Flashback Friday - Descent - Does anyone play this anymore? What Dungeon Crawls are you playing?

Michael Barnes wrote: Ha ha! Remember that game you used to like?
NOW ITS CRAP

2003-2007 was like the board game equivalent of the awkward playstation years. Couple gems, but some of it just looks weird and blocky.

I never liked Descent. I liked 2nd edition briefly, but repeat played revealed it’s more of a sports game than it is a dungeon crawl. Old DOOM sucked. Disliked that more than Descent. Imperial Assault with the app is pretty awesome though.

Like adventure games, it’s a genre I feel I should like but usually don’t. There are exceptions (like Space Cadets Away Missions), but they’re very few and far between. I think Dungeon Alliance might be the most satisfying fantasy dungeon crawl for my tastes, but even then, it doesn’t come close to a good D&D adventure.

EDIT - Crap, I forgot the newer DOOM game. That game is phenomenal and I totally wish I played it more often.

I really liked Descent 1.0 back in the day (played all the expansions, did an entire original RtL campaign) but haven’t touched it since 2.0 came out. I didn’t care for the timer in the game at the time. For some reason, I was fine with it in Imperial Assault though. Maybe the different theme, or just a more open mind.

While I’ve liked Gloomhaven, I haven’t found it to be a replacement to anything yet. The missions (in the first five) have felt very same-ish, as well as the card play aspects (I have to play the cards this way to avoid burning them up too fast). It’s been fun, but I’m glad a buddy bought it and I didn’t.

My takeaway from this thread is that I should stop dragging my feet and get Away Missions. What does it do that makes it better than Omega Protocol?

Descent 2nd Ed. - The players' power level can outpace the Overlord's and the sports game comparison that has been mentioned a couple times is apt; too many of the missions have a hard timer that often means the players must eschew fighting in order to fulfill the mission objective. My favorite thing about the game are the hero characters that can summon familiars, like the Beastmaster or Necromancer, because they introduce more tactical depth beyond spending Fatigue on special abilities.

D&DAS - I like these a lot, but the single d20 combat discourages me from playing them too often. I should probably give them another go to see if it's as annoying as I remember.

Level 7: Omega Protocol - My group will always play this game and we always really enjoy it, but no one ever requests it and we don't ever really talk about it. It's got a lot of really cool stuff going on, especially with how the heroes' powers provide currency for the overlord's powers, but the aesthetics are beyond generic with the design of the grays mutants and the heroes in their boring uniforms. It's a rock-solid design that's really fun and I think it'd really be something with the proper retheme.

Mutant Chronicles: Siege of the Citadel - This is probably one of the few dungeoncrawlers that I'd bust out for a casual crowd: it's tactical enough without being a brain burner, shopping for equipment before a mission is fun, and the way the game implements the rotating overlord is a brilliant way of encouraging every player to go for the throat without making anyone feel like they're the only one getting picked on. Yes, it's imbalanced in favor of the corporation players at higher levels but this is unlikely to come into play for a one-off at a game night, just make sure to skip Mission 2 until later. I can't wait to get my KS for the second edition.

Shadows of Brimstone - This is my current favorite dungeoncrawl, bar none. The combat and tactics are an evolution - I don't know if I'd necessarily call them a "refinement" - of Warhammer Quest's and what the enemies lack in AI they make up for in variety. Between the enormous variety of loot, the inevitable character mutations and the hero leveling system; SoB's character customization is second to none. And that's before you get to town visits, where a mid-to-high level party can easily spend 45 min. to an hour visiting locations, shopping, removing injuries, etc., with it feeling just as fulfilling - perhaps more so, depending on your preference - as the dungeoncrawling portion of the game.

Much like Last Night on Earth, the base games of SoB left something to be desired with their lack of enemy variety and underwhelming boss monsters. The good news is that Flying Frog's SoB KS allowed them to accelerate their tweaking of the system and production of expansions so there wasn't a long wait for them to improve the system, unlike the five year gap between LNOE and Timber Peak. Playing a core set will tell you whether or not you'll like the game but it doesn't really start to come into its own until expansions are added, which can mean that your $65 base set can rapidly turn into a $200+ monstrosity that eats your storage space. Approach with caution.

Space Cadets: Away Missions - Everything Uba said.

Zombicide - The simplistic combat and the way the zombies move and attack make this one feel a little too abstract and puzzle-like for my taste. However, like Siege of the Citadel, this is one of the few I would play with non-gamers. But I'd probably just play SotC with them instead.

Doom 2nd Ed. - I really like it but I need to play it more.

Is there a Shadows of Brimstone expansion you would recommend over the others? A buddy is giving me his copy (base only) and I was curious what is best for it.

Jarvis wrote: Is there a Shadows of Brimstone expansion you would recommend over the others? A buddy is giving me his copy (base only) and I was curious what is best for it.

The consensus purchasing order is essentially: Both core sets -> Frontier Town -> Deluxe Enemy expansion that matches the core set Other World you prefer (i.e., Serpentmen of Jargono Deluxe Enemy Pack goes with Swamps of Death, Masters of the Void goes with City of the Ancients). This will give you a couple ranged enemy types (Serpentmen Grand Shaman or Void Magus, depending on which Deluxe Enemy Expansion you go with, and Bandits from the Frontier Town) to shake up the melee-only combat that's in both cores. Plus there are Epic Threat cards that include the Grand Shaman/Void Magus, which will help once your party starts to get too powerful for the Harbinger/Goliath (the Epic Threats from the cores).

If you're just trying out the game and aren't sure if you'll even keep it, I would forego the other core set and get the Frontier Town and a matching Deluxe Enemy expansion as noted above. If you want a bare bones purchasing option I would get the Frontier Town expansion. Town visits are so fleshed out and so involved that they're almost a separate game and the Frontier Town expansion takes them to another level. Sure, you might get bored with the core set enemies but if you buy an enemy expansion you might not see it for a couple missions, anyway. However, you will always go to town so you don't have to worry about purchasing something you will rarely use.

In the base game you always visit the same town after every mission. The way the Frontier Town works is that it adds more town sizes (varying the number of locations in town), more locations (now they're chits that are drawn to give you random locations each visit), a chance to visit a specialty town types (Mining, Haunted, River, Plague, etc.) to make them more interesting than the generic town, a Daily Event deck, and the aforementioned Bandit ranged enemies. It also adds some rudimentary cover rules and a tactical town board for some of the six missions that come with the expansion but I wouldn't bother with those at first. You'll have enough procedural overhead to learn with just the base game and the town visits without immediately diving into that optional stuff.

I really enjoy both 2nd edition Descent and Imperial Assault from a mechanical point of view. They're interesting, fun to play tactical combat games and I've always had a soft spot for one versus many style games. The ongoing campaign elements are just a bonus and if you've got the time, they're a pretty big bonus.

However, I sold Descent, and have just sold all my Imperial Assault collection for the same reason: the mapboards. Fuck those mapboards. As Barnes put it when I commented on this on Twitter:

Come on now, you don't like spending 30 minutes looking for one of those tiny connectors?

When I want to play, I want to play. Seriously. Fuck those mapboards.