Lot’s of Shadowrun lately, but let’s do a bit more.  This time for all the summoners out there.

Extra Service

Cost: 15 Karma

You a a master of the managed magical.  Those that you summon or bind fell your personality on them like a weight.  Any spirit you summon or bind owes you one additional service.  You must have at least one service for this quaility to trigger.

Thoughts?

I grew up in the country, and we learned how to do things cheap.  Let’s roll that into Shadowrun!

On the Cheap

Cost: 5 karma per rating, see text

You know how to make things happen when you don’t have much.  In fact, you can make a whole month of food, matrix access, and electricity from one case of soy-Ramen and a space heater alone!  Characters who have this quality have their monthly lifestyle rating cut by one-quarter per rating of this quality.  You may only have one rank in this quality at high lifestyle, two in medium lifestyle, and up to three ranks at low lifestyle or below.

Thoughts?

Let’s keep rolling with DnD.  I’d like to build on the thoughts of the Dual Wielder feat, but this time for one large weapon.

Large Weapon Master

You avoid the safety of a shield or the quickness of two blades for the power of large weapon.  Gain the following benefits:

• When you use a two-handed weapon, double your strength bonus to damage.
• When you use a two-handed weapon, gain a +1 bonus to all attack rolls for that weapon.
• When you use a two-handed weapon, you are still considered to have a free hand.  However, if you use a free hand, you can’t make a an attack with the two-handed weapon until you only have your hands on the weapon.

Thoughts?

Product– Regnum Angelica

Producer-Black Locus Games

Price– $45 here http://blacklocustgames.com/regnum-angelica/

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 30-60 minutes (2 players)

Type-American

Depth-Medium

TL; DR– A fun combination of chess and Magic: The Gathering.  99%

Basics-IT’S TIME FOR DIVINE WAR! Regnum Angelica is a battle between the forces of heaven and hell played out on an epic scale.  Each player takes a side represented by a deck of cards.  These cards come in three types: angels, angelic scripts, and pillars.  Angels are the bulk of the cards in the deck.  These represent the attacking forces for each side.  They have a movement range and a power rating.  If you move the angel all the way across the field into your opponent’s side, you gain points equal to their power.  Also, if you score points with an angel/demon, you will lose all your power, which gets you movement for your angels and points to spend to cast scripts.  Scripts are best thought of as instant spells from Magic: The Gathering.  After paying the power cost for the card, each script has an immediate effect inducing more movement, teleporting angels, removing angels from the field, or other options.  Pillars increase your angel’s/demon’s power, and change the type of angel until they are removed.  They also give your angel/demon a shield as an angel/demon that is defeated in combat with a pillar just has the pillar removed instead of losing the whole angel/demon.  Each turn is very simple.  First a player gains a number of movement tokens equal to their current power or one token.  Then, a player may play one angel face down.  Next, a player can turn one face down angel/demon face up.  Some angels have abilities that range from gain power, reduce your enemy’s angel count, or other abilities and these trigger when they are turned face up.  The active player can then spend movement tokens to move angels up to their movement range.  Unspent tokens are removed at the end of turn.  The last action a player can do is discard pillars and angelic scripts to gain extra power equal to the cost of using the card.  At the end of your turn, you draw up to four cards or one card if you have four or more cards.  The above is simple, but what makes it interesting is the way combat is resolved between cards.  Each card has a grid indicating element and directions.   Angels and demons can move in eight directions (up, down, right, left, and all diagonals).  At each of these locations on the mini grid on the card is an element symbol.  When a card would move on top of another card, you compare the elements and directions of those cards.   The three elements are earth, water, and fire.  Earth beats water; water beats fire, and fire beats earth.  It’s like a quick, stylized version of rock paper scissors.  If the two elements are the same, then the angel/demon with the higher rank wins.  If that’s tied, then both are destroyed and move to the void.  Pillars come into play here as a pillar effectively makes all the symbols on an angel/demon’s directions that element.  Turns go back and forth until one player scores 35 points, and that player’s side is victorious!

