As a fun thought experiment, let’s see how Gloomhaven stacks up against Tom’s reasons he hates Mage Knight
[Quote= Tom Chick]
-10. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock
Mage Knight is a ruthlessly time limited game, where the single most important factor is how much time you have. It is a vicious exercise in maximizing efficiency. Yet you’re often left in a position where you have very few choices and all of them are terrible. [/quote]
Scenarios in GH are ruthlessly time-limited. Unlike MK, it isn’t a game-imposed timer, however (at least not that I’ve seen yet). Scenarios in GH are mostly limited by the players’ actual skill in managing their hand of cards. You start with a small deck, determined by the player’s Class- Spellweavers get 8, Tinkers get 12. This deck dwindles over the course of the game until you have none left, at which point you’re exhausted, and out of the scenario (though if the rest of the party succeeds, you do, too). After playing 3 scenarios, it seems pretty well-balanced- through careful play, you roll into the last room with just enough cards to make it. However, it’s still on a timer, and if that annoys you, it’s going to hurt here.
[Quote= Tom Chick]
-9. Mechanics and…uhwhat’s that other thing?
…whatever the case, for a game with all sorts of Ameritrashy bits, Mage Knight can hardly be arsed to come up with any theme.
Consider the characters. In one game, you’ll play the green flying lizard dude. You know he’s the green flying lizard dude because he uses the green lizard figure with wings. In another game, you’ll play one of the guys who’s not the green flying lizard dude…
…The monsters you fight are similarly a handful of unadorned stats. Oh, look, I just encountered a fortified defense of 7 with an attack of 3 that’s worth 3 fame if I defeat it! Is it an elf?..
Mage Knight, a bucket into which numbers are dumped, opts out of any meaningful theming. [/quote]
Thankfully, this seems to be the opposite in GH. The different classes are all completely different. There’s six to start with, with another dozen or so to unlock. Each has its own deck of cards that are completely different than the others. As you level, you unlock Perks, which are also Class-specific. Playing my Tinker is nothing like my frien’s Jim’s Scoundrel.
Monsters are similarly varied, with all sorts of little touches. The way they use some abilities is really neat. The difference between the Night and Air Demons we fought last night wen far deeper than stats on their cards, and the thematic bits were great.
[Quote= Tom Chick]
-8. At least it’s not called Thief Cleric
What’s a mage knight, anyway? What a terrible concept. It’s like a DPS tank. [/quote]
If I can point to anything in GH as kind of annoying, it’s the names of literally everything being awash in standard fantasy tropes. ‘Gloomhaven’, ‘The Black Barrow’, ‘The Chained Isle’. On the other hand, the rest of the worldbuilding seems fairly fresh. No elves, dwarves and halflings. Here it’s all Inox, Orchids, and other weird races.
[Quote= Tom Chick]
-7. You didn’t plan on playing any other games tonight, did you?
A corollary of a lot of the other problems with Mage Knight is that it’s slow. Some of the worst pacing I’ve ever seen in a game. And not just because it’s long. I don’t mind a long game. Some games need to be long. But I do mind a slow game and Mage Knight is one of the slowest games I’ve ever played. It is a slog playing solitaire. It is a hopeless quagmire of insufferable waiting playing with others. If you are a slow player, or if you have a slow player in your group, Mage Knight will push the bounds of patience like nothing else. Because…
-6. Go make a sandwich when it’s not your turn. Take your time.
The best boardgames minimize downtime by giving you something to do even when it’s not your turn. Some input or some decision or at least some direct stakes in the action. At the very least, you can plan for your upcoming turn. [/quote]
GH can be a tad slow. Especially at the beginning of a scenario when you have your whole hand, and no idea where the other players are headed. Unlike MK, however, you’re only trying to combo two cards per turn, and as the turns go on your options diminish, speeding things up as opposed to slowing them down. Also, everyone plays at the same time, so you aren’t waiting for it to get back around the table to you. Each scenario has clocked about two hours for us, and keeping the game organized in Plano boxes has kept setup time to a minimum- which is helped by the scenario book itself, clearly listing which components are needed for each one (i.e. 6 demons, 3 trees, 2 boulders, etc.).
