Black Powder has similar rules (Hail Caesar and Pike and Shotte are offshoots of the BP system), and we reduce frontages by half as well (though this is mostly because we have not assembled full-sized armies yet). One thing that is great about Black Powder is how flexible it is. It’s one of these systems where different clubs can easily adapt their own house rules. I’ve also seen people in our situation use 2/3 measurements (apparently they’re all divisible by 3), but that’s more math than we want to use.
As a side note, Hail Caesar uses a 6” base infantry movement, and I have no idea why. Did Napoleonic infantry move twice as fast as ancient ones due to their drilling and formations?
So I had some interest in Tainted Grail, and then started watching some of the youtube reviews and…my interest in that game has greatly subsided. When even the typical game review cheerleaders seem like they’re trying to talk themselves into liking a game while pointing out its major flaws…that’s a flag.
That’s what always struck me as silly in Memoir '44 (and especially Red Alert). I made sense for ancient or even Civil War era armies to use that kind of system. Not for mid 20th century, and especially not for far suture interstellar sci-fi.
Do you have a particular video in mind that does that? I don’t know anything about the game—other than people pledged a hojillion simoleons—but a painful apologia might be interesting to watch.
So here’s Tom Vasel’s review. Now, we know Tom V pretty much likes every game. And he likes Tainted Grail, too!
But he gets to the “Then there’s this stuff I don’t like” and it sounds like the kind of issues that would damn a lot of games if, say, Tom Chick was reviewing it.
And some of the same issues come up here, too:
With that being said, a lot of the issues seem to involve downtime when playing co-op. So maybe for solo play they’re less an issue?
EDIT: having expressed those concerns, though, I’m still super interested. The 7th Continent-like play aspects have my interest. But then, I love 7th Continent a lot, too. :)
Yep, the complaints seem to be the downtime for larger player counts (greater than 2 I guess?) plus some repetition if you die. Seems like that second one could be easily house-ruled or changed up in some way to avoid having to replay the entire chapter in case of death.
Also, sounds like the combat system is a real plus, even if it’s part of the issue with 3+ players.
Don’t forget the follow up from this that is also infuriating - ending up with a patchwork rule book which, rather than serving as a good, comprehensive rulebook for the complete game, instead becomes some torturous vehicle where you try to remember whether the rule you are looking up is in the “Basic Game,” “Advanced Game,” or “Expert Game” section of the rules.
God, that is the worst, isn’t it? Dawn of the Zeds is one of my favorite boardgames, but Victory Point insured that it’s going to be a huge pain in the ass to relearn it every time I want to play. So many rules sprawled across so many pointless “difficulty levels”.
As much as I bag on Fantasy Flight, I’ve come to really like the way they print two rules books. One a Learn to Play that I can just throw under the insert because I’ll never need to look at it after a single perusal; the other an alphabetically arranged list of thorough rules for pretty much any term or concept you’ll encounter. So handy, so convenient.
I can’t really think of an example, but in theory, I think it would be a bad idea. I guess a lot of games lose some of their systems behind poorly tuned difficulty. For instance, if you play a game on easy and a monster has a really cool behavior or AI, you’d never know because it dies after one shot. Similarly, if you play the beginner version of a boardgame, you’d never know how cool the full design is.
Yikes, did I really not say what the game was? That was dumb of me. It’s Academy Games’ Agents of Mayhem game. It’s a tactical combat game that plays out on a modular 3D map.
A friend I made through some local gaming nights didn’t like 7th Continent much, but pledged this all-in before he’d gotten his 7C shipment and had a chance to play that other game. He’d mentioned that he was leaning towards selling his pledge, and I made him an offer I guess he couldn’t refuse ($50 over his pledge, plus he doesn’t have to worry about shipping like he might if he used a sales community like on BGG or auction site like Ebay.)
I think for a purely solo, narrative-heavy experience, it’ll be right up my street. And though the grownup me looks at all the extra doo-dads like miniatures and thinks “Those artificially drive up prices”…the 10 year old me who still shouts loudly in the back of my brain loves that kind of crap. :)
This game is great! I think maybe the worst part about it is it looks much lighter than it is (it can be a bit brain burning). Definitely deserving of being recommended, especially if you’ve got a fondness for Kiki’s Delivery Service.
I have mixed feelings on “advanced rules” situations. On the one hand, I appreciate that sometimes the basic rules are just fine and create a good play experience. And sometimes the advanced rules change the experience but don’t necessarily make it better. But also, I like complexity and find that it’s usually not much an extra investment to learn the advanced rules.
Some of this is about complexity, because it’s already a lot to expect players to spend an hour learning the basic mechanics, and then another half-hour learning the advanced mechanics on top of that. But that includes playtime and understanding the rules interactions, which almost necessarily require firsthand experience.
And somewhere I have a treatise about my loathing of overly-scripted tutorials, but that’s a different matter.
So in the end, I want to make choices and see if they were good ones. Basic, advanced, whatever. The “contract” I have with the designer is that the choices are supposed to offer worthwhile tradeoffs, so that I enjoy the experience and want to make those choices again.
I was super excited about Broom Service because I loved the core mechanics of Witch’s Brew but wished the theme were more substantial. And I love Miyazaki! Oddly, I’ve ended up feeling like Witch’s Brew is still superior. What was accreted on to the role-choosing mechanics didn’t add anything especially exciting, in my experience. It was also brain-burny in a way that didn’t suit my brain, I think. I’m actually glad that some folks feel otherwise. Makes me wonder if I needed to give it a few more plays before setting it aside.
