by J. R. Tracy
We had nine players tonight for a little civil strive and a lot of card-gaming.
England's finest houses reduced to petty squabbling
Jim, John, Campoverdi, and Steven started a new session of Crown of Roses. With a couple turns under their belts from their first try, they had a better grip on the game and made decent progress. No real leader so far - I guess the prospect of a 3:1 beating isn't worth the glory of a temporary lead. They're enjoying it very much, and feel it will go the full nine turns. The prospect of a single player winning the kingship for five turns is out of the question, and by their reckoning, killing off all opposing heirs is a long shot, particularly with the heir's +1 drm on a mortality roll. They will be returning to this over the next couple weeks - I'm looking forward to seeing how the full game plays out.
The fate of Lancashire tumbles from the tower
Scott introduced Tenka to Dr. Rob, Bill, Oliver, and me. This is the recent VPG second edition of the Scott's design. Tenka is a card game set in medieval Japan, with players vying to control provinces as the country descends into chaos. Players draw cards from a common deck. The bulk of the cards are made up of four suits: knights (samurai), lords, priests, and provinces. Samurai provide combat power, an advantage in lords grants an extra action, an advantage in priests lets you keep an extra card every turn, and provinces increase your card draw and of course are the currency of victory.
Dr. Rob's greedy eyes
Gameplay is very simple - each turn you draw cards and keep one (unless you hold the priest advantage), and then perform an action (or two, if you hold the lord advantage). Cards may be played to your 'court' (tableau) for persistent effects, or may be 'pitched' (discarded) for a more powerful one-off effect. You can attack other players to steal cards from them, including provinces, but the rest of the table can intervene on behalf of the attacker or defender. The loser discards cards equal to his loss differential, so a butt-kicking can be devastating as your hand and/or court is vaporized. If you're not attacking, you are building up your court to position yourself for victory while protecting your court from enemy assaults.
A player wins by beginning his turn with control of enough provinces to meet the current victory target. This starts at five and goes down by one with every re-shuffle of the common deck. If the game ends (after five shuffles) without anyone winning by province control, it is a draw. The second edition adds a new victory condition - if a player controls the three 'legendary relics' at the beginning of his turn, he wins. These are supercards that confer special advantages, but like any other card may be won or lost in combat.
The designer's court, a shadow of its former self
In our game, I used my opening had to generate a big lead in provinces, and was immediately pummeled by everyone else. Dr. Rob took the lead with a better supporting court, but Scott's dominating armor was the terror of the table. He gradually chipped away at Rob, and picked up a couple relics as well. When he produced the third from his hand, we knew we had to beat him. Oliver had the firepower, but unfortunately he had a healthy province count as well. I helped Oliver defeat Scott, but we didn't have enough samurai available to beat Oliver in turn, so he picked up the win.
Next, we tried Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game. This game uses an Ascension model within a semi-cooperative construct. Players work together to defeat the master villain, but there is only one overall winner. Cards have either a combat or a resource value, to fight bad guys or buy new cards from a common deck. A new villain card is drawn every player turn, and if you don't kill them off, they might escape, causing all sorts of mayhem, such as reducing player hand size or adding wound cards to player decks, which act as dead cards and dilute your effectiveness. Players earn victory points by defeating villains, but to win, the master villain must be defeated. This is achieved by knocking off four high-value master villain cards, each of which grants the attacking player a special one-off advantage.
A weak-ass hand
In our game, I focused on collecting Hawkeye and Iron Man cards, which offer complimentary bonuses. Unfortunately, Ollie and Bill were collecting the same suits. Things were looking shaky in Megalopolis as the Red Skull hatched scheme after scheme and several villains escaped. However, we managed to overcome the threat with a couple cards to spare. Oliver emerged the winner, a point ahead of Bill and two points ahead of me. Dr. Rob claimed fourth and Scott took home the Favorite Sidekick ribbon.
Megalopolis
I really enjoyed Legendary, in large part due to my experience with Ascension. I like the two types of resources and the tension of choosing between building your recruiting power or increasing your attack strength. The art is terrific and though it's a pricey game, you get a *lot* of cards. On the downside, it doesn't feel cooperative at all, with only a slight bit of "you kill that guy if you can" interaction. As mentioned, it looks great, but for some reason crucial icons are microscopic, even though card space isn't at a premium. Also, player identity is nebulous - you are not a particular superhero, but more like a S.H.I.E.L.D. bureaucrat building and managing a portfolio of capabilities. Still, it was a lot of fun and I wouldn't be surprised to see a form of hit the iOS and Android app stores.
