My brother gave me Gears of War (GoW) the board game for xmas and very kindly kept hold of it for 4 months so that he could paint all the minis inside. And they look fantastic! I generally dislike painting and avoid it at all costs, but I have to say it makes the game that much more engrossing when the bulk of objects players are looking at are well painted.
But how is Gears of War as a board game?
Well, it's a few years old now, I think it came out in 2011? That could be way off and a quick interweb search will find out the truth. The fact of it is though that after playing the first 2 missions, me and my gaming group love this game. We fell right into it, the rules are very straight forward and it's hard to miss any rules out as the game follows a very easy to follow sequence of phases - heal phase (draw 2 cards), order phase (play a card), locust activation phase (draw a locust AI card and do what it says).
What makes the game even better in my eyes is that it is purely co-operative. No-one in our group loves being a lone bad guy player, we like to either be at each other's throats or working together to beat a game.
How co-operative is it?
The co-operative element in GoW is very important and hard to avoid. However knowledgeable and accomplished a player maybe at the game, they will not succeed without helping and being helped by the other players.
A player uses cards to perform actions. When a player takes damage they lose cards. When a player wants to perform a 'special' action they need to discard a card. At the beginning of a player's turn they only draw 2 cards. This should highlight the fact that a player really only gains 1 card per turn and as soon as they take 1 damage or need to pick up some extra ammo, they're breaking even. However, all is not lost; some of the order cards players have will allow other players to draw cards or player's to perform actions out of sequence - these cards are vital to progressing.
These mechanics, mixed with the fact the bad guys (the locust) can do a lot of damage quite easily, means the players need to get moving, be daring and decisive to win. If you think hunkering down behind cover is probably better than charging in guns blazing, you may want to think again. But equally, charging in guns blazing without proper covering fire or the right weapon for the right job is just as stupid.
Any problems with the game?
I feel I really must start to be more critical of games. This blog has generally been a place for me to spew random thoughts and ideas out, but I end up ranting about my favourite games and glorifying them without equal and fair attention to the cons. And I believe some people do read this blog...
So, I can imagine if you have one very good player this game doesn't stop them from just telling the other players what they need to do. A bit like Pandemic, for all it's well deserved praise, this game could be boring for new players to play if the experienced heads don't let them make their own mistakes. I've been very lucky in that I've had very little extra exposure to this game than my gaming group, so each time we play we're essentially as knowledgeable about it as each other.
Also, re-playability cooooould be a problem. I hesitate here a little as this is a tactical combat game. What that means to me is that it's less about the goal as it is about the game mechanics. For example, I don't play battlefield or dark souls because I want to complete it, but because I love playing it. So far I can easily see myself playing missions again just because it's fun to play it. BUT, if you are a more classical board gamer, you may get bored going through the same missions again once you've completed them, as you're essentially just running through the same list of objectives. I think there are 7 or 8 missions in the box, each with randomly drawn map tiles, which do significantly alter how the flow of the game will go.
Lastly, some of the missions have locust creatures which aren't represented by models in the game, thus requiring you to use alts. For a top quality Fantasy Flight game, that's pretty crazy? And with no expansions looking like coming out, this fault will probably never be rectified - except for acquiring them from Heroclix, which are pretty poor quality models, but might be the only answer.
Conclusion?
If you like challenging, tactical combat, I don't know of any board games that do it better than this. The AI cards are very well designed and work almost seamlessly; the AI never seems to do anything stupid or that doesn't make sense.
It is a relentless struggle and steeped in Gears of War theme.
The models are stunningly beautiful for a ~£50 board game and if you, or someone willing, can spare the time to paint them they look even better.
Going back to re-playability, this game would love a big box expansion with more minis in, fresh board pieces and new missions. It's been out a good few years, with newer games getting multiple expansions during the time it's been out. There is only one little card expansion for GoW, with 2 new missions.
For the next few months I think this is going to be a regular on my gaming table and I'm looking forward to seeing how the horde mode works.
I'm really keen to get back into some xbox GoWing too....
Tuesday, 29 April 2014
Thursday, 3 April 2014
World of Tanks - more British tanks please...
World of Tanks is a pretty good game.
Still playing this with one of my friends, and every now and then a few other people too. The game really works best when playing as part of a team, as the different tank classes compliment each other and cover each other's weaknesses.
I really just wanted to write this post as I'm eagerly anticipating more British tanks! I've been reading about the Cromwell medium tank and it's successors and they sound really exciting. Also, the Sherman is already in the game for the yanks, but us Brits had our own adaptation of it, the Sherman Firefly, and for some reason they've neglected to put this into the British tank tech-tree!
The Sherman Firefly was a basic Sherman with the British 17 pounder (edit - 17 pounder, not 18) anti-tank gun on it. For various reasons the yanks disregarded it and I'd be interested to find out why this was, but German accounts state that these Shermans were particularly feared and at the very end of the war the yanks did start to order these tanks from us Brits only for the war in Europe to end and the delivery never took place.
