Product– Albion’s Legacy

Producer-Lynnvander

Price– At your local con.  Gaming Stores can’t get this one yet!

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 120 minutes (2-4 players, expansion to 6)

Type-American

Depth-Heavy!

TL; DR– Arthurian Arkham Horror 93%

Basics- The kingdom is threatened and Arthur must ride out to face the threat!  In Albion’s Legacy players take the rolls of various heroes (and in the expansion villains) of Avalon who must stop different threats to the kingdom.  There is a lot to this game, but it’s also surprisingly simple to play.

Players start by selecting a hero.  Each hero has a power and a personal quest.  The power is a constant power they have through the game, and the personal quest is a character specific goal that will grant the character their awesome ability or item that will make them that much more powerful.  Each hero also gets a starter weapon and armor.  These don’t do much besides block hits, so better items are a must.  Players also get destiny points that are used in challenges (more on that later).

Players then select a quest to go on.  The quest is the way the players will win.  Each quest outlines specific places the player must go, enemy’s to kill, and with the expansions adds extra enemies and locations for the players to visit.  These describe how set up is modified as well.  Players also select a start player who starts with a key token.  This key token is used to keep track of the number of rounds the players have played as well as determining when the game itself take a turn to move all the enemies and effect the players as needed.

After setup, players all start in the round table room of the Camelot board.  Camelot has several different locations for the players to go, with all the different locations revealed.  Starting with a key players, each player gets to move their characters around the board.  The characters all start with a move of four spaces, but they don’t have to go all four spaces.  For the most part, a character is free to move as many or as few spaces as they want.  Characters only cause events to happen when they enter a space that has an encounter marker on it or moves onto an enemy’s space.  Encounter spaces cause the player to draw an encounter card, and any time a character and a monster share a space, all other play stops and the character must fight the monster!  I’ll discuss combat and monsters in a bit.  Character can keep moving until they use up their movement either moving on known tiles, or revealing tiles for them to move on.  The player’s turn ends when they stop moving and they can elect to use the location ability of their space.  These space abilities range from healing the character, repairing armor/weapons, getting new items, or other good effects.

Combat is quick in this game.  Each character has several knightly attributes ranging from courage, prowess, altruism, and so on.  Every monster or challenge has different attributes that must be select for a combat along with a number of successes that must be obtained.  After the player has selected their attribute, the player rolls the number of dice their character has for that attribute.  These dice are six sided dice with five of the sides being the different attributes and the sixth being a mana burst which is worth two successes.  A player rolls these dice and counts the successes.  If the player succeeds, the monster is beaten or the challenge won.  If not, the player now must make a few choices.  The player can take a wound and continue the challenge, break (flip the card over) an armor or weapon and continue the challenge, discard a armor or weapon to flee combat, or spend destiny points to reroll dice.  The destiny points allow a player to select a second symbol on the die, reroll one die, and see how the combat progresses with the player winning, spending armor/weapons, or taking damage.   It’s quick, simple, and VERY deadly as most characters only have one damage!  Take your second damage, and your player retires out of the game and you have to take a second (or third or more!) character.

After all players take their turns, the key player gets  a second turn.  When they finish their second turn, the monsters all have their turns.  Most monsters move, a brazier is extinguished, some events trigger, and the key marker moves to the next player.  Then play continues as above.  When the players finish their original quest, they win the game!  If they last virtue plaque is removed or last brazier extinguished, they Kingdome descends into darkness, and the players have lost!

Mechanics– I’ll compared this game to Arkham Horror.  The base mechanic is choose one of your six attributes, roll the number of dice you have in that attribute, and hope for that symbol or wilds to appear.  This is basically the same as the d6 with fives and sixes being successes of Arkham Horror.  Aside from that, the base mechanics of tiles revealing monsters and the basic ideas of the quest you’re on are the major story-based mechanics of the game.  All together, everything is easy enough to run, but hard enough to succeed at to keep players playing again and again.  My major problem is the game does not scale well for less than four players.  If you play one player, then you run all four characters.  If you play two players, then each player runs two characters.  If you’re playing three players then one person runs two characters.  I’d just rather see more scaling stories.  Instead of having to go to eight difference places to get fragments in one mission, why not make it two places per character?  Maybe fewer monsters on each threat card for fewer players?  The quest coins scale, but the rest of the game doesn’t.  That isn’t game ending by any means, but it a slight annoyance.  Otherwise, the game runs quickly and is quite fun. 4.5/5

