Cthulhu Wars

The Conan stories are actually rife with conflict between competing 'superpowers', especially Aquilonia and Turan, even if it isn't represented by all-out war as in the game, so it's really not that much of a stretch even if it doesn't wholly center around the title character. I'm a huge fan of the stories and I own the game and really like it. It's lone downfall, IMO, is that it's much more enjoyable if you are a fan, instead of just a player. /tangent

Shellhead wrote: This might actually be a pretty good game. Still not sure if it's a $175+ game.

Seems like at least one person here is getting it, so hopefully we can get some kind of review of it.

I keep vacillating back and forth about what to get and have changed my pledge amount 5 times. This KS is driving me insane! The problem is I don't know what the discount will be with Coolstuff or if they will even get sufficient quantities to cover the demand.

Why would this be supply limited? Once they make the molds additional minis should be a trivial expense, heck, they have already said the mini company will be selling resin and metal versions as well.

I'm still on the fence. But I know if I don't back it then I'll see it at dragoncon in all it's glory and feel regret. I just need a few of those expansions to get put in the CDG level for my trigger. But they seem to be going towards expansion expansions now so who mows. $50 for a map and 16 of the same (glacier) minis is ludicrous, so I can only think they are inflating the price expecting to add "free" stuff to it later.

Disgustipater wrote:

Shellhead wrote: This might actually be a pretty good game. Still not sure if it's a $175+ game.

Seems like at least one person here is getting it, so hopefully we can get some kind of review of it.

Reviews usually aren't helpful for a Kickstarter, unless it's a new edition of an existing game. By the time Cthulhu Wars is in stores, the Kickstarter will be over, and the chance to buy the Kickstarter exclusives will be gone.

I talked it over with some friends this weekend, and had pretty much decided against Kickstarting Cthulhu Wars. Then I saw that they have a series of YouTube videos up now showing a complete game being played with a prototype set. It wasn't an education video so much as just players with some prior experience playing a normal game of Cthulhu Wars, except one player was pretty good about sometimes explaining exactly what was going on.

Actions go quickly, with each player doing one thing, generally paying some power to do that thing. They continue until everybody passes and then there is brief bookkeeping of who gets how much power for the start of the next turn. One guy summoned Shub-Niggurath right away and then had to pass every time. First player each turn seems to be based on who has the most power, and he gets to choose the direction of play that turn, clockwise or counter-clockwise.

Overall, it seemed like leisurely and enjoyable game of Chaos in the Old World, as though Khorne had been banned from the game. Game play was fairly dynamic, because each player is trying to gain more spellbooks (advanced abilities), and each player has a half-dozen different ways to get a spellbook. Each of those ways can only be used once, but then any one of the six spellbooks for that faction can be chosen. The net effect is that it's challenging to anticipate what other players will do, at least in the early game, because there are so many possibilities. At the end of the first video, Cthulhu arrives, and that is a really huge miniature.

Here is the first video, with links for the others in the recommended list off to the right side:

Movement on the map seems fairly dynamic. Compared to Risk, each map space is huge and touches several other map sections, plus at least three of the factions seemed to have a special mode of movement to appear at a more distant location. Enemy units can peacefully co-exist in the same map space. There is at least one ocean space that connects two opposite ends of the board, which can potentially create a situation where two players have forces in the same space but don't realize it.

By the end of the second (of six) videos, one player has all six of his spellbooks, which apparently lets him declare attacks without paying power for them. The game is not over yet, as apparently the winner needs to advance to the end of the Doom Track, which appears to work like a victory point tracker except that at one point, a player used a special ability to spend Doom Points for a more powerful effect.

Player pieces seem to have very thematic abilities. The cultists can't normally fight and can be captured if they don't flee. Ghouls can move into a space where a battle just happened. Cthulhu automatically devours an enemy unit right before a battle starts in his space.

By the end of the third video, two players now have all of their spellbooks, but nobody seems very far up the Doom Track. The players comment on this and move the Doom Track over near the camera man. Although the Doom Track ends at 20, the players emphasize that the pace of the game accelerates. So when players are at around 10 on the Doom Track, the game isn't half over, it's about 90% over.