Continuing the superhero theme, Bill, Scott and I tried Sentinels of the Multiverse. This is a true cooperative, with players banding together to defeat a single supervillain. Each player is a particular superhero with a unique deck, and the supervillain has his own deck as well. In addition, their is a violently neutral environment deck with affects all combatants for better or worse. Over the course of a turn, a card played off the top of the villain deck, then each player gets a turn, followed by the environment deck. The cycle then repeats.
Combat is hit-point based, with characters, the villain, villainous henchmen, and some environment cards having HP values. HPs are lost through combat and environmental effects, and can occasionally be regained. Superheros don't die, but once one loses her last point she's incapacitated - she can no longer fight or play cards, but can grant other players bonus actions or card draws. The goal of course is to kill off the villain, but you must fight your way through the henchmen, equipment, and fortifications he spews to hold you off until he completes his master plan.
Biff!
I played Tachyon, a super-fast hero with featherweight attacks that gradually build up to something substantial. Scott was The Tempest, a techno-elemental with devastating lightning attacks. Bill was Absolute Zero, a master of thermodynamics. Our opponent was Baron Blade, a madman trying to pull the moon into a collision course with Earth. We had to first destroy his tractor beam, and then subdue the Baron himself. I spent most of the game battling elemental effects while Scott and Bill did the heavy lifting against the Baron. I ultimately succumbed, but Scott built up a wicked attack strength and hammered the Baron into submission.
My opinion of Sentinels is mixed. I admire the effort put into creating several unique and interesting heroes and villains. The decks are thoughtfully constructed with a lot of groovy combos and each one feels very distinct. Unfortunately, gameplay amounts to straightforward optimization of the cards at hand - I don't think it's possible to make a bad decision once you understand the mechanics. After that, it's just a race against the random fury of the villain and environment decks. The process feels very mechanical, and all the evident originality gets washed away in a number-crunching exercise. I want to like it more than I do - I'll play it again to make sure, but I'm afraid the whole is less than the sum of the parts.
Last up, we triedThe Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Deck-Building Game. As the title implies, this is another deck-builder, with a semi-cooperative theme. Unlike Ascension and Legendary, however, there is only a single currency, 'power', used for both combat and recruiting. The players represent the good guys, purchasing allies, maneuvers, and artifacts while defeating the minions of Sauron. Most cards have a VP value, as well as a power value and occasionally a special effect. Play proceeds until the archenemy deck (Nazgul, the Ballhog, Lurtz, etc) has been defeated, at which point VP totals are compared.
One ring to rule them all
I lucked out with some good hands early on, and was able to defeat the Nazgul, the first archenemy. A defeated enemy is added to your deck, usually contributing a good power value. In addition, the Nazgul confer a hefty recruiting bonus, so I rapidly built up a killer deck. Bill did well accumulating Orcs of Moria - any one card is pretty weak but when played in combos they can be quite powerful. Scott in turn had a lot of good hand-management cards, allowing him to dump crappy cards and cycle through his deck at a good clip. Ultimately my early lead was too much to overcome and I won pulling away.
Not enough white space
This was much better than I expected, given the (for me) tired theme, very familiar art (movie stills), and been-there/done-that mechanics. The card combos feel original and there is a strong element of interaction missing from Legendary and even Sentinels. The adversarial setup feels odd and anti-thematic, but as a game it holds up. Graphically it looks good, but for some reason vital card text is tiny relative to the available space - not as bad as War of the RIng cards, but not great either. Overall, worth a re-visit.
I think I've shot my deck-building bolt for the time being, but it was fun trying a variety of approaches in a single evening. I am impressed with the imagination at work in all these designs. Sadly, the most original work produced the least satisfying game (Sentinels of the Multiverse) but even that one is worth a second look. We have yet to try the DC game to complete our survey - more on that in coming weeks.
Next week, maybe a little ASL to go with the ongoing Crown of Roses.
JR