Product-The Agents

Producer: Saar Shai via Kickstarter

Set-up/Play/Clean-up-45 minutes

Price: ~$30 or free via print-n-play

TL;DR– Not perfect, but an awesome, smart card game 85%

 

Basics: Time to cross and double cross your friends in The Agents.  The Agents is a quick card game focusing on making hard choices.  Each turn you must take two actions: buy more cards to play, play agents, or activate agent abilities.  When you buy cards, you purchase either more agents to play or missions by spending victory points.  Missions are cards played at the end of your turn that stay in play and give you points each turn when the requirements are met.  Agents have colored arrows or points and abilities.  When you play an agent, you either pay it to your right or your left between you and another player.  Here is where the hard choices come into play.  When you play an agent, if the points or arrow face you, you will get points, BUT your opponent gets to use the agent’s ability.  However, the exact reverse is true.  Points and powers occur instantly, while arrows must be part of completed arrows for you to get points at the end of your turn.  Therefore, the game becomes a balancing act of abilities vs. payoff.  Your final action is to use a power on a card facing you.  The powers on cards may move agents, kill agents, flip agents, or other crazy events.  At the end of your turn, you may play missions on your agent groups to get point then score completed arrows that face you.  Game play continues until someone gets 40 points, then all other players get one more round.  Person with the most points wins.

 

Mechanics:  This game is MUCH harder than it looks!  Any action you take to help you will almost always help you opponents.  You WILL agonize over small choices because they might help you pull off amazing combos, but give your enemies a leg up in the process and cost you the game.  The game is simple, but the strategy is amazingly complex, so for a $20 kickstarter game, this is worth it!  5/5

 

Theme:  Since the game has the double edged sword card mechanics, I did feel like I was in a game a spies.  It might not have been perfect since you don’t get to recruit specific agents, but have a random draw.  Also fun, the game has lots of stretch goals that added specific spies from popular media.  I’m not sure how these guys didn’t get sued into oblivion, since they have Austin Powers and other named characters. 4/5

 

Instructions:  Here the game suffers.  The rules are short, but they don’t explain enough.  I hate when I have to run to Board Game Geek to understand a major rule even before I play my first card.  The games “playable” out of the box, but I promise you will be combing the BBG forums before your first game is out.  3.5/5

 

Art/Execution:  This game uses a strange plastic for its cards.  Its not bad, and they cards are pretty hardy compared to standard playing cards.  They feel strange, but that’s not bad.  I kind of wish more people used this stuff.  The art is similar to old Hellboy comics.  I like the Hellboy art style, so I liked what I saw.  It does make it hard to figure out who is a man or a woman for some card effects though. 4.5/5

 

Summary:  This is a fun game.  It will burn your brain in a short amount of time though, in a good way.  And for $20 bucks or FREE (with a printer), the game is well worth it.  These guys need to get some more print runs going as I can’t find this game anywhere right now.  85%

Like always, life gets in the way of the Board Gaming/RPG habits!  So to atone, here are two reviews of products I’ve recently read through.

 

Product-Pathfinder Player Companion-Pathfinder Society Primer

System: Pathfinder

Producer: Paizo Publishing

Price: ~$12

TL;DR– If you play PFS, then you already know you need this. 100%

 

Basics: This book delves deeper into the Pathfinder Society continuing the background knowledge that was presented in Pathfinder Society Field Guide.  The book starts with a general explanation of the Pathfinder Society leading to a section on how to build a well rounded pathfinder for a game.  From there, the book runs through joining the society and the three main subgroups while giving different feats, spells, abilities, and traits for each.  After the main groups, the book presents a prestige class called the Pathfinder Field Agent who is a bit of a mixed bag. The main way to identify a pathfinder is his/her wayfinder, and this book give new versions of the wayfinder as well as ioun stones that can be socketed into the wayfinder with new powers for both and magic items that any pathfinder would need on their adventures.  Near the end of the book, Pathfinder Chronicles are discussed giving new, non-magical ways to boost skills after pathfinders read these books for one hour.  The book closes with Pathfinder Society vanities, ways to spend prestige points gained in the pathfinder society, and a short section on Pathfinder Society Organized Play.

 

Mechanics: This book has a lot going on for the player only interested in mechanics.  From new spells, feats, traits, and abilities, this book is real chock full.  However, this book doesn’t have many class specific options, but does have many general options.  This is really expressed well with the Pathfinder Field Agent; this prestige class gets most other class abilities, but doesn’t really get anything that makes him/her awesome at one thing.  The wayfinders, ioun stones, and other items are all good too.  Until now I hadn’t had a real good use for the prestige points, but his book gives even me a few good ideas. 5/5

 

Theme: I like PFS, but I have to say I don’t know as much as I should, especially about the inner working of the society.  This book gave me a good summary while giving me some mechanics.  I liked what at I saw in terms of story of PFS.   It’s worth a read for that. 5/5

 

Execution: I liked this one.  It flows well, even better then the previous PFS book.  No page is a well of text while the previous PFS book had that problem a few times.  The art is nice and consistent.  The layout helps the reader read the text.  All and all, I liked this book. 5/5

 

Summary:  If you play PFS, you need this.  If you really want to get deep into the Society, then get this book.  If you don’t care about the Pathfinders or PFS at all, then this book isn’t for you. 100%

 

and now the second Review-

 

Product: Pathfinder Society Adventure #5-11: Library of the Lion

System: Pathfinder

Publisher: Paizo Publishing

Price: ~$4

TL;DR– A thinking, (general) non-combat PFS adventure 93%

 

Basics: The Pathfinder Society has been invited to a prominent Taldan College by a high ranking member of the nobility to help them sneak into a secret library.  The Pathfinders have less than two hours to explore the library, find what the noble wants, not be noticed, and get out all while constantly listening to the Mission: Impossible music performed by the GM.