[Quote= Tom Chick]
-5. How about none for me, all for you?
Mage Knight makes no effort to balance itself as a competitive game (the add-on includes variants to force balance into the game, as if it just now occurred to the developers that being lapped during a race isn’t conducive to making someone want to race). Even as a cooperative game, you’re just as likely to be the guy stuck with a BB caliber hero while the other guy has a bazooka hero[/quote]
GH is full co-op. So there’s that. There is some competition in that gold and items looted aren’t shared, ever. An interesting aspect is also that XP is granted by playing your Class effectively, not by killing monsters or getting loot. The cards in your Class deck have XP symbols on them, and you get the XP just by playing them for that ability. Some people get XP by laying the big whammy down on monsters. Some get it for healing. So the idea of a BB gun Vs. a bazooka isn’t really applicable. Your advancement (character growth and new options) is just tied to doing what you do, and doing it well.
[Quote= Tom Chick]
-4. Let me look that up
The rules are crammed onto a few pages in small print with almost no visuals to relate them to the game pieces. They’re also pretty finicky, because the design is pretty finicky. But they’re also incomplete. If you want to know important information, you’ll have to flip through a deck of cards. Don’t plan to lay these out on the table like a reference guide, because you need to check information on both sides. I’ve never played a boardgame with the rulebook printed in a deck of cards, much less two-sided cards. [/quote]
The rules on GH are better than in MK, but that’s not saying much. I hate the MK books. One should have all the rules, but some are missing, and you have to find them in the quickstart guide. At least GH is all in one book. There is a growing FAQ on BGG, though.
[Quote= Tom Chick]
-3. Cool minis or not?
Mage Knight is expensive because it has little painted toys for your characters, which are just heaps of stats poorly distinguished from any other heap of stats. There are also little painted plastic toys for cities with bases that you can use to indicate how strong the city is. There is no reason this information needs to be a clickable part of a plastic toy. Other than making the game more expensive so the publisher has a larger profit margin. [/quote]
GH only uses minis for the players. All the monsters are cardboard stands. There were actually a few KS sets with only cardboard, even for the heroes, but going forward they’ll all be minis. They’re fine, and I find they help keep track of what’s on the gameboard a bit easier. GH is expensive because the box is huge and packed with a ton of content. The minis might make it a bit more pricy, but it’s still going to be expensive without them.
[Quote= Tom Chick]
-2. A place for everything and everything in its…oh, wait, not anymore
The expansion ruins one of the few non-terrible things about Mage Knight: that it fits superneatly into a molded plastic insert inside the box. The expansion breaks this. You can’t even fit the new cards in the original box, much less the new plastic toys. I don’t mind long setup and breakdown times. What I mind is long set-up and breakdown times that are longer because of thoughtless packaging. [/quote]
The insert in GH is a joke. Throw it away and get a better system of organizing. I hear the reprint might -have a better insert. I’m not holding my breath.
[Quote= Tom Chick]
-1. Thou shalt not
Mage Knight violates more commandments of boardgame design than any other game! Which is all of them. Every. Single. Commandment. [/quote]
Letsee…
10. No baggies (-1)
9. Co-op? (-+0)
8. Includes rules for scaling scenarios to make them harder/easier. Does that count?
7. Not that I’ve seen. (+1)
6. Simultaneous play (+1)
5. You should be interacting with the other players, or you’re going to lose. You aren’t allowed to talk specifics, though. (+1)
4. 30 min/player. Incidentally, Wrong. (-1)
3. You’re going to have to check the rules. A lot. There are a few card-sized aids, but even they leave specifics off. (-1)
2. Rulebook is fine. Not excellent. Just fine. (-+0)
- As mentioned before, you can get copies of the game sans minis. I think they actually increase the utility here, buy YMMV. (-+0)
So, basically, a wash.