Risk Legacy - New and Fun

Most people of a certain age have a set of games that they played back in the day. On my list would be Monopoly, Life, Stratego, and Risk. These are the games I played with family or friends and enjoyed through college in a few cases. A few weeks ago one of the gaming regulars brought in a copy of Risk Legacy to gaming night. How would an updated classic fare in a room full of trendy eurogamers, deck builders, and wargamers? Pretty darn well!

As many may remember in a game of Risk you try and take over countries and expand your empire of tiny army tokens. Each turn you get more tokens depending on how many countries you control and usually after some time one player gets a gigantic pool of reinforcements and then conquers the board. Risk is fun but I remember that it could take a while to play and that once you start losing there isn't much to do but wait out the hours.

Risk Legacy takes the basic mechanics of Risk and adds some new twists. You play on a map of a parallel earth. You and the other players are colonists who have landed to populate the new world and each players has a faction with some special ability. At first the game is classic- the map is the same, you have tokens which behave in the same way, and one player eventually swamps the others and wins. The main difference at first is just that it's easier and faster to win.

After the first game Risk Legacy begins to really shine. The players get to add cities to the map with stickers. Then they get to add "biohazard" areas, forts, and other special markers. Each is done by applying a permanent sticker to the board. The factions then begin to acquire special abilities. Finally, when certain events occur you open sealed envelopes which contain new rules, stickers, and some wild surprises.

The result of all this is that as the players finish games they get to alter the game board and alter how the game is played. Some regions will get defended cities, some will get wastelands or worse. Each game adds one or two changes and the results end up balancing out well over time. Each continent ends up with some benefits and some hazards. Each faction gets some special abilities but no one faction begins to overshadow the others and because players trade factions there is pressure to make each one effective. From a gamer's point of view you get an evolving board which reflects the past battles but remains balanced and playable.

From a player's point of view you get an earth covered with cities and continents you can name yourself. You can use silly names, your own name, whatever you want. There are spaces on the board and stickers to write things and a log to rack who has won battles. We've settled Boca Raton, Cleveland, and Lameville. How fun is that?!

Finally, a single game of Risk Legacy can be over in less than an hour. We've gotten in two or three plays in a given night. The rules are well written and have answered every issue that a gang of competitive hard core gamers can come up with. We've battled and watched cities sprout up and opened secret envelopes with crazy surprises in them.

I've been very pleased with Risk Legacy. It's fast, fun, well playtested and balanced. It combines great design with good fun and it's simple. For any group of players who might enjoy Risk this game is highly recommended.

Warhammer Invasion- More %$#^ elves!

As winter settles down on the shoulders of New Hampshire like a freezing blanket of freezingness my wife and I have started looking for a fun new two player game. Or rather, I have and my wife has waited patiently to see what I would foist upon her. I thought to give Warhammer: Invasion a try and happily it's been a nice success.

I've been surprised lately that I enjoy so many games set in the Warhammer universe considering how disinterested I am in the Warhammer wargames. I think Chaos in the Old World, Blood Bowl Team Manager, and Death Angel are all nicely designed games. I even like Warhammer Historical Battles set in the Dark Ages. That may be the crux of the matter- the Warhammer system seems best designed for large skirmishes between warbands and once tanks enter the picture the system seems to struggle.

Anyway, Warhammer Invasion is a deck building card game. You start with a stack of cards representing a faction like Elves or Dwarves and then draw cards and use them to engage in battle. WI is a "living card game" and so the publishers release new sets of cards regularly. There are hundreds of possible cards to use so your choices can be as wide as you care to explore. Given that there are many living card games on the market what makes WI worth playing?

For one, we've really enjoyed the warring factions. Each has it's own character and playing style and it's fun to discover what works best with each. Or you can pick a faction that appeals to you and become really good with it. My wife, for example, does love those elves. They're haughty and seem to thrive on stopping attacks in their tracks or sending immortal swordmasters onto the battlefield. In contrast, I like the chaos warriors who specialize in spells and summoning bizarre creatures. The art is top quality and helps with the atmosphere as well.

