Fantasy Flight posted more info on the Cosmic Conflict expansion to the greatest board game ever made with the release of info for a new alien: Xenophile! Other than the self-referential artwork comedy of an alien blubbering over one of the most hated alien powers in the game (aptly named HATE), I think the power is pretty solid as it’s after card reveal and add OR Subtract– given that you’re going to have at least one enemy colony in your home system during a game, this gives quite a bit of flexibility in the face of Anti-Matter, Loser, Magician, etc. Here is a link to the info page. Hopefully this is out soon while we’re still stuck indoors due to old man winter.
Most of it is old stuff that sucks, but it would be sweet to own an unopened 1st Edition Gamma World or have a second copy of Snit’s Revenge (I got my on clearance at Kaybee Toys when I was 10 or so and it’s had a rough life). The whole collection is here.
Wow, I can’t believe I missed this last month! Looks like we have Lunatic (new), Claw (new), Filth and Empath confirmed as part of the new set of 20 aliens (bringing the total to 90!) as well as another set of planets and ships in JET BLACK for 7th player slot. Not that I needed another reason to play Cosmic Encounter, but there it is: I’ve never played a 7-player game unless player 7 was the Advisor variant (who could still win). I just feel bad for many of the other board games slowly going to dust in my basement region. They have emotions and they are crying (except for Calyus and Agricola).
Which aliens are you hoping for? I was really hoping for the Filth and that’s in, but for me– Silencer, Aristocrat, Vampire, Terrorist.
We finally got a 5-man game with the new Fantasy Flight expansion to Talisman 4th edition: the Sacred Pool. Starting characters were Rogue (Scott), Highlander (moi), Valkyrie (Cain), Vampiress (Jeff) and Gypsy (Chris). None of the new characters were selected even though the Magus and Dark Knight were drawn.
I was the Highlander and pretty much everything went my way during the game, however, tactically (and I know some may roll their eyes at this because it’s all just random rolls right?), my goals were to get at least one strength increase from the main board before hitting the Highlands, then, if possible, clip a few magic items off the craft ladies (Rogue, Vampiress or Gypsy) on my way to the Dungeon, barring death, then head up to the Middle and Center region FTW. I was able to slip through the Highlands and crush the Eagle King: getting the one-shot teleport item as a reward. I then hit the Vampiress and grabbed a +2 craft Sword off of her, which really helped during my decent into the dungeon (highlander ain’t the smartest bloke to start). The hapless Highlander wasn’t able to beat the Lord of Darkness on the first try– but that just gave him an excuse to rush right back into the dungeon for more beatings.
During this time, both the Gypsy and the Vampiress fell prey to the Highland ICE BRIDGE space in comical fashion and were replaced by the Prophetess and the Ghoul. The stack of cards sitting on the ice bridge space was a veritable mountain of goodness, but no one else attempted it during the game. This brings up a key point with Highlands and Dungeon–I very much prefer to play the game with the published variant stating that once you start to go into one of the side boards, you have to declare that you are leaving to go the other direction– and then you cannot switch to go back through the board until you have exited the board itself. Without this rule, no one would ever land on the Ice Bridge space on purpose. Since the Highlands are relatively easy for weak characters, there should be some danger in getting to the relatively weak Eagle King.
We didn’t get too into the newest mechanic from Sacred Pool, the quest reward deck. I think only myself and one other person were able to pull from the deck during this game. That said, I love it. It’s simple and builds on the importance of the Middle Region. Next time we play, I want to combine the Quest Cards with the Warlock’s Quest ending card and see how it works with a deluge of quest reward cards hitting the table.
Anyway, the Highlander made it to the middle and a Battle Royale was drawn which pulls all characters to the middle for a throw down if they have a Talisman on them. This eliminated all but the Valkyrie who was summoned to the Crown of Command space only to be struck down by the highlander (after some spell chicanery that might have let her win with a little luck).
Z-man is putting out an updated version, a direct reprint mind you, of Tom Wham’s Kings and Things. The rules are available here. If you’ve played this game with me, first you must know I am a huge Tom Wham fan (I’ve only met him once personally and I became a fan of his beard as well) and try to pull out his stuff whenever I can get it to the table because even if people hate the games (I had some players absolutely despise The Great Khan Game by turn 2 when I busted it out) we have a lot of fun. I’ll be the first to admit that his games are not the greatest games in the entire world–but for my personal taste, they are favorites. What Wham games are the best at doing for me and for many, many others is sparking ideas about making games. I am absolutely convinced that without Wham, and especially his best game from Dragon Magazine, King of the Tabletop, we would not have Magic the Gathering, Settlers of Catan, and certainly no Nexus Ops (which I see as a direct decedent of KOTT) and ultimately, no Shadowfist.
