Review of Hobbit Tales from the Green Dragon Inn

Let's take a break from the rpg reviews and take a look at a board game released by Cubicle 7 instead! It's called Hobbit Tales from the Green Dragon Inn and is a quick playing storytelling game for two to five players. It also ties into The One Ring roleplaying game (sorry, I lied about taking a break) where it can be used to enhance travelling or simply as a way to find inspiration on the fly.

The game was released in 2013 but I actually didn't get to play it until last year. I had been reluctant to bring it to our board game nights, for some reason thinking it was too much of a narrative focus for some of my mostly board game interested friends. Silly me! While it is certainly a storytelling game in the vein of Once Upon a Time or Dixit I don't think you need to worry about "not being creative enough" or anything similar.

It comes in a small box with some nice, thematic art on it depicting Gandalf and Bilbo smoking pipe and exchanging stories at the Green Dragon. There's some really neat detail in the frame of the picture depicting all kinds of adventuring locations and, my favourite detail, Smaug himself in the smoke ring around the Lonely Mountain. The same frame is used on the new The One Ring Revised core rulebook which is a nice touch. Of course the creators of this game, Marco Maggi and Francesco Nepitelli are also the guys behind War of the Ring, The Battle of Five Armies and The One Ring roleplaying game so it comes as no surprise that they're all linked not only through theme but also by layout, graphical design and art.

The basic premise is that you are hobbits drinking at the Green Dragon and competing about who tells the best story. You play the game in a number of rounds equal to the number of players so each player get a chance to be the Narrator, while the others are Hazard players. To play you use a small game board with slots for five tarot sized cards, Cheers tokens for points, some Green Dragon coasters to hide your points under, a 12 sided die and two decks of cards. And oh, what nice cards they are! Cubicle 7 made the great choice of printing them in tarot size which both allow the art to really shine and also bring a sense of "weight" to them that regular play cards lack. The cards are for all intents and purposes the heart and soul of the game and it's fun just flipping through them, looking at all the details and reading some nice Tolkien quotes! Part of me want to sleeve them while part of me doesn't as it would detract (ever so slightly) from the immersion and I'm also uncertain if they would fit back in the box if sleeved. Of course from a game play perspective it's pretty much meaningless as even if a card was marked it wouldn't really have any effect on the game.

Just doing a summary of the already brief rules and then write about my thoughts on the game I think would make for a very short review. So instead I'm going to run through a typical game and explain most things as we go along and tell a little story at the same time. This seems more enjoyable and probably gives a better sense of how the game actually plays.

Contents.

There are 75 Adventure cards used by the Narrator and 40 Hazard cards used by the Hazard players and they are all unique. Adventure cards can represent all kinds of things but generally they're locations, events, meetings or feelings while Hazard cards are dangerous events, locations, items or monsters. The art range from pencil sketches to full colour paintings and I have yet to find one with "bad" art! You know I've talked about how great the books for The One Ring looks, mostly thanks to the art, and this is like having all that art concentrated in 115 cards and it's great. I could go on about this, but let's just stop here and get on with it. :)

The Game

You start a round with the Narrator drawing four cards from the Adventure deck, which she looks at and quickly try to form a loose narrative in her head. She then draws two more cards and chooses one card to be the Opening, which is placed face up to the left on the board, and the other the Epilogue, which is placed faced down to the far right of the board. The Hazard players draw cards from the Hazard deck depending on the number of players - in this example there are two Hazard players so they draw three cards each.

The Narrator draws Ancient Trees, Adventurous, A Short Rest and Old Sword, and a skeleton of a story forms in her head - something about going on an adventure, and finding a sword and bringing it back home. The Opening and Epilogue turns out to be Lost Reputation and Many Meetings and she decides to play them in that order.

The Hazard players draw Great Orc, Werewolf and Bitter Cold plus Bear, Nameless Horror and Two Headed Troll. They look these over and spend some extra time checking the Terrain icons in the lower right corner as these decide when the cards can be played.

The Narrator begins her story about that time a few years ago when her pipeweed experiments went a little too far and the good people of Hobbiton thought her an odd individual indeed. To prove her detractors wrong (and to simply get away from it all for a bit) she decided to go on a bit of a trek in the surrounding countryside. Nothing too adventurous but enough to perhaps bring some interesting stories from afar, or maybe some new ingredient for her pipeweed!

At this time the Hazard players check the Terrain icons on the two Adventure cards played so far and see if they match up with any of their Hazard cards. If the two icons on a given Hazard card match any of the icons on the lats two played Adventure cards the card is playable - so far we have two Woods icons and a Wilds icon... which don't match any of the Hazard cards. The Hazard players rap their knuckles on the table to signal for the Narrator to continue, which she does...