Secondly, there are a lot of options for game play. You can build defenses in your kingdom, go on "quests," build an aggressive army or cast pesky spells on your opponent. I'm finding this gives the game a lot of replay value and also gives you fun things to try no matter what cards fall your way.

Finally, the cards can be combined in a number of different ways. I like games that allow "combos," series of plays that you can discover or create and that allow devastating moves. WI rewards creative play and attention to your cards.

There is one possible drawback to the game. The rules are simple enough for teens but some of the cards may not be appropriate for all families. The evil elves especially seem to be composed mainly of strippers in g-strings with whips and the evil elf cards have titles like "Whip the Prisoners" or "Bathe in Blood." It's all quite lurid and pulp-y but if you don't have a tolerance for that sort of thing this game is going to prove pretty offensive.

The box set of Warhammer Invasion has enough cards to start playing the major factions. It's a good place to start and you could have a lot of fun without buying any expansions. Of course I ran out and got several expansion packs of cards and each one has been fun to sort through and add to the game. Warhammer Invasion has been a good success and as long as lurid artwork isn't an issue in your household I'd recommend it as a great two player card game.

The Army Painter Project

This May is the yearly Huzzah! game convention. I've enjoyed this convention immensely in the past. The games are typically well designed and beautifully presented and the players are generally friendly a fun. I think it's overall the best gaming convention of the Northeast.

This year I thought it would be fun to run a scenario from Commands and Colors Napoleonics for the event. I enjoy the C&C game system and it's really a miniatures game at heart so adding figures sounded like fun. The game involves unit of soldiers moving on a hexagon map and there's no official figure scale. Now ever since I was introduced to Warmaster I've had a soft spot in my heart for 10mm miniatures so this year's project became building two 10mm armies for use with C&C:N's.

I chose to run a part of the Battle of Salamanca. I decided that each unit of troops would be composed of two stands of figures each with a width of 40mm. This would create some nice sizable masses of troops standing in two rows. It was only later that I started to do the math. There are eight unit of French infantry, each with two stands. Each stand has twenty soldiers. Therefore, solely for the French line infantry, I'd be painting three hundred and twenty figures. The armies also include skirmishers and cavalry and they're comparable sizes so the total figure count comes in at more than seven hundred miniatures. Huzzah! indeed.

At this point I decided to try the Army Painter line of products. This included a set of spray paint primers and a "dip" which brings out detail in figures. I realized that there were still going to be a lot cuffs to paint but maybe the Army Painter gear would prove as good as it claimed to be.

The Game of Thrones, The Boardgame

Some time ago I discovered George r.r. Martin in connection with his novel The Armageddon Rag. The book was considered an out-of-print secret gem and sounded exotic and mysterious. I eventually tracked the book down and over time read most of Martin's work. He's been a prolific writer with a lot of talent but little visibility until quite recently. Now, of course, his Game of Thrones series has received lots of exposure through its presence on HBO and the franchise has generated a number of games.

Which is to say what a fiction-forward person I am, Heh.

I actually find the Game of Thrones series to be self indulgently lengthy and the body count amongst the main characters eventually makes you distance yourself from any emotional investment in the story. Further, it seems like each critical event in the book is accompanied by one or more characters displaying jarring intervals of carelessness or stupidity which allow hugely telegraphed traps and treacheries to take away yet another likable character.

Back to the games. I got a chance to play the Game of Thrones boardgame several times recently and it's a lot of fun, perhaps even more fun for someone who dislikes the books. In the game you take the roles of one of the warring factions in the game world. Your job is to conquer a good portion of the island of Westeros and prevent your opponents from doing the same. Much of the game mechanic is similar to Risk- you move tokens representing armies around the board and, generally speaking, larger armies defeat smaller ones and take territory. Like Risk, the GoT boardgame features some diplomacy as you try and convince your neighbor to leave you alone or expand in some other direction and eventually some backs are going to get stabbed when these little deals go awry.

The GoT boardgame expands on Risk in a few ways. Players have combat cards that add to their fighting strength. Some cards are better than others but you need to use them all before using any given card again. Thus, you have to decide whether to use a great card or wait for a more important battle later, and your opponent is doing the same. Further, there are several decks of event cards that impose random restrictions or cause game events to take place. The cards don't unbalance the game once you know what they can do- you simply accept a bit of chaos into your plans and sometimes even hope for it.

