The latest dungeon crawl to sprawl across my table is Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress, a hundred plus dollar monstrosity that Games Workshop has stooped to my level to offer. That level being people who would play a Warhammer game, if not for the painting of a bunch of miniatures, the finding of a tape measure, and the task of pressing into service a friend who will then have to paint his own miniatures. We can share a tape measure, however. If I were willing to go to those lengths and drag someone along with me, I’d be playing Netrunner regularly.
I think it’s probably most meant as a way to onboard you into the main wargame, since the figures can be used in it. As someone who doesn’t have the slightest intention of ever getting into that particular hobby, I wish they’d let Fantasy Flight keep making these things. At least those guys have some idea how to make a compelling dungeon crawl.
Sorry, but have any of these coffee-table-sized cardboard boxes with eight hundred miniatures vomited into them ever been worth even the cost to ship them, except to collectors and painters??
There is no progression really but I do like that the sides are asymmetric and there is an interesting energy economy at work. The overlord character has one large pool to activate a pile of minions with while each hero has to balance there own energy.
That’s the promise anyway I ended up playing Western Legends last weekend instead, It was more balanced for the five players we had and while you can play Conan with an overlord player and up to four hero players it really seems to me to be a two player game with one hero player controlling them all being just fine. This weekend I finally got my copy of Root so while Conan looks pretty good it might slip even more. The good news for Conan is that I only have to find one willing part to get the game out and it is pretty attractive on the table.
Sure. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I think minis are useless padding that artificially inflates the asking price, but I enjoyed Cthulhu Wars well enough when I played someone else’s copy, think Zombicide is a clever light game in a giant-pile-of-minis suit, think Galaxy Defenders is neat, and think Myth and Mercs: Recon are close to being good, if it weren’t for unclear rules and a little bit too much sandbox to the design. I don’t have them yet, but Sword & Sorcery and Street Masters both look like solid fun (the latter more than the former) based on watching other people play them, and Gods’ War and Planet Apocalypse at least as much so and perhaps more.
And then there’s stuff like Gloomhaven (my favorite game of all time) that get lumped into that category despite actually hardly having minis at all.
Now, if you asked me whether most of those games were worth their asking price, that’s a much harder question for anything but Gloomhaven (which is a steal). But they’re solid, fun games and they’d for sure be worth it if they ditched the minis for something more affordable.
Most of the board games are pretty lame. I’m sorry you had a bad experience. I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life painting and playing Warhammer, but haven’t bought a boxed game since Hero Quest. If you want to play the real deal, Id be happy to paint up your army.
I can’t afford anything new, but I have hundreds of Skaven, Beastmen and High Elves ready for battle.
Excellent question. I’m about to start messing around with a sprawling potential mess called Shadows of Brimstone, because it’s an underreprestented genre that really appeals to me: weird West. I’m doubtful there’s much going on under the theme, but we’ll see.
However, I think Kingdom Death Monster is pretty darn brilliant, and that’s in spite of all the miniatures nonsense.
Now why would you say that? :( As @malkav11 said, just because a money-grubbing corporation stops spewing cash-grab add-ons into a perfectly good game design doesn’t mean you have to stop playing! If I knew someone who had Netrunner cards, I would be playing that in a heartbeat. Such lovely two-player EXTREME asymmetry.
I’m ignorant for sure. I don’t play and don’t even know communities who play these kind of games, but I had the impression that once the corporate money grubbers left the field and there was no more expansion or development roadmap, that most of the interest of the community would flow into some new Keyforge hotness etc.
I did a first quick pass to my expansion minis to get them in line with the main game. Took me 6 hours and it’s about 20 minis. Probably have another 6 hours left until I’m ok with them on the table…
But I would love an standee version of this. Not only is building and quickly painting minis a pain, they are also an storage issue.
Please let us know if there is, because I too love the Weird West theme…I just don’t think any of Flying Frog’s previous games are any good, so I wasn’t about to invest that kind of money in Shadows over Brimstone.
I may still give Blackstone a try, but I’m disheartened by Tom’s critiques here. I like the idea of a pretty, casual dungeon-stomp I can play solo. Dungeon-crawls seem to fall into one of two traps: 1) over-complicated with vacuous variety and dozens of modifiers, or 2) over-simplified with little tactical depth. I don’t think anyone’s really hit the nail on the head, except for maybe Gloomhaven (but that one’s such an investment, in so many ways, and no one would call it “casual”). If anyone’s interested, this guy has a nice, comprehensive list of dungeon-crawls with some quick comments on each: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1848358/dungeon-crawler-collector-2019
Sold all of my Netunner cards because I couldn’t find a 2nd player, and having to rely on one person who keeps all the cards at their house is untenable. You need to be in a near constant state of card reading as you gear up for a match.
Hopefully the person who bough them lives closer to Too-jun-ja.