Mechanics– I liked this game.  The basic elements of the game are top notch.  Honestly, if you want an awesome combo game of Magic: The Gathering that you don’t have to build decks for, this is it. Combat is quick, but you do have to think.  Knowing when to move, when to score, and how to best move a card to attack another card are all amazingly complex while still being simple enough to be quick and fun.  If you like chess and Magic: The Gathering, this is a game that should be part of your collection.  5/5

Theme– I love the theme and its execution, with one small problem.  The manual opens with a multi-chapter story.  As a RPG geek and a bibliophile, this makes me happy!  The creators of this game not only took the time to tell me a story, they wanted it front and center.  That takes some guts.  The art is great, and each side feels like the monsters and saviors they are.  However, my only problem is also a bonus to this game.  The two different decks are basically identical.  Each has a card with similar abilities and similar elemental grids at the bottom.  That’s good, but I would have liked each side to feel a bit different.  The art does separate the different decks, but if you didn’t have the art, the decks wouldn’t be different at all.  That does beg two theories: 1) are the creators of the game saying that looks aside, heaven and hell are basically the same? or 2) did the creators want knife edge balance for their game and used the same deck twice to keep that balance? (It’s most likely 2, but 1 does bring up a good philosophical argument…) 4.8/5

Instructions– I mentioned above that the rules start with a long story.  That makes me happy, but the rules also do a rather decent job of explaining the game.  After cracking up the box, my wife and I were both playing after 10 minutes of reading.  That’s pretty good for a game with this much depth.  Also, each side getting a simple turn diagram and element combat chart card really does speed up the game as well. 5/5

Execution– Just like all my other recent board game reviews, I’ve included an unboxing video here: http://youtu.be/qa2CcG4wjFI  The contents of the box are pretty well done.  I like the nice glossy board as well as the card stock for the cards.  I always appreciate not having to sleeve my card game and still be able to shuffle the cards without destroying them.  I also really enjoy the art.  Each card and the board have beautiful gothic art on them.  Also, I’d almost give these people extra credit because they not only give you clear spots to put the tokens and cards, BUT they also give you bags for you tokens.  I think I’m in love! 5/5

Summary– I really liked this game.  My wife who HATES Magic and chess even thought this game was the best it could be as a combination of those two.  It’s got great balance with even the over powered characters being balanced by the other side having cards to remove those cards from play.  The power mechanic of scoring reduces the power pool also makes driving for several scores at once impossible really balancing the sides.  The art is great, and the tokens made me happy.  This game has moments that make you think hard, but also isn’t a analysis paralysis game.  If you don’t like Magic or chess, then this game might not be for you.  Also, there is an elephant in the room I didn’t mention.  It is a game of heaven vs. hell.  I’m fine with that, but if you don’t like that theme in your games, then this isn’t for you.  But otherwise, if you want a fun, two-player game that you don’t have to build decks for and tire of chess, then this is the game for you. 99%

 

Product– Corporia

System– Flux System

Producer– Brabblemark Press

Price– ~$10 here http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/127226/Corporia-RPG?term=corporia

TL; DR– Night Watch played with a quicker, simpler version of Shadowrun. 99%

 

Basics– Time for an Arthurian Knight in Media Corp!  In Corporia, players take rolls in the Knightwatch, humans touched by the flux, who now take up arms against the reincarnated forces that once King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table fought.  With a reincarnated Lancelot and M.E.R.L.I.N., the supercomputer, at your side, can you put down the forces of Chaos?

 

Mechanics or Crunch– Like any full RPG, let’s break this one down into its base parts.

Base Mechanic-The Flux System-  I can write the entire rules of the flux system down in a tweet- Roll 2d6 (called flux dice), take high die roll, add ability (called core values) and skill, consult GM.  Done.  That’s the entire base rules-for EVERYTHING YOU DO.  Pretty impressive!  It runs quick, but still has more than one die to allow for flexibility in the system.  Want to convince a person you’re not a knight in plate armor hunting demons, but just a cosplayer riding the subway?  2d6(take high)+wits+influence, add role-play, and then consult GM.  Boom!  Done.  All your numbers range from 1 to 6, so it’s not math clogged or new play unfriendly.

