Module-The Assassin’s Primer

 

Game System-Shadowrun

 

Producer-Catalyst Game Labs

 

Cost-~$5

 

Page Count-17

 

TL;DR- Good story with a few rules.  A little pricey for the page count. 87%

 

Basics-The first player centered addition to the Shadowrun 5e RPG.  This focuses on a webpost by an assassin who is about to die.  He wants to help future assassins and give tips and tricks through this post.  Along the way, various other Shadowrun characters pop in to give their two nuyen.  At the end of the story, the book also gives stats for a new gun as well as few new qualities for your character.

 

Art– The book does have some art, but don’t expect much.  There are a few black and white pictures as well as a picture of the new gun with its stats and background story.  It’s all ok, but this is not an art heavy book.  I liked what I saw, but there isn’t much. 3/5

Story or “Fluff”– This is really a well done story.  The whole story and they way you read it really put you in the world.  I loved every minute of it.  I felt like I was sitting drinking a soyacaff in a crappy rundown house reading this in AR. 2.5/2.5

 

Mechanics or “Crunch”– Don’t go into this looking for crunch.  The book does have some mechanics, but if you are a living game person like me, most of the new qualities are parts of codes of honor which you can’t have in the living game. So, that is kind of a bummer.  The story does give some good hints on how to play an assassin.  All and all, it’s an ok book for crunch, but I wanted more. 1.5/2.5

 

Execution– The way this ways laid out initially left me a little put off, but once I got into it I liked it.  It’s worth a read, as it does get you into the head space of Shadowrun and some of the major players in the universe.  The rules part at the end was a bit short, but well executed.  However, I was a little disappointed with the price.  For a PDF that is mostly story, I felt the $5 price was a bit much as its pretty short and rules light.  I would have liked this a bit more at the $3 price point.  I’m quibbling over dollars, but this is Shadowrun!  What good would a run be if we didn’t negotiate the price? 4/5

 
Final Thoughts– All said and done, I’m pretty happy with this book.  It’s not up to the quality of the core book, but I’m glad I read this small part of the Shadowrun lore.  I really enjoyed what I read.  And think that for anyone out there who likes the Shadowrun world, it’s worth it.  Don’t go into this thinking it’s going to give you the metagame advantage you were hoping for as there are only two pages of real rules though! 87%

Game– The Manhattan Project

 

Publisher-Minion Games

 

Price-~$50

 

Set-up/play/clean-up– 2 hours

 

Basics-It’s time to build bombs!  Each player takes the role of a different nation building nuclear weapons.  On your turn you do one of two things: place workers on the main board and your board or recall your workers.  Yes, this is a worker placement game, but the main twist is your building and how you use them.  On the main board, players can buy buildings, repair, declare war, get money, get yellow cake, get bomb designs, get more workers, get more planes to attack, steal other player’s spaces, or refine your yellow cake to plutonium or uranium.  You also get buildings that do much of the same but these are on your board.  When you place workers, you get to place only ONE worker to the main board, but you can place as many workers as you want on your board.  This leads the start of the game to go slow as everyone builds their home boards or only place on worker on a turn, but later in the game, you will see people place well over 10 workers to several different places.  So, like some other euro style games, this is an engine building game.  The way you win is building different bombs.  Each bomb functions like a single use building that requires different types of workers to use as well as an amount of plutonium or uranium.  When you build a bomb, you score its points.  You can also load a bomb for five more points.  With plutonium bombs, you can actually test fire a bomb.  When you do this, you lose all that bombs points, BUT plutonium bombs are not worth that much more.

 

Theme-You play a nation trying to build bombs, and it’s fantastic.  The different worker types make the game fun and make you really think you are sending your scientists to develop better reactors while engineers are building buildings and the base workers are out there in the mines.  Espionage as an action is amazing.  It really does feel like the cold war where your agents are out there sneaking into different facilities and stealing for your country.  The fact you can declare war and attack really adds the feel of warring nations, and it’s a welcome addition to the euro game genre.  Honestly, I played this game at Gencon, and bought this the next day. 5/5

 

Mechanics– Again, this is a great game through and through.  It’s a euro, worker placement game; that’s a pretty crowded genre, but this game’s different spin on that really make the game.  The different actions and workers really enhance the theme.  And, the different actions complement one another.  As an example, when you take some actions, money goes to a bribe pile.  When you buy the cheapest building, you get the bribe pile.  This means that you don’t have building build-up that you see in other games where no one wants to take a specific group of locations.  This game might not be for everyone as there is direct player vs. player combat, but it was definitely for me!  My only real complaint was the location deck.  The game starts with a standard set of buildings, but after that, anything thing goes.  So the next five buildings could be the most powerful combination in the game.  The randomness in the building pile could hurt the game play and does take a bit from the game play.  Check below for my suggestion on how to fix that.  4.5/5