I enjoyed the GoT boardgame immensely. The combination of diplomacy, strategy, and luck is well balanced. Each faction has some strengths and interesting playing qualities. If you like the books then it's exciting to pretend to be one of the Starks or Lannisters. If you dislike the books it's equally fun, I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's fun to poke at such a serious and humorless series.

The only possible drawback to the game is that once you start falling behind I don't think there's much of a chance to catch up or have a huge effect on the game. The players may pile on the leader and a new leader will emerge but it's unlikely to be a player who's lost a lot to start with. If you're going to play GoT then you have to be OK with the possibility that you'll spend an hour or two losing, or at least definitely not winning. For some people that can be demoralizing, myself for example.

I think the Game of Thrones boardgame is a great choice for people looking for a longer game with lots of players that combines military strategy and diplomacy. Basically, if you want to move on from Risk this is a great choice.

Star Trek Deck Building Game- not a big hit

In the years following the release of Dominion I've been on the lookout for a deck building game that was a well crafted and also carried more of a compelling theme. Up to now I've been pretty unimpressed by what's on the market. When the Star Trek Deckbuilding game was released I thought this could be the game to purchase. I got a chance to play it recently and I walked away happy to not own it.

In the Star Trek Deckbuilding Game you start the game with a small starship and a few crew members. Over time you can add functions to your ship, add crew, and eventually replace your ship with a more powerful model. The game has several scenarios- we played a cooperative one in which we had to defeat the Borg. Most of the game mechanics were familiar enough and we started play quickly. I'm going to skip the mechanical details and just move to my impressions.

My chief concern with the game is that I never felt like I was able to steer how my deck was developing. Players have a good assortment of cards to choose from but the abilities of the cards are often so specific as to make them of limited use when they crop up again in the game. Further, the game "currency" ran out midway through our game and on about one third of our turns we found we couldn't buy any cards even if we wanted to. That felt very odd.

The designers certainly tried to add theme to the game. Players can "explore," they can upgrade their ship's crew or engage in space battles. Sadly, little of this is easily directed so it all feels a bit random. I never felt like I was choosing whether to have an "exploring" deck or a "combat" deck. Each turn just seemed to be "well, what can I afford?"

The entire experience reminded me of Ascension. Both games feature "factions" and in both cases cards within a faction will help other cards of the same faction. And in both games I rarely was able to string together useful combinations of cards or use faction abilities in synchronicity.

I was pretty disappointed with the Star Trek Deckbuilding game. I had hoped for a good combination of theme and gameplay and this game does not deliver. Unlike Fleet Captains I can't even imagine Trek fans enjoying this game simply for it's Trekishness. I suppose the one perk to this game is that it makes me want to try Fleet Captains again.

Twilight Imperium- At Last!

No matter what sort of store you like to shop in there are basically cheap items, typical items, and then a few over-the-top and absurdly expensive items. You may buy a six pack of Sam Adams every week and always glance musingly at the $100 bottle of champagne, for example. I've been shopping at gaming store now for thirty years or so and there have always been certain games that fall into the same category. Games so large and expensive that they are only purchased by the elite gamer, the ultra hard core gamer. For me the epitome of that sort of game has been Twilight Imperium. The cover art is superb. The box is gigantic, it seems to weigh fifty pounds. I never met a person who had purchased it or played it or even looked in the box. At the same time it's in its third edition, so Someone must be playing it. Well this weekend that someone was me.

Joking aside, Twilight Imperium (TI) is a game well known for its complexity, number of components and playing time. I got a chance to play it at Vermont's Carnage gaming convention. Suffice it to say that TI actually surpasses its hype. It's a terrific monster of a game. I don't think I could easily describe the game mechanic in any detail. In brief, players manage an alien civilization that is part of a huge galactic organization. They take turns making decisions regarding their race and accumulating victory points for various achievements. The player with the most points wins the game.