 

Combat- Want to hurt somebody or something?  2d6(take high)+ability+skill.  Here is where some of the Tongue and Cheek come into play.  Want to hit somebody with a sword?  The skill is Getting Medieval and the ability/core value is strength.  Shoot somebody? It’s deftness and firearms.  However, this one doesn’t just roll against a static number; you instead have to dodge an attack which depends on the method of the dodge and the attack.  Parry a sword is 2d6(take high)+deftness+getting medieval.  Dodge a bullet is deftness+getting medieval.  Unlike in other RPGs, defenders win ties.  If the attacker gets a higher number, he or she rolls the damage dice for the attack (this system does use more than just 2d6), adds the core value for the attack such as strength for hitting with a sword, and subtracts the defender’s armor.  If the damage is greater than the defender’s mettle (think a combined wisdom and constitution from Dungeons and Dragons/Pathfinder), the target takes a wound.  But, this game also has hit locations.  To find the location, you look at the total on both the flux dice of the attack and consult a chart.  Just like in a real fight, most attacks hit center mass as 2d6 average to a seven which is the torso.  And just like in most fights, the wounds you take cause you to lessen your abilities to fight!  Take enough total wounds to be double your mettle?  Make a Strength+Mettle test to not pass out.  You can keep fighting until you pass out.  Quick, lean, and simple.

 

Magic-Where would urban fantasy be without magic?  Magic in this system is a bit like Dungeons and Dragons.  There are two major different schools to magic-witchcraft and sorcery.  Witchcraft is a divine magic from D&D, and Sorcery is a bit like arcane magic.  Want to know how to do magic?  2d6(take high)+magic+spell type.  Done.  Just like combat, it’s easy, slick, and user friendly.  Each day a spell caster can cast a number of spells equal to his/her magic core value.  If you cast more than that you start to take increasing penalties to the roll.  Spells can also be modified to add more targets or increase range by adding penalties to the roll.  It’s not the cast till you pass out system I love.  But, it does have push your luck, and if I can’t have my players pass out, I’d like them to push their luck.

 

Computers-It wouldn’t be modern fantasy if it didn’t have hackers.  This game has them, but hackers basically work just like magic.  Roll dice as above, add numbers, and compare to a target difficulty for a device.  Quick, clean, and user friendly.

 

Flux Points- I love player driven narrative control.  I want my players to have some chips to cash in to make things happen, and in this system that’s flux points.  Players can spend flux points to shrug off wounds to keep fighting or to add to a roll before the roll happens.  That’s always fun.  Also, flux points are used as experience points to buy new improvements.  That adds a level of cautions to how many points a player wants to spend on a roll.  Flux points are earned by playing to your traits and having the game master temp players into doing crazy things.  Unlike some other RPGs, players never have to spend experience points to avoid an action the game master wants, but I can crank up the flux point offer to almost ludicrous points to entice a player to do what I want.  And that’s always fun to do!

 

Character Generation- PC generation is a snap.  Near the back is a one page sheet that will easily give you the layout of character generation.  You choose an archetype, but that just helps you, not hurts you as some abilities are cheaper depending on the archetype and the system is basically classless.  Then, you define traits to help you build the persons personality and use a simple point buy to build your attributes, skills, and feats (called assets).  Then you get flux points to get a bit of narrative control/point buy attributes and spend money on gear.  As a final step, the future has a combined facebook/Foursquare system that allows you to log on to places to be more popular and have more social pull in a location, but you might also be tracked, so you decide how much of that you wish to use as a character.  Done.  I always love systems where half an hour is the longest character build time you need.

 

Summary-I like this system.  Quick systems make me happy.  However, unlike the quickest system out there Numenera, this one also has a touch of math that makes me ecstatic with the flux dice.  That also builds in some extra room for manipulation.  Take charging or running in combat- You get one move and one action per turn.  You could run twice or run once and cast and run.  When you do that you roll normally, but now you take the lower of the two dice.  It punishes the player for doing too much, but doesn’t punish as much as you would expect.  Also since the number curve is flatter, nothing spirals out of control too quick.  Honestly, this is a great system what works really well as well as working really fast.  As I’ve said over and over again, quick, clean, and user friendly. 5 /5

 

