Railroad Ink When you say orange, do you mean shining yellow?
65! Getting better all the time…
I think I will start to use goals now and maybe the forrest expansion dice.
So, having the choice between Kemet and Blood Rage, what to choose?
Kemet looks more streamlined (except the tech tree), Blood Rage looks like it has so many moving parts. I want a game with depths, but not with too many rules…
Rising Sun.
(Only half kidding. I’ve played all three and while Blood Rage is probably the obvious answer, Rising Sun is my favorite among those three “dudes on a board” games.)
-Tom
I think Kemet is easier to learn than Blood Rage and all the games I played with it - I always felt I had a chance to win. But being a new player on Blood Rage you will get walloped. It takes time to absorb.
Actually, one of the issues with Kemet is the learning curve for new players. They’re confronted with a pretty wide-open tech tree from the outset! That’s a big ask when you first start playing, because a lot (most?) of the gameplay is lurking in that tech tree. It’s not an easy game to wrap your head around until you’ve played it a few times and seen how the techs can unfold.
There’s some of that in Blood Rage, but the drafting makes it less overwhelming. All the gameplay-bending stuff is a trickle in Blood Rage, but it’s a sheer wall in Kemet.
-Tom
When I first played Kemet it was all new players so maybe the curve didnt hit as much. However when I played Blood Rage it was with people who played it constantly and I got the feeling that they wanted to win more than teaching strategy to the new players.
Oof. That can’t have been fun. :(
For what it’s worth, there’s a decent enough Steam version of Blood Rage with an AI. You can take all the time you want to learn it without worrying about experienced players stomping on you.
-Tom
Are the Blood Rage Digital Expansions worth getting (I am assuming that most non-digital games use the expansions)?
Newbrof, How many players are you planning on playing with? If 3,5 or 6 I’d recommend Rising Sun. If 2 I’d recommend Ankh. If it is between Blood Rage and Kemet. I’d agree with Tom and say that Blood Rage is easy to teach and play but there’s lots to think about. Kemet is more difficult in terms of mechanics (not difficult to play just more involved in teaching). You can’t go wrong with either game so I’d say it’s a preference of theme.
So those of you who have played it (or made videos about it, @tomchick!) tell me about Dawn of the Zeds 3rd edition. It looks like it’s getting one last push into the retail pipeline here of late.
Is it too fiddly? Obsolete mechanics? Or for fans of a solo game “state of siege” type of play, still worth a look?
It’s amazing and totally worth a look for the solo player! :)
The main issue with 3rd edition is the tacked-on multiplayer and insistence on splitting the game across a hundred difficulty modes and rulebooks, which makes referencing and finding stuff difficult.
But the game itself is still really good.
I feel like it’s a very strong contender for best zombie boardgame. Not that most of the competition is any great shakes, and a few of the ones people seem to love best are mostly about doing terrible things to your friends while there are also zombies, which doesn’t rate for me.
I have Dawn of the Zeds on my table currently. Though not much time to play it currently. Yeah it’s good. Definitely some high tension in the game. I’ve had the zeds pull off some sneaky wins because I didn’t secure a flank hard enough! Yeah I’d say get it if you can.
Regarding the rule book, I agree that finding certain rules can be tricky. But I can see the principle at play which is to drip feed new mechanics to the player and get accustomed to the rules at that difficulty before moving on. It’s better than something akin to Mage Knight where it throws everything and anything right from the start. Because of this trickling of new systems, I don’t see the game as too fiddly. However the most basic game is a little boring, the game does ramp up in excitement after progressing through the rules book.
Each turn is pretty straight forward and the event card reminds you what needs to happen, what tracks progress to and when.
There’s a bit of awkward Victory Point stink on the third edition of Dawn of the Zeds, but it’s still very good, mainly because the first and second editions were so good. This guy liked it ten years ago and I have it on good authority he still likes it:
Here’s some third edition gameplay:
Yes, but it partly depends on what kind of game you’re looking for. It’s not a dungeon crawler or a Euro or a deck-builder or anything the average person would expect when he buys a boardgame these days. It’s very much a wargame using the states of siege template. But it’s also a perfect example of how states of siege is often an awkward abstraction when it comes to history, but it’s a perfect gameplay engine for a zombie apocalypse!
-Tom
Remember all the different combat shifts! Named space vs. Town space vs. space with a barricade or whatever it’s called… and remember that shifts aren’t cumulative… no one has ever played Dawn of the Zeds all the way through without making a mistake! It’s great, though.
In unrelated boardgaming news:
Obviously an adaptation of the classic Phillips CD-i FMV game.
It is not.
Everdell, Quacks, and King of Tokyo getting to the table tonight. Color me excited
Still my son’s favorite boardgame. If he gets a vote on a boardgame to pull out, it’s pretty much always King of Tokyo.