 

Theme– Homerun.  This feels like a hard, but beatable, co-op game of Arkham Horror set in the world of King Arthur.  All the threats feel like Arthurian legends.  The monsters feel monastery enough, but also the variety of things needed to beat the monsters and threats is interesting.  Sure, the mechanics are basically choose a number besides 6 to roll, but the fact that the numbers of the six-sided die have different names makes this feel more like an RPG and a quest.  While I won’t quit Arkham Horror over this one as I still need my Cthulhu fix, Albion’s Legacy has found a spot in the co-op rotation of games that my wife and I will play when we want to go on a quest together and save the world.  5/5

Instructions– This game is an example of a game that has everything you need to play written out decently, but not laid out in a way that is as helpful as you might need.  Overall the rules have exactly what you need to play.   But, it will take you a few read-throughs to get all those pieces together.  The rulebook has pictures to really help guide you in, but there are a few blocks of text that could use a break up to make things smother.  But, if you need it, I promise it’s there.  Here is my example.  I was confused over the virtue plaques.  These are plaques that give your character a bonus, but if the players have used them all up, you all instantly lose.  My wife and I couldn’t for the life of us figure out how to use them.  But, after rereading the rules, they function exactly like any other space and resources on the board- go to a location, take your turn ending action to use the space, and get a plaque.  Its written right there in red and white, but something you, like me, might miss on your read through of the rules.  It’s not poorly done by any means.  Maybe I’m just used to having similar things spelled out repeatedly to me in different rule books.  It does read quickly, but you have to be extremely careful that you might miss an important rule that could drastically change your play experience!  4.25/5

Execution– Overall, I really like what’s here.  I even did an unboxing video of this game: http://youtu.be/KG6ZPLTsync   There are a ton of parts to this game!  The box is large enough to hold them all, but you’re going to need to provide your own organization!  While I love the game, I’d like some Ziploc bags to come with it.  It’s a minor complaint, but it’s an important one.  Games like this (Arkham Horror, World of Warcraft board game, Caverna et al) are full of awesome components, but if you don’t keep this monster organized, you will spend more time setting than you ever could playing!  But that aside, the art is great, the characters look good, and the cards read well.  I’d like a few more of the attribute cards to help you determine what the spaces mean or how to fight each type of monster, but again, that’s nitpicking.  Overall, that game is well put together, but a few more additions would help put this over the top.  4.75/5

Summary– Cards on the table, I’ve never heard of Lynnvander before.  I think they are a newer gaming company, so I’m honestly surprised by the quality and quantity of this game.  Albion’s Legacy is an ambition game for any company to put out.  Some multimillion dollar gaming companies completely blow the launches of games like this.  It’s FULL of parts, has a ton of options, and is simple to run.  And all that for the basic intro price of $45.  That’s not bad!  I went with the deluxe of $60, and I got extra characters, quests, and tiles.  That’s well worth the price of admission.  It’s got a few issues-the rules could use another pass/edit, the mechanics don’t scale exactly well with the player count, and I’d like some Ziploc bags for my parts.  But, what is in this box is amazing.  If you want a co-op game that works like a dungeon crawl version of Arkham Horror in Avalon, then it is well worth your time to check this game out. 93%

Product– Eminent Domain: Microcosm

Producer-Tasty Minstrel Games

Price– $7 here http://www.miniaturemarket.com/ttt3003.html/?utm_source=boardgamegeek.com&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=BGG_Text_Ongoing&utm_content=Text_SKU-TTT3003_Ttl-4_Dsc-2_MMUrl-Yes

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 5 minutes (2 players)

