left with an early reveal in order to do real damage (maybe) which makes the whole point of having traitors moot. Then it's just a team-based adversarial game.
I have no real practical experience, to be fair, but this is just the impression I got.
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- SuperflyPete
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Josh Look wrote: If there's a dungeon crawl that handled exploration the way I'd like it to be, it either doesn't exist or I haven't found it yet. Exploration in the genre typically boils down to either getting kicked in the junk or getting kicked in the junk less hard. It can often become a tiresome affair, the game wearing you down to the point where you've been punished to the point you ask, "Why bother going on?" Or its non-existent, as is the case with Descent 2nd Ed. I wish someone would make a dungeon crawl with same level of satisfaction as the early game of a good 4X. I think the problem there that arises is how to do it a way that isn't slow, feels like pure luck, or isn't completely pre-programmed. Go play some Galactic Civilizations II, Endless Space or Endless Legend. I want _that_ feeling. In a dungeon. And while fighting monsters.
DungeonQuest probably is the game that feels the best, but for different reasons. There, it's just the satisfaction of moving to the next room without outright dying that feels good.
DungeonQuest is the one, I think, that gives you true "exploration" but, as you pointed out, it's usually getting kicked in the sack with various degrees of force. I don't really think that there's been a game out that has anything that really produces the same feeling of true exploration and mystery that a 4X PC game does. Eclipse is really the closest, and Emergence Event is close too, I think, but that doesn't solve your dungeon problem, now does it? I think DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS ADVENTURE BOARD GAME (as opposed to "DDAS" does a good job of it, but it requires a DM player. Heroquest does it well too, maybe better than DDABG, but again, it's not a co-op.
Maybe it comes down to the fact that it can only be done with a sentient on the back side of the table, pulling the strings, with a system that allows for it?
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The real damage comes from choosing the Task card each turn (kind of like choosing the Destination card as the Admiral in BSG). You have to pick your spots when submitting bad dice because everything is so confrontational. You see plenty of accusations on people that are clean though.
One thing the game does do well though is give you tools to wreck the good guys when you reveal.
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Looking around the shelves in the game library, I spotted a shiny new Runebound 3rd edition still in shrink, the owner had just bought it the night before at the one store which set up in the hall. Unfortunately (for him) he was one of the organizers so he couldn't join in the fun. It took a while to get going, read the rules, punch everything out, then play the Dragonlord Margath scenario (the rules said it was a bit simpler than the Necromancer one - expect expansions to add many more!). Right out the gates, 2 scenarios is pretty cool and already an improvement on 2nd ed.
It's a very different game than before. The bare bones are still the same: you roll movement dice, you try to reach quest gems, you shop in town, you "level up" enough until you feel ready to defeat the big baddie, there are also stats for Body, Mind and Spirit. However the mechanics are almost completely new.
On a turn you have 3 actions: roll the movement dice (3 to start with), move a single hex, train (i.e. refill your skill card hand), shop in a city, rest (completely if out of the wilds, otherwise you roll 5 dice and heal by matching them with the terrain you're in - hard in mountains, easy in plains), or quest (2 actions).
Encounters are now much better than before, they're not just enemies to defeat with the odd event. They're divided in three categories (enemies, quests and events), but there's a small chance that you'll encounter one from the other categories. Each scenario adds 10 specific cards to each deck for added flavour (so against Margath, you'll fight more dragons and encounter dragon cults and the like). Quests ask you to go somewhere on the map, then roll the terrain dice and compare your result to 1 of 3 outcomes. Events offer you a choice of behaviour, and often ask to resolve a test. Once you're done with the encounter, you keep it as a trophy that you can trade to learn one of your skill cards (split between Body, Mind and Spirit - a character's B/M/S stats are also limits to the number of matching skills he/she can learn).
Besides learning new skills, skill cards can also be used to "exert" yourself, which is sometimes asked to resolve events. You can also exert yourself to reroll a movement die, or to keep on drawing cards to get a success. This is important.