If you have some spare time and a relatively good gaming PC or an xbox 360, I strongly recommend this game.
It's free and based on WW2 tanks - what's not to like?!
Still playing this with one of my friends, and every now and then a few other people too. The game really works best when playing as part of a team, as the different tank classes compliment each other and cover each other's weaknesses.
I really just wanted to write this post as I'm eagerly anticipating more British tanks! I've been reading about the Cromwell medium tank and it's successors and they sound really exciting. Also, the Sherman is already in the game for the yanks, but us Brits had our own adaptation of it, the Sherman Firefly, and for some reason they've neglected to put this into the British tank tech-tree!
The Sherman Firefly was a basic Sherman with the British 17 pounder (edit - 17 pounder, not 18) anti-tank gun on it. For various reasons the yanks disregarded it and I'd be interested to find out why this was, but German accounts state that these Shermans were particularly feared and at the very end of the war the yanks did start to order these tanks from us Brits only for the war in Europe to end and the delivery never took place.
If you have some spare time and a relatively good gaming PC or an xbox 360, I strongly recommend this game.
It's free and based on WW2 tanks - what's not to like?!
TALISMAN!
I love Talisman. I think it is a glorious game, which always leaves you with a story to tell afterwards, even if you have the most mundane of games.
My friends and I played with both the Dungeon and the City expansion in one big game the other day and it was fantastic! I really felt that we, as players, had more control over our destinies than normal. Talisman is a game notorious for being almost completely luck based, but I would say it's moved on. For example, the city has shops that you don't need to roll the exact number to get to, as long as you have enough move you can walk into the shop and end your movement. Also, the different areas have clearly different characters and you move to that area having a good idea of what you will encounter. It has made me, more than ever, want to get the Highlands expansion, as it's a bit easier than the Dungeon and would act as a great area to go to before heading to the Dungeon.
Another big change aspect that I think affected the game was that I had sifted out a fair few cards from the main board's adventure deck, cards that I thought only slowed the game and didn't add any significant gameplay moments. This made the main game board far more productive and exciting and made moving between the corners less of a drag.
The one thing that really annoyed me though was the character I played, the Bounty Hunter. He was insanely powerful! I really cannot understand how a character like that was allowed to be put into the game, it's not like his abilities really epitomised a Bounty Hunter, they were just massively over powered! This is annoying in more than one way, not just that he was very powerful, but almost impossible to 'house rule' against, unlike the Dark Cultist who can easily be balanced by stopping them from using creatures as trophies if they decide to sacrifice them - easy. I think the Bounty Hunter is going to get a comfortable place at the bottom of my box, only to be used by novice players and on the odd occasion.
I'd like to conclude this post by stating, to all you Talisman nay-sayers, that the game is a toolset for you to enjoy! You don't have to play with every card, every time. Like so many games, if there are aspects that annoy you then take the parts out! I've done this with my Talisman set and it's made the game even better. I've got a nice little stack of unused cards in the bottom of my box, which I can re-integrate at any time, but until then, I'll keep adding to it until my adventure decks are filled with only exciting, perilous and non-time-wasting type cards. Just how I like it to be.
My friends and I played with both the Dungeon and the City expansion in one big game the other day and it was fantastic! I really felt that we, as players, had more control over our destinies than normal. Talisman is a game notorious for being almost completely luck based, but I would say it's moved on. For example, the city has shops that you don't need to roll the exact number to get to, as long as you have enough move you can walk into the shop and end your movement. Also, the different areas have clearly different characters and you move to that area having a good idea of what you will encounter. It has made me, more than ever, want to get the Highlands expansion, as it's a bit easier than the Dungeon and would act as a great area to go to before heading to the Dungeon.
Another big change aspect that I think affected the game was that I had sifted out a fair few cards from the main board's adventure deck, cards that I thought only slowed the game and didn't add any significant gameplay moments. This made the main game board far more productive and exciting and made moving between the corners less of a drag.
The one thing that really annoyed me though was the character I played, the Bounty Hunter. He was insanely powerful! I really cannot understand how a character like that was allowed to be put into the game, it's not like his abilities really epitomised a Bounty Hunter, they were just massively over powered! This is annoying in more than one way, not just that he was very powerful, but almost impossible to 'house rule' against, unlike the Dark Cultist who can easily be balanced by stopping them from using creatures as trophies if they decide to sacrifice them - easy. I think the Bounty Hunter is going to get a comfortable place at the bottom of my box, only to be used by novice players and on the odd occasion.
I'd like to conclude this post by stating, to all you Talisman nay-sayers, that the game is a toolset for you to enjoy! You don't have to play with every card, every time. Like so many games, if there are aspects that annoy you then take the parts out! I've done this with my Talisman set and it's made the game even better. I've got a nice little stack of unused cards in the bottom of my box, which I can re-integrate at any time, but until then, I'll keep adding to it until my adventure decks are filled with only exciting, perilous and non-time-wasting type cards. Just how I like it to be.
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