While I advise anyone that likes a good ameritrash sluggathon ala Nexus Ops to pick up Kings and Things, I’ve always felt that the little innocuous magazine game version (King of the Tabletop) was more elegant and ultimately more playable. What Kings and Things has that King of the Tabletop does not is a big map made up of Hexes (yes like Catan). You can move armies around this map to explore and control these hexes, turning the game into area control. What King of the Tabletop has is a big mess of Chits that represent land. When you acquire it, either through conquest or exploration, you bring it in front of you. When someone wants to attack, they just pick their player and line their forces up on the land they want to attack. This simplifies the fact that most of the rest of the game consists of piles of different THING chits with numbers on them, and these are big upside-down stacks that get, well, real messy–and very messy if you try to place them all (upside down) on a hex board. What’s more, because in Kings & Things your dealing with a map and not some abstract set of ‘lands’, some players can stay out of the action if they corner themselves up or shield themselves with another player in an Australia/Risk type maneuver — in King of the Tabletop, any player can attack any other player whenever it’s her turn because it abstracts movement. This makes, in my humble opinion, for a more dynamic game for the whole table.
And the art– sadly, with Dave Trampier leaving the gaming industry many many years ago, we are not going to be blessed with his artwork in this new edition (a few of the chits look very similar though), but overall it looks good and I expect the production values will be top-drawer.
That said, I hope this is just the beginning of Z-man putting out Tom Wham’s games as from what I’ve seen on his site, he’s got quite a few up his sleeve. Bring us a new version of THE GREAT KHAN GAME with some cards that won’t be destroyed in 3 plays!
We played quite a bit of Race for the Galaxy a few years back, but with the DELUGE of games of the board coming out in the last few years, it hasn’t hit the table overmuch. I consider it a great game, but not one of my all time favorites. I think after the two games I lost last night, I now know why: there’s no real player interaction at the level of play our group plays at. If we played hardcore Race all the time, we may be able to card count and estimate the optimal action card to play by reading the other player’s tableaus, but when you play a few times a year, you can get by really well by just picking a strategy (military, get 12 cards out the fastest, or Consume) and playing whatever you think is best tactically for that strategy based on your cards in hand–not really factoring in the other player’s goals or tableau at all.
Since we aren’t card counting or really looking at each other’s tableaus, Race boils down to a mutual solo game where the actions of the other players may help (say if you wanted to develop and colonize in the same turn and can anticipate which you should play), but are rarely detrimental. Again, this view of the game would vary drastically at higher levels of play, but even casually playing Race’s parent game, Puerto Rico, you are forced to plan around the role selection step a great deal more to score points FTW. In contrast to Puerto Rico, with Race, there is often so much going on with the other players abilities to score points, and very little you can do to impede their progress except work out the Nash Equilibrium to determine if you absolutely need to play the cards that don’t immediately score you points (Produce, Consume: Trade, Explore).
That said, Race for the Galaxy is still a great game (I’m not sure the most recent expansion has helped it however) and will hit the table from time to time–but when you have greats like Nexus Ops, Cosmic Encounter and the like that have tons of player interaction, it’s tough to get this to the table. Theme and art never fail to impress.
The new Blood Bowl computer game by Cyanide has given many of us fanatical fans of the game a chance to sandbox with teams we either don’t have miniatures for or wouldn’t normally play. However, with the arrival of the free patch to the game a few weeks ago, I can eschew all the other teams that I pretend to love and get right down to playing my all-time favorite, the ‘coaches’ team’ as my brother calls them: the insidious Dark Elves.
In reviewing the team in the computer game, I give the developers at Cyanide immediate points on the score board for absolutely NAILING the aesthetic. Having started back in high school with First Edition Blood Bowl, the crunchy, spiky look of the original illustrations and models by Aly Morrison have stuck with me as the essence of how Blood Bowl teams should look. While I thoroughly enjoy many of Gary Morley‘s sculpts for third edition (in contrast to 2nd editions more ‘sports-like’ armor), I think a few of his lineman models were phoned in, and this is especially true with the Dark Elves (circa 1994 mind you).
While I’ve played the Dark Elves in many leagues and tournaments, I hadn’t played them with the new Living Rule Book 5.0 set up, and had a bit of a shock as all I remembered was that the number of blitzers increased from two to four. The major change in the roster is that the throwers have now been replaced by a runner (with a skill that I have never selected for a player in my entire career as a Blood Bowl coach: Dump Off) and the team has a new position: the Assassin with Stab (a new skill) and Shadowing. Unlike many teams, the Dark Elves have no ‘big guy’ to hold the line or push all the smaller players around, yet they are one of the best running teams in the game. How? Agility. Agility increases the Dark Elves mobility on the pitch by a vast amount and while you can pass the ball with them, it’s often short passes or even side/back passes, the real gains are made running through and sometimes over your opponents. That said, you are never going to out-casualty a bruiser team but that’s not what wins games: putting it over the line does and Dark Elves are excel in this region of play.
I’m going to try to shy away from telling you how to play the Dark Elves but I want to review each of the positions and how they synergize with each other. Inevitably you’re going to see my slant as how I like to play, and that’s always up for discussion, or if needed, a quick game to show my superiority.