Combats are now diceless, instead you "cast" your combat disks. Each character starts with 3 personal ones, then every piece of Equipment adds a new one. Some skills also give you more. Monsters start with 5, although they have more "misses". Another player controls the monster, thus alleviating the boredom of watching other players roll dice against a card from the previous edition. In a 2-player game, you'll have very little downtime. In order of initiative, the fighters take turns using their results. Hits can be combined in a single strike, shields are used in reaction. You can have surges to activate powers, and the "wing" result allows you to flip one of your disks or make your opponent recast one of his. Skill cards can give you more stuff to do. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on here.
There are now "only" 4 big cities with markets. Each market always has 3 cards on offer, and when you shop you add a 4th card. Cards are divided in 4 categories, each hero can only carry 1 of each (unless skill cards allow you more, such as Dual Wield): weapons, clothing, equipment, and trade goods. Equipment's miscellaneous stuff and we only saw one of those during the game, so I can't really comment. Trade goods are there if you want to play a merchant and make a profit. Only one of those also appeared in our game, unfortunately. Some easy money would have been good to have.
There's a game timer which resets once (acts I and II), at which point monsters get an upgrade. Margath appears on the board at the end of Act I. By the end of Act II, Margath starts moving towards Tamalir, and if it reaches the city, the players all lose. In our game, Lord Hawthorne decapitated the great wyrm with a couple of turns to spare. The game timer also resets the encounter gems a couple of times per act and triggers some scenario-specific events (10 cards per scenario, but you'll see 8 of those at the most in a single game).
I thought this was a great improvement over Runebound 2nd ed, but don't get me wrong: this is still a long quest game. Fights can still take multiple rounds. But I find there's a lot more to do in this edition.
EDIT: I forgot to mention PvP. Now you need the "Challenge" skill to attack another player, and the only one of the 6 heroes in the game with that skill is the Dwarf. I suppose you can learn it with skill cards and trophies. Skills range from additional points of health or increases in Body/Mind/Spirit (thereby increasing the number of skills you can learn), to combat skills (I had one where I rolled the terrain dice and wounded the enemy for every facing rolled matching the terrain we were in - pretty effective in plains! My Indiana Jones whip also gave me an extra die there), to increases in movement, etc.
The Suck: needing to glue the stickers over 30 die faces before playing. Also long play time, but I had all day so really didn't mind.
Next for me was Blood Rage, which I thought was great, had lots of fun. Blood flowed so much in the Second Age that Valhalla was literally overflowing with the dead. Also won by 1 point (95-94-85-something lower). Beautiful minis, and the Norse mythology is pretty well rendered.
The Suck: with symmetrical starting factions, why the heck is there a 6th faction included in a 5 player game?
After that I joined the crazy event of the day: gaming olympics. 8 teams of 4 needed to assign a player to various disciplines where we'd play a "mystery" game: dexterity (Villa Paletti), management (Bausack), precision (Tumblin' Dice), courage (Can't Stop), intuition (Perudo) and finally a team game of Wits & Wagers with custom questions. I competed in Tumblin' Dice, had a decent first round, got zilch in the second and had such a masterful third round that I tied for first, then lost the tie-breaker for a silver medal. We sucked at that Wits & Wagers game where questions could be How much total money is there in classic Monopoly?, According to BGG, how many titles does the Game of Life have?, etc., until I aced the final question (How many total aliens are there in FFG's Cosmic Encounter, including expansions?) - people had no clue, the other teams' answers varied from 14 to 50, I answered a conservative 150 (real answer 165), and we tied for first. Tie-breaker question: How many countries were represented at the 2002 Winter Olympics? My first intuition was 75, but after the team discussion we went way over. Turns out the answer was 77! Oh well. Our team finished tied for second place overall with a couple other teams, but with no gold to our name we ended up in fourth place out of eight. Not bad and lots of fun.
The Suck: Put around 40 people in a small unventilated room and...you get the picture.
I ended the night with 6 player Eclipse, where I wiped the floor with the Planta and finished with 51 points, second place had 35.
The Suck: Are you kidding me?
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