Type-Euro

Depth-Light

TL; DR– Bad rules hurt a great game. 83%

Basics-Vie for galactic dominance!  Eminent Domain: Microcosm is the two player microgame version of the popular Eminent Domain game.  The game is set up by separating the types of planet cards based on how many colonize/warfare it will take to get that planet.  These cards are placed face down.  Then, the main deck of action cards is shuffled and three are placed face up in a row to be selection.  Finally, the five different technology cards are placed face up for all the players to buy.  After set up, players take turn drawing a face-up or top of the draw pile card, refreshing the visible row, and then playing a card or drawing as may cards as the player wishes from his or her discard pile.  The cards have an action on them, a symbol for other actions, and a way to score end game points.  The main actions on the cards are research, warfare, and colonization.  When a player plays a warfare or colonization card for its action, he or she chooses a planet pile.  These planet cards have different values of both colonize and attack needed to take the planet, but these values are hidden to the player when he or she chooses.  Players can show, not play, other cards from the player’s hand to meet these values.  If the colonization is successful, then the planet is placed face down in front of the player.  Planets have a symbol that can be revealed to add to other played action cards.  If a player plays a warfare card and has the needed symbols, then the planet goes to the spoils pile.  Planets in the spoils are only worth end game points and cannot be revealed for their symbols.  But, warfare has an added bonus.  A player can declare warfare on an opponent’s colonized planets, stealing them, and making the game much more combat focused. The last major card type is research.  Research allows you to take a technology card from the center row OR move an opponent’s technology row to the center row.  If a player can shows three more research symbols on other cards, the player can take the research action again moving the same or other research cards around.  The technology cards provide extra symbols for research, colonization, warfare, or other actions.  Play continues until every card from the selection row is taken, and then the players score points based on the cards they have: one point per colonized or planet in spoils, one point per political symbol they have, and then they get extra points based on the extra point conditions on all the cards they selected.  Winner of the game has conquered the (micro)cosmos!

Mechanics– Quick, lean, and deep are not words you hear together too often, but this game has that.  It plays in less than five minutes.  It’s not full of clutter as every card in the deck could be the difference between a win or defeat.  And, deep as playing what and when are the hardest choices you have to make in a game.  Honestly, once you know how to play, you won’t put this one down. 4.5/5

 

Theme-This game feels like a contest between two players over planets.  It’s not perfect as the random nature can really limit what strategies you can employ.  But, the addition of conquering colonized planets really adds a new depth to the game.  As you scorched-earth conquered planets, that really add to the strategy AND the theme.  Are you a galactic empire bent of destruction or are you peaceful colonists who will co-exist with the planet and use its resources? 4.5/5

Instructions-Tasty Minstrel….. where do I begin.  These rules are just bad!  You have some nuggets of gold here, but a lot of that is fool’s gold.  This isn’t a game where scores are 3 to 90.  This is a game where scores will be 30 to 31.  Knowing how to score is the most important part of this game, and you don’t really teach players how to do it.  If you go to Board Game Geek, there are no less than four different explanations to the rules.  This is a microgame!  I shouldn’t need to use my Ph.D. to score the game!  I love that you added cards to your other games, but honestly, I’d like one extra sheet over cards to the base Eminent Domain game.  I’ve played several times, and I still don’t think I’ve scored properly.  Also, you don’t really teach me how to play.  The cards give the basics, but the rules sheet doesn’t do a good job of that.  If I don’t think I’m playing properly, and I’m not sure I’m losing or winning properly, I can’t enjoy your game! 1.5/5

Execution-Tasty Minstrel Games knows how to make a card game.  NO STICKERS!  That right there makes me love this game.  I kid, I kid (kind of), but what is in this box is top notch.  The cards are good quality, the art is great, and the extra cards are icing on that cake.  It’s a simple game that a ton of fun.  5/5

