Didn’t end up getting much Krosmaster time in this weekend - mostly just went through the first handful of tutorials with my girlfriend. (She loves the Wakfu and Dofus cartoons, and I bought her a tofu plush last week, so she’s in a perfect mood for the game right now.) We’ll be fully equipped to play this coming weekend, if we don’t get caught up in Millennium Blades, which arrived today. I’m looking forward to utilizing @tomchick’s reboxing guide!
Ah!,
some years ago I told to myself I should check out Starfire, so I bought the Solar Starfire pdf.
What a mess. Impossible to learn, impossible to play game that required several hundred hours to play out and had some of the worst rulebook structure I had ever seen. I thought to myself, well, it probably is this version (bgg forum were very critical of it) so I bought what that website called “Classic Starfire” which turned out to be the third edition and still quite a mess. I was at a loss of why the game was so highly regarded.
Well, this answers it. This version, which with all expansions is about 20-30 pages is the answer. The rules are clear and the ingenuity of the tactical combat system comes to fore. I’m not sure unlimited stacking does the game any favors, but other than that, I’m glad I bought the system for the third time!
I has a friend who ran a campaign with a strategic layer using Starfire for space combat and OGRE for the invasion. You would attack planets to gain credits to purchase your navy and army.
That sounds like fun. I’m guessing the campaign strategic layer was NOT Starfire third edition (because I can’t really think how that might be fun)?
I think he created his own planet/resource structures and may have used some campaign ideas for the cost of purchasing the Starfire ship systems and OGRE/GEV ground units. It was long ago so my memory is spotty (and I never participated, he would tell me about it. The group used to meet every Saturday to play as a part of their board game day. Of course this was before PC games were big.
Personally, if you keep Starfire to Capital ships with no carriers I think it is more fun. Carriers made the game more sluggish/fiddiley as I recall.
I don’t generally KS, but I’m tempted by this one. Gloomhaven does look pretty cool.
I can’t stop playing it. It really is a gem of a game. However, be prepared for a few slap downs as you get used to the strategy behind the combat. It can be punishingly hard.
I’m not afraid of slap downs. LotR LCG has conditioned me to take drubbing. :)
The rampant praise for Gloomhaven have me strongly considering overlooking the one-way street (legacy) element of the game. I sort of hate that I have to add stickers to permanently change my board game. Still…that praise. I expect to order a reprint.
Thanks for the heads up.
Yeah, I’m tempted. The only thing holding be back is that I seems to be a bit similar to Descent from what I’ve seen. I’m not sure having both is really necessary.
Gloomhaven is pretty darn cool. Looking forward to session #2 next Friday.
The one way aspect doesn’t really bother me because you’re basically creating a shared world. And there are so many scenarios that it will take hours upon hours to get through them all.
Yeah, one way trip games don’t bother me that much either (depending on price, that means you Time Stories) since it’s not like I play the same game hundreds of times anyway. Outside LotR LCG (which I play a lot of, but also add scenarios to) Arkham Horror is m most played game at around 25-30 plays. Not sure how many scenarios are in Gloomhaven, but I bet it’s plenty for me. More worrying for me is finding a reliable group. How is Gloomhaven as a 2 player game?
BGG seems to show it works great as a 2 player game, or even solo. I think there are about 90 some scenarios, plus more available online. And the creator released all the stuff to create even more. So yeah, given that each one takes at least an hour (our first session took about 3 hours total, to set up and play through the first one), there’s a crapload of gaming here. Also, there are classes to unlock, each which has its own ability deck. And items to unlock, town events, road events, etc.
You’re not helping Rowe…
Look at this stuff! Those boxes on the left are the classes. You start with a choice of 6 but can unlock about a dozen more I believe. It’s like earning real life loot in the game!
https://wgp-cdn.co.uk/TTG/jpg/bcf80dff54ff11add01c64a1f1f2c1d8_original-19346/500/500/
These people seem to be enjoying Gloomhaven in a manner about 500x more organized than our first game:
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It’s been described as Battlefield 1 meets Trials HD meets Monster Hunter meets painting Warhammer 40k models.
I don’t know if this is just some self-defense mechanism to keep me from spending $100+ that I really can’t afford to spend, but Gloomhaven just looks like an expansive mess to me. A friend of mine showed me her copy last week. She was super excited about it, and we went through the box of stuff, and the tiles, and the scenario book, and the boxes of minis and cards (loot, as you say!), and the chits and so on. While I can appreciate the appeal, it just seemed exhausting. All that Ameritrash, and legacy, to boot! Those pictures up there remind me of trying to get Eldritch Horror and its expansions squeezed onto a table.
Is there anything cool or distinct about the moment-to-moment gameplay? The combat system? It’s just a mini deck-builder for each character, right? A la Mage Knight, but presumably not as puzzle-ish? I’m probably asking something malkav already talked about upthread…
-Tom
I played the Alien Legendary Encounter card game last night and was reminded what a hoot it is. We used the add-on, which is really just extra bits and bobs you can include, mostly to make the game harder if you want. There are also a couple of weird made-up scenarios that didn’t actually happen in history. Why would you want to play some unrealistic scenario about a lab that breeds flying aliens when you can play on the Nostromo or on LV-426 for the umpteenth time? I guess maybe some people don’t want to play the LV-426 scenario to find Newt for the umpteenth time. Go figure.
We played the original Alien on the Nostromo. Find the signal, seal the ventilation shafts, then blow the alien out the airlock. Objectives one, two, and three. The add-on throws in new character cards each scenario. For the basic Alien game, it adds Kane and, I think, Brett? Was Brett not in there originally? How can you play Alien with the “Here, kitty kitty…” card?
There are also new player roles and player agendas. We had an animal handler in our ranks. Remember that part of Alien? When the animal handler keeps the alien in the airlock using his animal handling skills? Speaking of animal handling, I got Jones killed. :( That was a low point of the evening.
One of the new agendas – this is your secret ability you get only after your traitor or non-traitor identity has been revealed – lets a player decide to be a traitor. When the guy who had it flipped the card and declared his intent to turn evil because he didn’t think our chances looked good, he was killed at the end of that turn by an unlucky card draw for a wound. Very cinematic. A bit like Samuel Jackson’s death in Deep Blue Sea but with an alien tail whip instead of a shark, and if Samuel Jackson had been Burke.
Anyway, we barely won. I killed the traitor – our animal handler was a Weyland-Yutani spy – and then died valiantly so that our gunner could blow the alien out of the airlock. I was a synthetic anyway, so it’s not like I actually “died” or anything. Because, you know, artificial person. And when the good guys win, the good guys win, regardless of whether some of them are dead. Yay, good guys!
Oh, the add-on still doesn’t have any Vazquez cards for the Aliens characters. It adds Gorman and Drake, but still no Vazquez? Why the hell would you add Drake without Vazquez? WT-effing-F? “Let’s not rock!!!”
-Tom
I like the idea of Gloomhaven, and all the buzz is weakening my resolve. But looking at those pics, it looks like components my kids could easily chew and destroy, play with and destroy, or just destroy because they’re horrible little monsters. So I just saved myself $200 and a world of heartache and despair.
Pity that what they save me on game purchases they find other ways to make me spend the money.