Theme or Fluff- This book walks an interesting line.  I originally approached this RPG thinking it would be like Shadowrun.  It has elements of it like cyber modification, urban decay, and urban fantasy, but this RPG feels more like Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko.  That novel is in the suggested readings, so that warmed my heart.  Players wake up to being touched by the flux, but they are hired by Knightwatch to stop the forces of chaos in the world.  Chaos isn’t really represented as its pretty evil in this RPG.  That said, the book itself reads more like a corporate new employee manual than your standard RPG book.  At every chance the authors got, the book uses corporate manual layouts for things like the character sheets and the magic sections is a pamphlet that the players get to read through.  Even the abilities are referred to as “core values”.  It’s those little touches that really help make this feel like you would be sitting around the coffee pot at 3PM on a Tuesday talking about filling out those pain in the butt reports to Lancelot and then at 8PM running around in plate armor with an taser bat hitting vampires in a nightclub.  Well done. 5 /5

 

Execution– You can tell that the people who made this book put some real effort into this one.  There are a ton of pictures here that show the staff all got into character.  I would have liked a bit more white space on some pages, but overall I was really happy reading this one.  I didn’t feel like I hit too many walls of text.  Even the world guide to The City gave each area with nice pictures.  You don’t get as much details about each district, but you also get a better feel for each place.  It’s not perfect as I would have liked a combat example as well as a few more tables-especially for things like the wounds.  It’s written in the text, but some of that information would really help as a quick reference or on the character sheet.  But honestly, that’s nitpicking.  What is fun though is the book comes with enough adventures that if you wanted to you could play from the start at character finding and joining Knightwatch all the way to a dual with Morgan Le Fey and ending the incursion of Chaos once and for all!  Not many books are that bold as to give you the end of the game in the first book, but this one does it well. 4.9/5

 

Summary– My one sentence review of this system is: Night Watch played with a quicker, simpler version of Shadowrun.   If you don’t need some overly complex mechanics in your game, this is an excellent system.  Some aspects that Shadowrun has are not here, but that comes with some significant rules and mechanical baggage.  For the setting, this is an amazing retelling of the standard Arthurian trope.  It’s fun to read on a story that is familiar, but does stand on its own.  Honestly, if you want something quick, easy, and fun for 10 bucks you won’t go wrong.  Well worth your time and money to look at this one! 99%

 

Product– Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game

Producer– Upper Deck

Price– ~$60 here http://www.amazon.com/Legendary-Encounters-Alien-Deck-Building/dp/B00MU2DQAW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419960129&sr=8-1&keywords=Legendary+Encounters%3A+An+Alien+Deck+Building+Game

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 30 to 60 minutes (1 to 5 players)

TL; DR– A fun, story fueled kick in the teeth!  90%

 