 

Art/Construction– The art of this game is great.  It’s got a retro, 50’s fib to it, so the art really enhances the theme.  The board looks like pieces from a 1950’s office hammering home the feel of the cold war.  The pieces are thick cardboard.  Since I’m crazy, I would have liked different colored meeples for the workers, but the cardboard works.  The boards use iconography instead of words, and that works well.  All and all, a well put together game. The tracks for fighters/bombers could use a bit of work, but I’m happy. 4.5/5

 

Instructions– The instructions are online at http://www.boardgamegeek.com.  They are written in well-written, readable English with different translations available.  It’s a beefy book (10+ pages), but it does explain how to play quite well.  5/5

 

Final Thoughts– I love this game.  I love the combat, the engine building, the theme, the mechanics, and almost every aspect of this game.  It’s one of my favorites.  I bring this game with me to every game day I go to.  If you want a great game, the easy to play, but has levels and levels, this is the game for you. 95%

 

Quick Fixes– The main problem at hand is too much randomness in the building deck.  To fix it, I look to Suburbia.  In that game, when the players set-up the game, they make three piles of tiles to play based on the tile backs.  These tiles are marked with an A, a B, or a C, and they tiles get more powerful as the letters go up.  If Minion games released a revamped set of building cards where the buildings were marked A, B, C so I could shuffle them appropriately, I would buy it in a heartbeat.  Heck, maybe this week, I’ll sit down and make a list of cards for each group!

Book– Pathfinder Player Companion: Demon Hunter’s Handbook

Publisher-Paizo

Price – ~$13

TL;DR– A must have if you fight demons 90%

Basics-The title says it all.  If you’re going to focus on hunting demons, this is the book for you.  This book focuses on the different aspects of hunting demons.  Special attention and class features are given to barbarians, inquisitors, paladins, rangers, and wizards, but every class gets something a little something out this book.  Besides the crunch in the book, the book has a lot of roleplaying/fluff to it focusing extensively on who you might meet when fighting demons and how to deal with demons and demon worshipers.  Last part of the book focuses on the new adevneture path Wrath of the Righteous and focuses on some of the major places you will visit while in that path.

Art– This is the standard Pathfinder style, but be warned!  Demons tend to be the crazier of the evil thing out there and they tend to push some peoples buttons on what passes for ok.  Some of the art might not make everybody comfortable.  It’s a thing that you have to get used to or don play with demons.  I didn’t find anything offensive, but this might not be for everybody. 5/5

Mechanics or “Crunch”– I wasn’t as impressed with some of the character options as I’ve been with other books.  The barbarian gets called out as a focus of the book, but only really gets two class features that focus on critical hits.  The ranger gets three and they are only traps.  If you don’t use traps or focus on critical hits, then the options are kind of useless. Also some of the other character options tend to be high level stuff.  The spells shine as they are a good mix of levels and casting classes.  I didn’t hate what I saw, but I was left wanting more.  1.5/2.5

Story or “Fluff”-Here is where the book really shines.  The fluff in this book is top notch.  Lots of focus on the different types of demons and how to fight them.  Sidebars to expand what you should know when fighting demons and how to fight them.  Heck as a DM, I learned a few things to use in my next demon encounter.  Only sad thing is the focus on the Wrath of the Righteous tends to lead to Pathfinder specific focus and less general demon focus.  But since this is a Pathfinder book, I expect that going in.  Again, this book is focused on the crazies of the Pathfinder world so keep that in mind when you read this. 2.5/2.5

Execution– I liked the set up and layout of this book, but a few things really set me off.  The book references lots of other books, and as a Pathfinder fan boy I have them all.  BUT, the book does not have page number for all of them.  WHY?  Why are some there and not others?  Please put this in.  It makes my life as a player and DM that much easier!  Also, I’m not sure I like everything about the roles.  I would like a few things in the future.  1) Give me levels for each feat they have.  It helps me as a DM make characters on the fly.  If you list feats with a number ahead of them, that’s all I need  2)  Give me some base, not racially modified, stats.  Again, nothing to fancy, but just base stats I can bolt on some race stuff to.  Heck, extra points if you give me a quick level guide for stats.  These things would really make these that much better. 4/5

Book Quality– This is a standard, well done Pathfinder player companion book.  I love this style as the ink doesn’t smear and the pages don’t tare easily.  Good print quality does count!  5/5

Final Thoughts– I liked this book.  The crunch might not be where I want it to be, but the rest was spot on.  A few tweaks in the execution will really make this thing shine and going forward will really help pull it all together.  If you’re going to fight lots of demons, then you should buy this book.  If your game doesn’t have any demons at all, then this book maybe not useful to your table.  90%