Summary– This is the lowest rated Tasty Minstrel Game’s product, and it all has to do with the rules.  Honestly, on game play alone, I love this more than Eminent Domain.  It feels more right in this game to mess with the other player than it does in Eminent Domain, even with the expansion.  On theme, this is better to as now I think I’m really fighting over planets, and fighting has costs.  Colonizing is quick, but a gamble as you can really lose some points if your opponent swings planets away from you with warfare.  The game itself is well put together, but it should be for a card game that is less than 35 cards.  What hurts is the rule sheet.  There isn’t enough there.  I know I sound like a broken record, but it’s no fun if I don’t know how to play and score.  I can more easily score Seven Wonders than this game as that rulebook walks me through it!  If you rewrite the rules on two sheets instead of one, I will love this game more than any other two player microgame I have and bring it with me everywhere like Coin Age.  Altogether, this is a spectacular game with bad rules.  83%

Product– Oddball Aeronauts

Producer-Maverick Muse Ltd.

Price– $18 here http://www.amazon.com/ToyMarket-obA-1-oddball-Aeronauts/dp/B00LHXITWA/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432780263&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=oddball+aeronaughts

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 10 minutes (2 players)

Type-American

Depth-Light

TL; DR– A simple two player Munchkin. 78%

Basics-Hard to starboard for an airship battle!  In Oddball Aeronauts, each player takes the role of one of two airship captains trying to destroy the others ship.  Each player starts with a deck of cards that is specifically created for each ship.  There are two types of cards in the deck: events and characters.  Events are one time occurrences that will randomly change the flow of the game as they are drawn to the top of the deck.  Characters have two major sections to them: statistics and tricks.  The statistics are broken down into three distinct areas: sailing, guns, and boards with a major skill number and a skill bonus (more on this in a bit).  The trick on each character is another ability the card might be able to add to a fight.  Players set up after shuffling their decks by taking three cards and placing them face-down in their hands.  Next, players then place the remaining cards from their deck face-up in their hands.  Players will then look at the top three cards in their hands.  The first card’s skill has to be used in the upcoming battle while one of the next two cards’ skill bonuses can be used and the trick from one of these cards can be used as well.  However, the trick and the skill bonus can’t be from the next card.  After looking over their three cards, each player starting with the lead (first player), announces how they will attack the other player via sailing, guns, or boarding, and the other player then announces how they will attack as well.  Both players need not say the same method of attack.  Then player will, after the count of three, announce how many of their top three cards they will use in the upcoming battle.  The cards are compared with the highest skill + skill bonus from the second or third card + trick ability from the second or third card winning the hand.  If the non-lead player won, then they become the lead.  All players then discard the cards that were used in the battle by placing them face down in the deck under the other face down cards already in the players hand.  Then, the method that the winning player used affects the decks.  If the players won by sailing, two faces down cards are flipped into the face up part of that player’s deck making them available cards now.  If the player won via guns, then the losing player discards face down two additional cards under their deck.  If the player won via boarding, then the winner gains one card to their deck, and the loser loses one card.  Play continues like this until one player has only face down cards in their hand and their air ship has crash!

Mechanics– To me this is a much quicker, much more two player friendly version of Munchkin.  It’s quick, plays fast, and is a fun way to spend 10 minutes with a friend.  However, it’s also pretty simple, so don’t expect a ton of thinking in this one.  And, the game adds some strange corner cases like magic.  Magic is a trick on very few cards, but some other cards have a shadow emblem.  You can’t use magic in a battle with the shadow emblem.  I don’t think that really helps the game’s flow as it adds some deeper rules for a simple game that I don’t think are really needed.  The game is overall quick, easy, and fun however.  4/5

 

Theme– This game has a theme, but it doesn’t hit you over the head.  It’s very subtle, and I think it needs a bit more.  It’s fun while feeling like an air ship battle, but I wanted more stories to this one.  The cards have some great art, and the manual has some added information on the ships, but it need more to build the world of this game. 4/5

Instructions-Hands down the worst part of the game.  That cards facing up/cards facing down part of the game that makes it so quick and easy to play, but that isn’t explained very well at all in the rules.  When I saw a YouTube video about it, then the game became crystal clear.  The rules leave lots out, and that makes the game somewhat frustrating as it’s a game that will take you longer to find on your game shelf than to actually play! Honestly, look up a let’s play or rules tutorial online to learn these rules!   2.5/5