 

Story: This module isn’t very story heavy, but it does bring something new to the party.  The story quickly brings the society into the heart of Taldor, and lets some of the more over shown PCs shine.  PCs have to find information in a low combat module by exploring the library and looking for clues.  I wouldn’t call this a story for the ages, but it does give the players something new at the table that they may have not had a chance to do before. 4.5/5

 

Mechanics:  This module continues the current PFS year 5 scenario strategy of random events during the scenario.  It works to great effect during this adventure as the players and the GM both get to find random books in each room that might help the players.  Also, this one is really set up for the skill monkeys out there.  Most of the puzzles require thought and lots of skill ranks.  I don’t see that often, and that makes this module stand out.  The final puzzle requires the players to have solved every room to find what they need.  That’s not bad, but it might not be great for all groups.  Also, as a GM, if the group you are running doesn’t have the proper skills, you may have to loosen up the skills that can be used in the adventure.  Also, for as much of an exploration adventure this one is, it’s also a nice social adventure too.  It’s pretty well rounded for the non-combat characters.  None of that is bad, but just keep that as a heads up for when you play. 4.5/5

 

Execution:  This adventure is well laid out and comes with some assembly required.  As the players can randomly find books in the rooms, the GM gets to cut out the different books and give these out as hand outs.  Anytime you can physically hand the players something, it makes the game that much more awesome.  The art is nice also.  All told, I’m really happy with this. 5/5

 

Summary:  I liked this one.  It’s not perfect, but this one is an awesome adventure to play with a bunch of character types that might not get as much play as other ones.  If you are a kill-them-all barbarian with only one skill point you put in jump so you can jump charge, you will be bored to tears.  If you have a group of five people who want to explore and deceive their way through a secret library, this is the game for you. 93%

Product- Mage Wars

Producer- Arcane Wonders

Price- $60

Set-up/Play/Clean-up- 30 minutes

tl;dr-  This is my competitive card game! 100%

 

Basics-Enter the arena!  Mage Wars is a hybrid of a collectible card game and a miniatures skirmish game.  Players choose a mage and build a spell book using a point buy system based on the type of wizard chosen.  Each wizard has different costs associated with different spells.  Spells range from quick spells that do damage/move things/heal, summoning creatures, summoning walls, and enchantments that are reveled off turn to surprise your enemy.  Players take turns activating creatures on the battle field or casting spells.  Last man/women standing is the winner!

Mechanics- The mechanics of Mages Wars is as complicated as they need to be without being over complicated.  Each turn you gain mana to cast spells, deal with attachments (good or bad), draw spells, and then take turns playing your spells and declaring your other actions.  Actions range from moving, casting spells, or attacking.  Play moves fast and is really fun.  What really drew me to this game is the concept of a spell book.  Instead of drawing random cards like Magic: the Gathering, players build a character specific spell book.  As long as all players have the same number of points worth of spells, a character is legal for a tournament making spell book/deck building pretty easy.  The spell book mechanic is really revolutionary, and it really makes this game stand out.  The combination of the card game, the skirmish game, and the deck building CCG really make this fun and novel. 5/5

 

Theme-  You’re a mage.  You could be a cleric, wizards, beast master, or a demon summoner with the base set.  This really isn’t “new,” as magic the gathering had similar themes.  And others have had this theme before that.  However, the mechanics of the game really reinforce this theme of being a wizard.  You build the spells book full of spells you will walk into the arena with.  That right there wouldn’t be new except you get to choose rather than just draw.  Spending that minute before your turn agonizing over which spell to prepare that turn really makes the game that much more tense!  Also, this game launched with a “living game” like prize support and storyline.  Like any other well thought out game, Mage Wars has store support, but this one also has a story.  And depending on what Mages do WHAT and to WHO, the story will change.  Since the back story of Mage Wars is mages fighting in an arena instead of fighting in battles, the story/store support really bring the story back to the game.  It “almost” feels like an RPG.  And that makes me feel like a wizard with something on the line! 5/5

Art/Execution-  Art-beautiful so full points there.  Execution of the game is well done also.  You get LOTS of components in the box and lots of tokens to help you play the game.  Also you get two spell books so one box will cover two players.  And that right there is amazing!  I’ve bought other games that were meant for more than one player and I needed two intro sets.  The way this is set up lets me know that the makers of this game lover their players. 5/5

 

Instruction- Unlike an RPG where things can have a lot of leeway, Mage Wars has step by step instructions on how to perform every action.  Since this game is direct player vs. player combat, the well explained rules really help keep fights to a minimum.  The rules help move this game at a decent pace.  There are a lot of rules, but if you want a quick game there are rules to help you teach/learn the game as a lower powered wizard with basic intro spell lists for your first game.  From there the rules give you the advanced stuff and tell you how to make a good starting mage spell book.  That’s good dedication to making sure your players get off on the right foot. 5/5

 

Summary-  I don’t play Magic, I have house payments.  At this point in my life, I like living card games (collectible card games that do not have random makeups of cards, you buy a set you get all the cards for the set).  If I want to play a game with someone, it’s going to be the Lord of the Rings card game.  If I want some direct competition, it’s Mage Wars.  Tight rules, good cards and art, lots of options, a fairly cheap skirmish/CCG game, and a continuing story all draw me to this game.  I tried it at GenCon and Origins and now I’ve bought all the expansions.  I may not be good, but I always have fun.  If you’re in Jackson and you want to battle hit me up on twitter! 100%