Three of the players seem to be really enjoying the game. The fourth guy is pretty quiet, and playing cautiously.

Except for a special ability of Cthulhu's, there doesn't seem to be any meaningful difference between land spaces and ocean spaces.

During the fourth video, designer Sandy Peterson is called in from the next room to give a ruling for a situation where two different special abilities seem to contradict each other. This is apparently more of a playtest game than a demo game, but Sandy knew the answer immediately even if his answer was a bit hard for me to follow.

There is also a ritual track next to the Doom Track. Apparently it forces the game to end if somebody doesn't get to 20 on the Doom Track first.

By the fifth video (each are a little less than 15 minutes long), the energy level of the players seemed to have dropped. I had the impression that they already played one game before this one, but still a bit worrisome, like the game wasn't as fun after everybody had all their spellbooks.

Kingmaker situation for the Cthulhu player towards the end of the fifth video. He even says "kingmaker" out loud. The overall game took less than 75 minutes. Aside from the official win, most of the sixth video is the normal post-game analysis by the more enthusiastic players. The quiet guy came in distant last but had some interesting things to say post-game.

During the first couple of videos, I was back to really wanting to Kickstart this game, but my enthusiasm dwindled as the game went on. Don't get me wrong, this looks to be a better game than Chaos in the Old World, but it definitely didn't impress me as a $150+ game. The problem is the miniatures. They look great, but they push the cost up too high. I really like the artwork on the cardboard desecration tokens used by the King in Yellow player, and I feel like this game could have been made at a reasonable cost with good artwork on cardboard tokens.

One problem I have is I can never play with more than one person, and I'm not sure the game would even play well that way. It seems more suited for at least 4 players.

I remember being very interested in Cthulhu Wars more than two years ago, during the original Kickstarter campaign, so I went looking for this old discussion thread. In hindsight, I am amazed that I was on the verge of dropping $311 when my best job was on the verge of extinction. Despite the current wave of love for Cthulhu Wars here at F:AT, I made the right decision at the time to skip the Kickstarter. I didn't know it then, but my job did end in September of that year, and then I was unemployed for over 9 months after that. And the job that I finally landed pays 30% less than my old job. It does feel painfully ironic that I was the FATtie who was most interested in Cthulhu Wars and yet so many others now own it while I don't. Maybe I will be in a better place in 2016. My covert job search is heating up, and most potential employers are talking about wages comparable to what I got paid at my old job.

300$ is a lot of fucking scratch.

SuperflyTNT wrote: 300$ is a lot of fucking scratch.

There are two types of gamers: those who can afford $300 games, and those who can't.

When I was living overseas and my wife was also working, $300 for a big game wouldn't have made that much of a dent. We had $300 expenses popping up all the time. Now that I'm back in the US, my wife is in grad school, and we are unsure how our expat taxes are going to play out, $300 is what we are living on for the rest of the month.

So, it's a bougie game.

LMAO

Thread necro here, due to my comment in the Batman kickstarter thread. I was curious to see what this site was saying about the Cthulhu Wars kickstarter campaign back in 2013. Most people didn't even comment, and it was perceived as an overly expensive copy of Chaos in the Old World.

LOL.

Yeah, I love Sandy Petersen. But even I could not back the first Cthulhu Wars.
I had to wait until his second KS reprint.

And I told Sandy and his son both. I met them at Gencon after the first Kickstarter and said there were too many red flags. It may have been lip service, but they agreed with me, and said they had made corrections and were excited about the reprint and accompanying KS. Then they gave me two miniatures for my honesty, and signed some books.

So I backed it.

No regrets, other than it's big as hell. I know I will enjoy painting some of these nasties - but damn. There's a lot of independent creatures that will probably see more time with my paint brush than in a player's hand.

And no. To Mr. White's original post - the premise of Cthulhu Wars is pretty daft. Yes, there are illusions to faction warfare, but it's never front and center. Cthulhu Wars posits (Sandy P's preferred verb) that Cthulhu Wars is during end times. Why any Great Old One would give a shit about this crummy little planet is beyond me. I guess that's cosmic horror for ya.