Execution– A card game my wife and I can play while we wait in line at McDonalds?  Beautiful!  The box is compact, doesn’t have any unnecessary pieces, and the cards are of decent quality.  The art is good, the layout is eye catching and easily accessible, and something that you could quickly explain and play.  It’s just a well done small box game. 5/5

Summary-If you want a game you can play while in a bar standing around a high table, this is an excellent game.  If you want 12 hours+ of in-depth strategy, then this isn’t the game you want.  You want some quick steampunk while you’re waiting for you tea to cool?  Well worth your time.  If this game would rewrite the rules, I’d love this game so much more.  As it stands now, the rule book is what really kills this game.  The mechanics are good, not great as it’s a simple game, the theme is decent, and the execution is solid.  I hate when I have to go online to learn to play a game, and doubly hate when I need YouTube to teach me to play a game that’s uses less than 60 total cards!  But, if you can get past the rules, you will find an amazing little gem of a steampunk two player card game.  78%

Product– Dead of Winter

Producer-Plaid Hat Games

Price– $75 here http://www.amazon.com/Dead-of-Winter-Crossroads-Game/dp/B00HFKITJC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432091044&sr=8-1&keywords=dead+of+winter

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 45-120 minutes (2-6 players)

Type-American

Depth-Medium

TL; DR– Battlestar Galactica meets Zombicide.  89%

Basics-Can you survive the winter with the dead outside?  Dead of Winter is a simple American style game where player take the role of a group of survivors of the zombie apocalypse.  At the start players choose a scenario with a victory condition as well as each player receiving a secret goal that can range from getting enough of one item to a traitor card who has to undermine each other player!  Next, players receive starting items and choose two characters out of four possible options.

Each round the players uncovers a new problem that they must face.  These problems require players to spend a number of cards to solve or more enemies will be added and the players will lose moral, a general survivability of the colony that when it reaches zero the players lose.  Then, all players roll dice equal to the number of characters they control.  These dice can be spent to do actions with no limit to the number of actions each individual character you control can do.  Next, each player takes their individual turns, but here’s the catch- before a player starts his/her turn, another player draws a crossroad card.  A crossroad card is a random event that may happen that turn depending on what characters are in play, actions the player does, and even the number of cards in the discard/garbage pile!  The current player spends dice to take actions that range from attacking zombies, searching, building barricades, and some character specific abilities.  The number rolled on the die really only count for combat and searching.  Each character has a search value and a combat value.  If you spend a dice for either of those actions with a value equal to or higher than the characters search or combat result for search or combat, you succeed on your search or combat and get to draw a searched card or kill a zombie.  Thus, you know you will be successful before you even attempt your turn.

What makes this more interesting is the exposure die for combat and moving.  The exposure die is a 12-sided die with over half he faces being no result, a few are damage, less are frostbite, and one is a tooth.  The damage icons do one damage.  All characters have three hit points.  Frostbite does damage each turn which can quickly kill a character, and the tooth means a character is bitten.  Bitten characters instantly die, and then another character could become bitten.  Each character also has an influence value, and after a character is bitten, the lowest influence value in the bitten characters location becomes the target of the bite giving that character’s controller two options: kill the character and end the bite OR roll the exposure die.  Roll anything besides no result, and the new bitten character dies and the process repeats.  Also, when players move between locations, players roll the exposure die to see if the traveling goes smoothly.  Traveling between the different locations doesn’t cost an action, BUT does risk damage from the exposure die.  Barricades provide a temporary buffer against zombies.  If a zombie would be placed on a barrier, you remove the barrier and that zombie.  Players can also spend cards to do the action on the card or spend them face down to try to solve the problem for this round.  Each chard has a symbol, and enough cards must be spent or the negative effect of the rounds card event occurs.  Traitors can also spend cards with different symbols that count AGAINST the other player’s cards.  After the player has spent all his/her dice, play progresses around the table until its back to the first player.  Then the round’s problem card is resolved, for good or ill!  Next, zombies are placed at all the different locations; one per character at outer locations and one for every two characters at the central location.  If a zombie would be placed and there is not a zombie space available, then the character with the lowest influence at that spot is instantly killed!  A new problem for the round is revealed, the first player marker passes, and the turn starts anew.