Lineman: Dark Elf lineman (and their cousin lineman for the Hight Elves) are the best lineman in the game, hands down. They have average speed, average armor, average strength and an awesome 4 agility. You could have a team of only Lineman and still win matches. What really puts these guys into the win column is the combination of 4 agility, access to Agility skills (i.e. Dodge) and 8 armor. They are one of only two teams that have lineman with 8 armor and 4 agility consistently across the team. As much as your opponent will expect to beat up your elves, the 8 armor assures that you will rarely be taken off the pitch without some mighty blow action and as they progress, the Dark Elf Lineman have access to the ideal two-skill mix in the game: Block and Dodge. Even without the Dodge skill your Dark Elf Linemen are able to dodge away on a whim to get into position for a 2-dice block somewhere else. The best skills to get as they progress with normal rolls: Block, Dodge, Tackle, Frenzy, Dauntless. On Doubles get: Guard. Once you get 3-4 of these naughties with Block and Dodge, your opponents will be sweating it. Do NOT bother with Dirty Player–it’s been nerfed so bad and these guys are so valuable: it’s a waste of a skill slot.
Runner: I’m still not sure what to think about the runner as he’s just not fast at all, living up to his name not in the least. He can hold on to the ball with sure hands, but the replacement of Dump Off instead of Pass is quite confusing to me. Dump off as a 3 agility player is a crap skill; most of the time the ball will simply land right near the opponent’s players in a scrum and you’ll wish you had just let it scatter normally. With 4 Agility, Dumping off the ball has a much higher percentage of success, but I have really rarely seen this skill work well. Also, you really don’t have that many issues picking up the ball to justify a slot for a player with Sure Hands; a Blitzer is quite a spot better starting with block to hang onto the ball. Runners are the only players that have access to the Passing skill set however, so if you are going to run a throwing game, you’ve got to pick up at least one (eventually). The best skills with normal rolls? Block, Pass, Nerves of Steel, Side Step. Doubles: (let’s face it, he’ll be in a scrum or on the line like everyone else) Guard.
Blitzer: Here you have your storehouse of amazing potential for popping out the ball on defense and scoring on offense– and you can get FOUR of these naughty boys. The 4 agility means they can get in places to lay a block that most other players can only dream of, and while their movement is nothing to masticate over, they’re fast enough. That said, get Dodge first, then Tackle is a must as well as Strip Ball. They cannot get strength skills like most other Blitzers, so on doubles, look at the strength skill tree for either Guard or Mighty Blow. A Blitzer’s essential duty is to run through, over or around the opponents line, sack the ball carrier, pick up the ball and either pass back to a pocket or run it in for a touchdown. Leap, while still dangerous with 4 agility, is awesome to get as a 3rd or 4th skill. With four of these guys available, you can tailor two as defensive ends (tackle as second skill) and two as scoring machines (dodge as second skill).
Witch Elf: As tempting as these ladies are to have on your team, they cannot go it alone and need to be fostered and protected during their early, pre-Block career. The only way to do this is, again, start with all lineman and a blitzer, build up your team and then add in the extra positions once your other players are toughened up. That said, the Witch Elves are crucial to the later league/season success of the Dark Elves. You will be praying to Nuffle at each skill roll for a +1Ag or +1 St as it will blast your naughty lady into the top of the scoring roster for your league. Without stat upgrades they are still fast, dodgy and if you can get them Block and Dauntless, gift their opponent’s players with a trip off the pitch to see the fans more often than not. Best normal roll skill progression: Block, Dauntless or Catch, Leap. On doubles– get Juggernaut. They are not blitzers, so keep them as far away from the opponent’s line as possible and have them run in for a Blitz only outside a big scrum. They are also not catchers, and you don’t need a lot of catch skills with their four agility. What’s more, as filthy as they are, I can’t stop staring at their sweet cans.
Assassin: The Assassin goes against one of my rules for playing a non-crunchy team (which the dark elves certainly are) and that’s to never ever rely on getting the opposition off the pitch. That’s stuff the dwarves and Chaos teams do– not the elves. The Assassin appears to be the Dark Elves answer to the ‘Big Guys’ on other teams, which, by the looks of the other big guys, puts him in the ‘maybe if I had a ton of gold lying around I’d get one of them.’ While shadowing is nice, I would love to see the Assassin get tackle and diving tackle– making him a dodging player’s nightmare, but leaving him a stomped corpse against any hardcore rushing teams. Again, I would say that the Assassin is absolutely extraneous, and if you have one and have a roster of 16 players, he’ll rarely see his feet on the pitch. I’m going to start a team with two of them as an experiment however, just to make sure (Note: it didn’t go well).
This is your future if Nuffle is with you.
If you are a new coach you may want to run the humans or orcs for awhile to get the hang of it. As noted above, the Dark Elves are IMO the coaches team, they have some glaring weaknesses (they are expensive) and they don’t have a very clear path to victory (i.e.: they aren’t tough, they aren’t fast and they aren’t the best passing team) but are not wussy elves that you will be worried about flying off the pitch with every armor roll.
