Anyone played 1775: Rebellion? I’ve found a copy but it’s about $100 Cdn with shipping which I think is unfortunately a little more than I’m willing to risk on a gamme that I don’t know if I’ll ever get into.
I think I’m gonna do the basic pledge with the Arkham Asylum box. More villains gets me more excited than more heroes, plus the “break out” mode sounds like a fun idea. The kickstarter exclusive expansions just don’t seem that interesting to me. Sidekicks might be fun, and Suicide Squad has a lot of villains, so I may expand a bit more.
haha, yeah I think they have overshot my ‘fuck it’ limit by a good amount. Last campaign’s all-in was around USD$360, so this time is technically only slightly more, but the AUD FX is killing me.
I’ll probably back at the Titans level + Arkham + Suicide Squad.
I was thinking about changing to / adding Suicide Squad, so I think you guys pushed me towards that.
Rahdo has a runthrough of the base game. It strikes me as a pretty solid system, but maybe not worth hundreds of dollars. It’s like King of Tokyo complexity with, I’m sure, some pretty clever and thematic elements, but watching the video basically cured my FOMO about it.
Hmmm, right now I have my pledge at Titan, Arkham Breakout, Suicide Squad, Gotham City and the Paint Compendium for a total of $250. I was hoping to stay under $200, but the book kind of killed that - my son said he would be interested in doing some painting. He generally likes art, but has never done this kind of painting before. I could get rid of Gotham and/or go down from Titan to the Superfriend level.
Or I could not back anything and order a bunch of Marvel United Expansions from Amazon for less 
I already have the base Marvel United retail box + Enter the Spiderverse Expansion. I could buy the Deadpool, Guardians of the Galaxy, tales of Asgaard and Black Panther expansions for < $115. That is a lot cheaper, but I do prefer the DC heroes and villains. The stretch goals for the DC campaign do come with a lot of added heroes and villains too.
I think I’m set on the following:
- Titan pledge (core + Teen Titans) - core (the best known characters) + stretch goals (pure quantity) is a bit of a no-brainer, but I’m actually pretty excited about Teen Titans despite only knowing one of the eight characters it comes with. Raven has an all-specials deck, Beast Boy has his different animal-forms, Deathstroke has an interesting combat resolution, and Trigon is just a big-ass miniature.
- Arkham Asylum Breakout - I can’t imagine anyone wouldn’t want this pack, even if it’s just for the villains. All the big names are there, and you get some heroes and a new game mode thrown in as a bonus.
- Suicide Squad - six anti-heroes plus a new game mode plus the dual tag-team villain setup - there’s a lot to like!
What I’m not getting:
- Gotham City - some decent names in this one have me on the fence, but I’m unsure how impactful the support characters will be.
- Metropolis - as per Gotham City, but with lesser names (IMO)
- Justice Society of America - seven heroes (most of whom I don’t recognise) and an anti-hero isn’t a lot of value, and PvP isn’t really what I’m after.
- Green Lantern Corps - I don’t know any of these characters and they’re all heroes. An easy pass.
- War of Light - Again, a bunch of characters I don’t recognise, though I will say them all having a different colour scheme is attractive from a painting point of view. The biggest issue I have, though, is that it seems you’d really need to play a lot of these characters together as their cards refer to each other. I prefer playing with random heroes.
- Sidekicks - I skipped the pets expansion in Multiverse and can’t see this being any different.
I like the inverse of your list, everything you passed on would be on my must-list, especially Justice Society of America and Green Lantern Corps LOL. Im having to pass though, as Im at low disposable cash at the moment
Ha, I think that’s part of the United system’s magic - everyone is looking for different things.
I’m unfamiliar with a lot of the DC universe so my focus tends to gravitate to the few characters that I do know. A secondary concern is stuff that either looks fun to paint or is mechanically interesting.
That said, how can you not want Arkham? So many of the big name villains in one box! 
This is probably a dumb question but when it comes to the DC United kickstarter, all of this content (minus the stretch goals) will all be available at retail at some point? So if you’re not interested in the stretch goals you could just wait and buy what you want at retail?
Kind of, but not widely. There will be a core box go to wide retail. They do have a retailer pledge program (direct from the CMON website), but you will be at the unknown mercy of who, where and how much stuff gets ordered by FLGS an online retailers, which will not be transparent at all.
That is the unfortunate part of CMON’s business model - they trade heavily on FOMO.
I guess that’s not really tracking with what I’m seeing with Marvel United where it looks like I can just hop on Amazon and find the core box and a wide variety of expansions. Is that simply because it’s been out in the wild so long that there’s plenty of supply for demand? Will it take DC United years to be similarly available?