What makes this game novel is the hidden goals each player has.  Not only do you have to meet the major goal for each game, but you have to complete your own goal.  In this co-operative game, you can lose while everyone else wins!  Players win by completing their goal, and can lose if the game goes too many rounds or if moral drops to zero.  Moral decreases whenever a character dies, through the crossroads cards, or a failing a round problem card.  While all of this is going on a traitor could be in your midst spending the wrong cards to cause events to fail and has his/her own goal where they succeed if everybody else fails AND they have the proper items or characters to win.  Even the traitor can lose if they don’t have their gear ready when everybody else loses!

Mechanics– I was serious before, this game feels like a mix of two great tastes making something better.  You have the card use of Battlestar Galactica for hidden card resolution and turn events with the simplistic combat of Zombicide.  Those two things work amazingly well together.  This game is MUCH more swingy then Zombicide as dice dictate actions and combat results, but once you know your dice for a turn, you pretty can plan out your turn.  It’s quick, easy to play, and not any more complicated than it needs to be.  The crossroads cards are fun, but they might have been a bit over sold.  You do have random events happen, but I expected something a bit more intricate.  What does happen is about one out of every four turns, something unexpected will happen.  It does add something interested, but don’t expect the moon.  4.5/5

 

Theme– Here is where things are a bit off.  The majority of the theme is great.  Players fight zombies, struggle for items, and in general are the proper amount of miserable as the fun from this game comes from a hard co-op experience.  But, some things don’t quite fit.  Players lose moral for the number of cards in the discard pile.  You can spend a die to clean some, but honestly that’s kind of such a weird concept.  “Yep, zombies are killing my friends, but I’m sad that Steve didn’t take out the garbage!”  One game I chose the school janitor as one of my characters so I could clean garbage.  That’s not as much fun (or exactly as much fun) as you’d think it would be in the zombie apocalypse.  The game uses a few abstractions to bring things in like how combat is instantly resolved as its part of survival, but not the whole part.  Overall, its fun, feels like zombies in winter, but isn’t perfect as a few minor things keep it from being a slam dunk.  4.25/5

Instructions– Here is the worst part of the game.  It’s pretty simple rules that read relatively quick, but they bury a lot of the leads.  There are very intricate rules that should be followed that are not expressed as importantly as they should be.  Sure, you can play in about five minutes, but you WILL miss something important.  The game comes with some nice player boards, but they leave out important information that would really help a new player like when and how many zombies to add to each location.  The rules are not bad, but they are not as well layout out or emphasized as I’d like.  4/5

Execution– I really like how Plaid Hat puts their games together.  It’s a well done game with lots of parts, tons of standees with great detail, and lots of small things like intro paragraphs to each game, and epilogues for each victory and traitor win.  This is a theme game (don’t play this if you want a Euro experience!), and Plaid Hat delivers on that.  Even the first player marker is a big knife cardboard token!  Well done.  Also if you want to see my unboxing of the game check this like out: https://youtu.be/nOgN3v8OiqY 5/5

Summary-If you want a great game that has absolute kick in the teeth difficulty, then this is your game.  If you want a co-op with lots of story built in, this is your game.  If you want deep mechanics that are completely new and different, then this is NOT your game.  This is a quicker version of both Zombicide and Battlestar Galactica.  It’s got the high points of both, but does lose a few elements of both as well.  That’s not bad is what comes out of the Plaid Hat kitchen is its own tasty entree, but it is a new, simpler, quicker thing.  Instead of the weekend killer that is Battlestar, this is less than two hours to get a game in-great for a weekday game night.  I think the crossroads mechanic was a bit oversold as the end all/be all new interaction mechanic, but that doesn’t ruin this game.  The instructions are a bit rough, but the videos online will teach you to play quicker then reading them.  Overall, this is a solid game that that’s fun if you want an amazing American-style gaming night with zombies, possible traitors, and some team work picking up some garbage around the barricaded house.  89%