Interesting timing: I was just browsing Star Trek Frontiers at the game store, and as far as I can tell, its a refined, streamlined version of Mage Knight with a Star Trek license.
Has anyone played Star Trek Frontiers and what do folks think?
I was tempted but it has an $80 sticker price so…
It’s almost exactly the same as Mage Knight, to the point that it’s easier to enumerate the differences than similarities. The biggest difference is that there is no day/night cycle.
This is a really good video review.
So, this is going to sound weird, but I kind of like Star Trek: Frontiers. For me, the Mage Knight turn-by-turn puzzle of how to optimize a handful of cards to move and punch stuff doesn’t seem so arbitrarily clunky when you’re representing a spaceship and its crew. It’s still a bit too puzzley for me, but as a solitaire game about flying ships around to fight stuff and upgrade your deck, it kind of worked for me.
That said, I think you have to not be into Star Trek too much. I don’t really know my Star Trek, but you get things like, uh Captain Picard flying a Romulan ship and fighting Wharf with a proton torpedo. I could be misremembering some of the specific verbiage, but you get the idea. I know just enough to see that the game couldn’t care less about the lore. It’s also a pretty half-assed conversion of the Mage Knight basics. Way too many of the rules are just reskinnings.
But still, what’s another solitaire game about flying a spaceship and it’s crew on a five year tour to explore strange new planets?
-Tom
Ooh, look, it’s by Seiji Kanai, the Lost Legacy guy! You might have just cost me $35. Do you feel it’s got much variety and replay value?
-Tom
Old but good. Yes. Correct. 100%. Everything is in order. But Forest Snare is 1) Expensive for lore and 2) Does require the Troll to attack once already. (Ouch!) (barring modern card pool)
As an aside, I did complete Journey down the Anduin on Nightmare mode some how.
Given my avatar, I suppose I’m duty-bound to try Star Trek: Frontiers. Haven’t pulled the trigger yet, though.
I don’t love Mage Knight – I dread the idea of digging out those rules and re-learning them a third time – but I’m not sure it’s the worst boardgame of all time! I’d rather play Mage Knight than Monopoly, Chutes & Ladders, the Game of Life, or Trump: The Game. (Yes, there really is an old boardgame about Trump.)
Edit: looked at the MK ruleset again. Ugh. Maybe Tom isn’t wrong.
HE IS WRONG
[quote=“roguefrog, post:205, topic:128485”]
But Forest Snare is 1) Expensive for lore and 2) Does require the Troll to attack once already. [/quote]
True, but you plan for these things. Using Forest Snare is the centerpiece of your strategy for that scenario, so you build your deck and your actions towards that.
So far seems pretty good. The princess, who acts like an AI sort of, has 4 different versions that affect the game feel/strategy and difficulty drastically. You build the map at the beginning of the game, so it’s different every time. You don’t play with the enemies every game, but you play with all but two, so it could probably use a few more there.
I’ve been playing solo with three characters so far, and there are a TON to choose from, and then the combinations completely change how you approach it. It’s just puzzley/strategic enough, and then combat is dice rolls to keep it exciting.
Unicornus Knights really is not like Mage Knight, and probably belongs in the solitaire thread. I was gonna write a review about it, but have been distracted by real life stuff.
TOTALLY WRONG! Mage Knight is great*!
*: Assuming you only play 2 players co-operative mode on the City Capture or Lost Legion scenarios on a high difficulty with no AP prone players and require explaining in character what you’re doing each round including why you could only move 3 spaces and do nothing else.
Has anyone played Mistfall?