Across the three prior Marvel crowdfund campaigns, there is some 23 odd expansion boxes. I can only see around 6 or 8 of those available on Amazon (AU) right at the moment, though to be fair I don’t think the 3rd campaign (Multi-verse) has hit retail yet since they are still fulfulling some regions.
Your mileage will definitely vary as to availability down the track and it will take 18mo for sure. That said, I am sure CMON would love plenty if United at retail so they may well over print some supply.
I have! There’s a whole series of these Academy Games titles based on its “colored cubes for different armies” model, and about a year ago, I played the most recent version (?), which was Viking themed. A friend brought it over knowing very little about it, eager to play it, and we muddled through, reading the rules as we went, playing egregiously wrong and accomplishing not much at all. : (
But I like the basic conceit of this series, and how a pretty simple ruleset is tailored to the specifics of the time period. For instance, the Viking version has a powerful attacking force rampaging through a defender’s territory. The 1775 version did some interesting but simple things with the distinctions among British, American, and Native troops, given a bit of a boost with card play.
My overall feeling is that there are far better low-complexity wargames available, most of them a lot less expensive than $100 (dude, Sekigahara!). So unless it’s something you’re looking at specifically for the theming or because you want to play a game in this series, I would recommend passing.
(As you probably already know if you’re tracking down physical copies, there’s a digital version of 1775: Rebellion available on Steam. It’s not very good, though.)
EDIT: Ah, it seems that one of the bullet points for 1775: Rebellion is that it supports up to four players. That’s not something you get in most low-complexity wargames, but if that’s your incentive for tracking down a $100 copy, I still feel you have better options!
If you’re curious what isn’t going to retail, when you’re looking at the expansions add-ons section here, any expansion that has a giant green box covering the bottom of it with “Crowdfunding Exclusive” is not going to retail.
Typically with CMON games, I think their crowdfunding exclusive content is their weakest content, often times making the game worse. If it was good, they’d put it in retail. But in this thread and elsewhere people are pretty positive about some of the exclusive content on the Marvel United kickstarters. Even if some of the best content isn’t going to retail, though, a very large amount of content is and it will be cheaper if precedent serves. I haven’t done any of the United kickstarters so far and do not feel like I’m missing out because I haven’t grown bored of the retail content released. I think the smart option is waiting for retail. I’m just not in a smart mood.
They made a sci-fi Undaunted? And it’s 4 player? How did I not know about this?
It isn’t out quite yet! Probably September is what I’ve been reading. I have it on preorder from Game Nerdz
Some thoughts on Arcs after playing a bunch of the base game, and half way through my first campaign game…
The base game… it’s… definitely not something I would highly recommend. It’s very swingy - and the mindset you need to use looking at your hand is more about minimizing your opponents ability to score rather than maximizing your own. Which can be tough for some folks. You can also end up in situations where luck does not go your way, and you sit there seething at people who get cards that mesh with exactly with what they wanted. One player bounced off so hard, not sure I can get them to play ever again.
But forget that - no one kickstarted Arcs for the base game. Arcs: Blighted Reach Campaign is the most compelling gaming experience I’ve had outside of a legacy game - and I’m mid-second act in my first two player game. So if anyone is wondering - how good is it for two? Very Good. I am chomping at the bits every day to get back into the game!
The base game is a bunch of warlords fighting over the map - and they’re kind of same-y (less so with leaders & lore). Yawn. With Arcs Blighted Reach you are a regent (duke) of the faltering Empire - you look at the map and see a swath of purple, surrounded by the alien blight and a smattering of free cities. What’s more the game has all new mechanics for The Empire - limiting and regulating the behavior of the regents who are members of it - for now…
From there it goes wild. I’m a supporter of the Empire - the Steward, the better it does - the better I do. My wife is a religious zealot - The Believer - and her faith is to replace the very action cards we use with a new set of cards - if she can replace 10 of them, she fulfills her goal… and she falls just short. Her Belief is shattered, and in Act 2 she selects a new Fate (persona)… but Her Faith Lives On - the new action cards are still in the deck, and there are new events that deal with the repercussions of her zealots who are still out there!
We’ll see how enthused I am after the end of the final act (each fate/role has their own winning condition), but so far it’s utterly compelling!
Oh yes, me wants!
I am a complete Arcs fanboy at this point, and I think both the base game and the campaign are spectacular!
If you have some time you can listen to Tom Brewster from Shut Up and Sit Down chatting about it for an hour here:
I love the campaign experience, but I find the base game well balanced and interesting and would always be happy to play it.