Basics-Let’s stick our faces over that strangely egg like thing!  Nothing bad can happen!  Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game follows the deck building strategy of games like Shadowrun Crossfire from its common buy area of cards to its mind boggling difficulty.  All players start out with a deck mostly comprised of one point attack cards as well as one point money cards.  From here, each player chooses a role card that gives them their hit points and a specific card associated with their roll.  Then, there are the main board’s decks to set up.  First, the players choose a location and objectives.  Players can choose to follow the movies, or make their own scenarios.  For ease of description, I’m just going to describe the basic scenarios from the first movie Alien.  The first deck to set up the main deck called a hive deck.  This deck is actually three separate decks all added into one.  Depending on the scenario/movie/location you’re playing through you will take cards for three scenarios( for the Alien movie, players get The S.O.S. #1, No One Can Hear You Scream #2, and the Perfect organism#3).  The cards for these sub decks are all listed with the sub deck name on them.  To each sub deck you add one card from the drone/enemy deck per player.  These are random xenomorphs you encounter and help the game scale for one to five players.  You then mix each sub deck, place deck three down, deck two on top of three, and finally deck one on top of decks two and three.  Players choose the character cards they want in the to buy deck called the barracks.  The game provides four different characters from each of the four Alien movies to keep building the different theme of the movies.  These cards all say the name of the character from that movie below the card’s real name.  Each character has several different cards that provide different bonuses.  After the character for barracks deck have been chosen, you mix those characters together and reveal five cards that can be bought for the HQ (buying area with visible cards).  To the left of HQ is a deck of Sergeant Cards.  Sergeant Cards all have different symbols, but all are worth two points to buy cards and can be used on other players’ turns to help them buy cards.  With all that set up, the game if finally ready to be played!  Turns are quick and easy.  First you add a hive deck card to the complex face down.  The complex is five spaces that cards move through.  When a card would push a sixth face down card out of the complex, the oldest card played is instead moved to the combat zone.  This card is then revealed.  You can scan cards in the complex using strikes on cards and then these cards can be attacked or if they are objects, events, or hazards different things might occur.  Next the player can spend money from cards to buy as many cards as able, use strikes to reveal face down cards card as possible or attack enemy cards, and play cards for other abilities.  Enemy cards all have a strike value, and if you play enough strikes at them, the enemy card is defeated and will not attack you.  You can only strike face up cards, so revealing cards in the complex is an import part of the game!  Also important is the order in which cards are played.  All cards have symbols on them, and some cards state that if a card with a symbol was previously played, then you can gain an extra effect.  This reflects the deck building aspect of the game and must be mastered to even stand a chance of beating this game.  Next every card in the combat zone that is an enemy will cause the player to draw wound cards from the wound deck.  These wound cards vary from close calls of no damage to five damage at a crack!  Play health varies from nine to 11 hit points, so five at a time can take a player out quite quickly.  After damage, the play discards all cards they didn’t play, draws up to six cards, and the next player does the above steps.  Play continues like this until each objective is completed.  When the third and final objective is completed, the players win.  Odds are though, they won’t!  Not all the players have to survive the game, but at least one of them does.

 

Mechanics– This game is hard!  I never felt like I had enough time to deal with all the enemies that were coming through to the combat zone, scan rooms, or buy enough cards.  Also, I felt most of the costs were a bit too high to kill an enemy, reveal a card, or buy more cards.  It’s fun, and easy to play, but the difficulty curve is extremely high.  If you can stand a beating, you’re in for a good time. For me, it’s a bit too much. 4/5

 

Theme- I love this game for its stories.  The hive deck does feel like the movies they are part of.  I have to say the different sub decks really do put enough movie scenes in this one to keep you enraptured.  I remember playing and hearing the music scores from the movies pop up in my head.  That’s excellent game design.  Also, you will really enjoy the way different events fall of the deck, and the occasional ally that pops up over the course of the game.  These different sub decks require some upfront work, but the payout is well worth it.  5/5

 

Instructions– The instructions are done well, but some of the words are pretty small especially on the cards used to build the different sub decks.  It will take a read through or two to make sure you figure out how each of the decks is constructed.  It’s not bad, but some bigger type face would really help.  Also, some zoom in shots of the cards they are showing off would really help.  A few minor changes would really knock this one out of the park.  4.5/5

 

Execution– I like this one, but I the game box is a kind of a pain.  The game box has a sturdy construction.  But, the box is basically empty save for a simple cardboard divider that moves a little bit too much.  This game takes a bunch of sorting, and if your cards get mixed up, you’re going to have a really crappy night!  The card art isn’t bad, but I would have preferred shots from the movies.  If you have the license, why not get photos!?  All the art is scenes from the movies anyway.  But, this is pretty excusable when you see the main board.  The main board is the amazing mouse pad material that is excellently detailed and laid out.  Honestly, I thought that cost extra the first time I saw the game, but that comes standard!  That right there raises this game to a 4.5.  4.5/5

 

Summary– Starting high, if you want a game that has more theme that any other co-op card game out there, here it is.  You can follow every movie with some of your favorite characters.  However, get ready for a kick in the teeth.  The game beats you down quite quickly.  Unlike the easy starting scenarios for the Lord of the Rings Card Game, Shadowrun: Crossfire, or even the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, the first scenario for Alien will stomp you down in under four turns!  Keep the difficulty options in mind on your first play through.  A turn or two without enemies might keep the players alive long enough to stand a chance of winning.  It’s a fun game, but not for the faint of heart.  90%

We made a video! Shadows of Malice Unboxing: http://t.co/kudgdAUdbyby Devious Weasel  games.  Give it a look.  Review tomorrow.