Barnes on Games - Conan in Review

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I can't disagree with your assessment. This weekend I get to try out TMNT. If it goes over well, I may put Conan up for sale.

They are re-releasing the overlord book soon. The French version is already out and it looks like they are adjusting scenarios (for balance).

I'm still annoyed that I have this huge box of crap that I can't use and now need to wait for PDFs to trickle out and get translated (probably poorly) before I can integrate any of it into balanced scenarios. They really kinda screwed up the deployment of this game. I'm certainly not writing the game off, but I think Monolith took a design idea that could have been realized in a much more complete way if they had resisted Kickstarter fulfillment anxiety and shipping cost aversion. Wait until the game is *done*, then ship: an idea so crazy it just might have worked. Splitting up the material release from the game design release was a painfully avoidable mistake.

Meanwhile, for $85, I've got a 90+ scenario campaign waiting elsewhere... without price-inflating miniatures for once.

Yeah, it is super frustrating...the other day a friend of mine and I played the scenario with just Conan interrogating the priests in the inn twice. It's REALLY cool. Conan has a curse and you l have to find the right priest to break it...but thy can do things like die while being interrogated and the overlord doesn't tell Conan if the curse was lifted or not. There are also guards roaming around and more like in, turning into a balcony-jumping, wall-smashing brawl. And then Thrak, an ape-man busts in!

It's unlike anything else in the Guys on a Grid genre, not a dungeon crawl by proxy at all. It feels more miniatures-y in a way, but with a stronger than usual and more specific than usual narrative line.

But it kind of doesn't work. I don't know if Conan can win it unless a)the Overlord puts the right priest close to Conan in setup and b) Conan goes to him first. Once the guards show up and swarm Conan it's over. He's going to get exhausted and unable to move due to hinderance.

The thing is, Conan has an ability that COULD carry the day, a swing attack that can hit multiple enemies if he uses a two handed weapon. There is no two handed weapon in the scenario.

Lots of oversights like that, and all the scenarios have that kind of feeling.

I love and hate the game.

That's an amazing scenario. Played it twice and Conan did win one time. Sort of kited the guards trying to split them up and chose his battles very wisely. I don't think you an realistically hit all of the priests but in that one, the Conan player hit most of them.

By the way, a PDF senario utilizing those add-on Crossbowmen you have Barnes has been released in French, coming in English next week.

I echo all of these frustrations. I resent that I threw down money for a game that has so much awesome potential, most of which is not yet realized. So I'm dumping it and will end up with a nice chunk of money left over, even after buying Doom, which by all accounts is a wonderfully complete game.

I realize this could easily be me being impatient, and perhaps I'll regret my decision some day. But I'll cross that bridge if I come to it.

I really like this game. The frustrating thing is availability of all the expansions and scenarios. Monolith seems to have turned it's interests elsewhere.

I agree Garp, this has remained one of my favorite dudes on a grid games. I think you only really need the core set and a big box expansion or two (Nordheim is my favorite).