The beauty of TI is that there are dozens of ways to rack up victory points, including exploring space, fighting and conquering, trade, technological development, and politics. This game is about as open ended as any boardgame I have ever played. It's a trade boardgame, it's a miniatures space battle game, it's an exploring game and a civilization development game. Each player can direct their race in the way they see fit and play by the style that suits them best. I don't think I can imagine another boardgame with that degree of flexibility- ironically Race for the Galaxy comes close.

That being said, one could imagine that the price you pay for that design is insane complexity but the rules for TI are, well, not insanely complex at least. It's not well suited for rank beginners but people comfortable with boardgames can be playing comfortably fairly quickly. At our recent game I started play sleep deprived and sick and still picked up on play within about a turn.

Finally, everything about this game screams quality of design. The art is fantastic. The alien races are well conceived. The rules and "color" writing is top notch. After three editions the publishers have ironed out this game and produced a fabulous product well worth the price.

The only caveat to TI is really the playing time required. I suspect a full game is a ten hour affair. Certainly not a dull ten hours but ten hours nonetheless. This is not going to be played every month unless you have a certain lifestyle not featuring, say, work and children.

I would whole heartedly recommend Twilight Imperium for gamers who enjoy science fiction and have some time to play. The rules could be managed by interested teens and the victory options allow all sorts of playing styles to lead to success. Truly an epic and amazing game!

Star Trek Fleet Captains- Pricey Nostalgia

I was a Star Trek fan growing up and suffered at the time from feeling like only myself and twenty other people knew how great Trek was. I would search through issues of The Monster Times or Creepy magazine for any mention of the show and once made it in to the Federation Trading Post in Manhattan- the first store dedicated to Trek and one that would fit into my living room today. So let me tell you- Kids These Days just don't know how good they have it. You can barely throw a stone in a game store now and not hit a Trek related product. But how many of these products are worth a look?

Star Trek Fleet Captains (FC) is a new game from Wizkids. I got a chance to give it a go a week ago. In the game the players control Klingon or Federation ships and cruise the galaxy having Trek-esque adventures. For example, you might have to prevent a civil war, add a new race to your stellar empire, or test a new warp drive. Success gets you victory points. You will also have a set of ongoing missions which can be finished at any time during the game for extra victory points. Some missions are combat oriented while others involve exploring a certain number of areas or some other peaceful task. Players can attack other player's ships and that may fulfill a victory condition or simply prevent your opponent from completing one of theirs. The winner player or team is the first to accumulate a set number of victory points.

On the positive side the game manages to include missions and characters from all the Trek series' very well. It's almost like you're playing out lost episodes that were never broadcast but could have been. I think the writers really grasped what makes a Trek adventure and that comes through beautifully in the game.

On the negative side I found the degree of luck in the game to be a bit much. Unless you spend valuable time "scanning" before moving you stand some risk of driving into a black hole while adventuring and losing a ship. Many of the encounters are also so difficult as to be close to impossible and may result in the loss or crippling of one of your ships. Finally, players may have special cards in their hand which can drastically alter an encounter which you may have spent some time in setting up.

This last issues touches on the heart of the problem with FC. The game has miniature spaceships and there are space battles but it's really not a miniatures game. I wouldn't tolerate a minis game with the amount of randomness that FC has. On the other hand, boardgames like Talisman and even Race for the Galaxy have a good amount of chance and are still lots of fun. One approach to FC is to keep on repeating "Not a minis game" to yourself as you play and instead see it as Talisman version of Star Trek.

That being said, the game is quite expensive because it does include lots of plastic miniatures and a modular space playing board. You end up spending a good amount on minis for this non-minis game. And, as with Talisman, you have to decide if you can tolerate lots of chance in a game. The rules could be a bit less ambiguous as well and players may have to make some on the spot decisions regarding gameplay.

Star Trek Fleet Captains has some good things going for it. It's terrific fun as a Trek simulation and fans will recognize the affection and care that went into it's design. The rules are simple and the game is playable by new gamers and teens alike. At the same time it's expensive and minis gamers may want to consider one of the many alternate Trek miniatures games available. I think a player who doesn't love the show will find it a pleasant diversion but this game is clearly aimed towards the fan.