Nemesis Board Game Review

I first saw Nemesis at GMT East back in the...

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Here's my post from the FB page:

Finally got my first play of Lifeform in and, albeit after just the one game of it, Nemesis is easily the better game for me and my group.
Nemesis does tension (noise rolls strange moves of other characters, events, intruder attacks, infected contamination cards) fine, which is what fans of Lifeform say is a strength of that game (although we didn't see much of it but we did spend about a third of the time going back and forth thru the rulebook), and it provides the challenge of your objective and some good old-fashion fun as you fight off an intruder or watch others fight ones off that you brought out or just run to the escape pods as the ship is overwhelmed by fire, malfunctions and hungry intruders.
Nine games in now, a couple of co-ops plus a couple that ended very early as fire or malfunctions rampaged, and this game is a mandatory play at a session - damn good fun.
Only downer is the very average (poor) quality board I received (especially compared to the board with their 'Lords of Hellas' game) that they are being very reticent about replacing.

I have yet to try the cooperative mode. Thankfully my group is just fine fucking each other over, so perhaps we never will.

hotseatgames wrote: I have yet to try the cooperative mode. Thankfully my group is just fine fucking each other over, so perhaps we never will.

Our group can be very competitive and revenge-seeking so I recently introduced a house rule - if your objective does not involve killing any of the other players then you can't deliberately try and kill someone. This happened after one of the guys, quite typical for our group, towards the end went and sabotaged the engines before trying to pod it away even though his objective only required him to reach earth - that is a red flag for our group for reciprocal action in following games and soon the game is all about last man standing than trying to achieve your objective, I have plenty of last man standing games.
On a similar note the same guy spotted in our last game that the Mechanic has a very useful (over-powered ?) ability for achieving a kill one or all of the other crew - one of his actions is to move between any rooms adjacent to a technical corridor, so he can get to the engines (only need to two of them) and then back to an escape hatch without having to get near any rooms that may have hungry visitors in, very handy at the back end of the game. Unfortunately for him all the Intruders went on a damage rampage soon after and the ship exploded.

I have never played as the Mechanic but if I'm not mistaken, when he uses that technical corridor card he has to end his entire round so it still would take him a while to accomplish engine fuckery, would it not? Still, probably easier for him than for any other characters.

hotseatgames wrote: I have never played as the Mechanic but if I'm not mistaken, when he uses that technical corridor card he has to end his entire round so it still would take him a while to accomplish engine fuckery, would it not? Still, probably easier for him than for any other characters.

Yes, he has to Pass after using the Technical corridor.

I love bughunt games, but the price for Nemesis is too damn high, and I already own several bughunt games. Intruder, Space Hulk, The Vesuvius Incident, and Death Angel. Nemesis might be a better game than some or even all of these other games, but I can't justify spending $250+ at this time.

Did mine pre-order from MM for about $130 back in June. Got it in November. Worth every penny I paid.

Shellhead wrote: I love bughunt games, but the price for Nemesis is too damn high, and I already own several bughunt games. Intruder, Space Hulk, The Vesuvius Incident, and Death Angel. Nemesis might be a better game than some or even all of these other games, but I can't justify spending $250+ at this time.

I hear you on price, its def expensive at MSRP, let alone the secondary market prices its going for now.

That said, I think its more than a bug hunt game. I've played Space Hulk and Death Angel and I give them full credit for being stripped down to just that . But after awhile, SH especially struck me as much as being a puzzle solving exercise . Find the optimum place to move to/make your stand and hope the dice don't betray you. DA may be one of the best games in such a small package but it is kind of one note, even with the expanions.

For me, NEMESIS has not only more variety in terms of board/character combos, but it has the early game portion of tension and the unknown, and its not strictly a bug hunt - they might appear, then go away . Once they show up the game tension ramps up a lot and these aliens can be a lot harder to kill; you're not packing 40K era weaponry. Running away might be necessary. You've got the added element of being unsure of who your friends are, which perfectly captures the ALIENS theme IMO. But I fully understand the price barrier, hence why I specifically called it out in the review.

On a related note, GF9 last year teased a new game called ALIENS : ANOTHER GLORIOUS DAY IN THE CORPS, obviously based on the Aliens IP . When they first announced it I was pretty interested, given GF9s track record. ( and yes I know they had an exodus of the original staff ) . Lately though they've been sending out some vague signals that its release is in limbo due to the Disney/Fox merger and the Mouse having to review licensing agreements, so who knows what will happen. From what I've seen, that game is pretty much an ALIENS themed tactical bug hunt, so I'd think it has a little less depth than this game but given their track record I'll probably track it down at some point; their price points are always quite reasonable.

hotseatgames wrote: I have never played as the Mechanic but if I'm not mistaken, when he uses that technical corridor card he has to end his entire round so it still would take him a while to accomplish engine fuckery, would it not? Still, probably easier for him than for any other characters.

If he makes his way normally to one engine, sabotage it and then he only needs to use the ability to get to one other engine, then end round. Do the next engine and make his way back and wait for the card to come back so he can 'teleport' to an escape hatch. Need to do this in the last 5 or so turns when everyone else is trying to finish their objective, fighting off hungry intruders and racing for the hybertorium or escape pods so they can't interfere - he was a sneaky bastard, I'm glad the ship took us all out.

Shellhead wrote: I love bughunt games, but the price for Nemesis is too damn high, and I already own several bughunt games. Intruder, Space Hulk, The Vesuvius Incident, and Death Angel. Nemesis might be a better game than some or even all of these other games, but I can't justify spending $250+ at this time.

Don't let the Warhammer lads hear you saying that about spending mega-$$ on little plastic figures, you'll be hounded off the site

southernman wrote:

Shellhead wrote: I love bughunt games, but the price for Nemesis is too damn high, and I already own several bughunt games. Intruder, Space Hulk, The Vesuvius Incident, and Death Angel. Nemesis might be a better game than some or even all of these other games, but I can't justify spending $250+ at this time.

Don't let the Warhammer lads hear you saying that about spending mega-$$ on little plastic figures, you'll be hounded off the site

I'm the guy who openly bragged here about buying stripped (everything but the minis) copies of Silver Tower, Hammerhal, and Black Fortress, then using customized wooden tokens in place of the minis.

Can't say, after 8 games in a month and owning SCAM twice, I've had that feeling. But then so many games are just mechanics of other games recombined that if you analysed games at low level we'd be saying that so often - me, I just play them .