"I hadn't gone far when I saw something lying on the road... an old sword! I looked around to see if I could see who might have dropped it, but besides horse tracks there was nothing to be found!". With the addition of the Evil Eye icon on the latest Adventure card the first Hazard player has a card with a match! He clears his throat and asks; "This was when you went on your trek in the middle of the coldest winter the Shire had seen in two decades, wasn't it?" - sliding his Bitter Cold card toward the board. Normally he would have to roll the Hazard die at this point and try to match or beat the number in the lower left corner of the Hazard card. However, as the Adventure card played, Old Sword, has the Eye icon on it the roll succeeds automatically and the card takes effect. In this case the Hazard player get to draw a Cheers token and either place it under his coaster or on top of it to signify that he's "buying another round". Next, the Adventure card is not placed on the board and the Narrator has to incorporate the new twist from the Hazard card in her story in some way.

"Yes, it wasn't really the best time to go for a stroll that's for sure! I picked up the sword and tried to follow the tracks in the snow, but with the snow still falling there were soon no tracks left and I ended up scratching my head about what to do next." As there can only be one successful Hazard card played per turn, she plays the next Adventure card...

"Although I almost felt like returning home at this point, the hubby had been making biscuits as I left after all, something in me pushed me on and I managed to find shelter from the wind and snow in the hollow of an old oak tree." She plays A Short Rest and looks expectantly at the first Hazard player who raps his knuckles on the table. The second player slides his Two-headed Troll toward the board and says; "Oh, I remember this story! You didn't notice it at first, but there was a sleeping troll in the hollow, wasn't there?!". However, he rolls a two so the card fails to take effect; "No, no, silly! You're thinking of the troll that slept in Old Bogg's wine cellar the winter of 34!".

"Now, having eaten and rested for a bit I felt my strength return and continued, while the old sword was an interesting prize I felt there was even more impressive things ahead. The snowfall ceased and it wasn't long until I found myself at the edge of the Old Forest". She plays the Ancient Trees card, which has another Eye on it, but luckily the Terrain icons don't match and both Hazard players rap their knuckles grumpily on the table. At this point the Narrator don't have any cards left, and has to Improvise to try and complete her story. Improvising is done by simply drawing the top card of the Adventure deck and incorporating it into the narrative. You can keep improvising until a Hazard card is successfully played, in which case your story ends.

The Narrator draws the top card of the Adventure deck and thinks for a bit while inspecting it, recalling the maps of the area around the Old Forest. Then she continues; "Knowing very well not to set my foot in the haunted woods I decided to skirt around it, seeing if there might be something interesting on the other side. And indeed there was! The land beyond the forest was made up by a series of hills, each looking a little too perfectly formed to be natural. I pulled my coat around me as I shivered in the cold while moving in among the hills. It wasn't long until I found one with a large door in it. Not a nice round hobbit door mind you, but a big and imposing one made of stone, steel and rotted wood." She plays the Tomb card while the first Hazard player raps on the table the second quietly whispers; "This is perfect!" as he slides the Nameless Horror card forward.

"I bet that was a really bad idea! I've heard horrible things about the Barrow Downs!". The Hazard die ends up on seven, meaning the Tomb card is removed from the board, the Hazard player takes a Cheers token and the Nameless Horror takes effect. "Well, at this time I hadn't so I had no idea what waited inside. I thought I would seek shelter in there but it proved even colder as I closed the door behind me. My torch sputtered in the darkness and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I heard a slow, wheezing ahead of me. I called out for whoever it was that we could perhaps share the one muffin I had left, but got no reply. That was when I saw... or felt something coming toward me. Darkness and horror! I turned and fled out in the snow and ran for a long time! I don't even remember exactly what happened but I ended up running straight into one of the Brandybucks, Will I think, who invited me in for some hot tea." 

Having failed to Improvise the Narrator's story has come to a premature end, since she has not been able to completely connect the Opening with the Epilogue card. This means that she must now turn over the Epilogue card and conclude the narrative in a negative way, as if the story didn't end as the Narrator had hoped it would. With the Epilogue card being Many Meetings she continues; "It wasn't until I'd had my fourth cup of Brandybuck tea that I realized that I had dropped the sword when I ran! I didn't even have anything to show for my trouble and while I was, of course, thankful for bumping into a Brandybuck and him letting me stay at his house I was stuck there for two weeks while the weather turned even worse and was introduced to every brother and sister, every uncle and aunt, every cousin and nephew and it all made me both weary and bored! My return to Hobbiton wasn't anything like I hoped and they still talk about me as "that weird pipe lady". If they only they'd know what I have been through! Hmpf!!"

Applauds from the rest of the table as the Narrator takes a bow and start to check her score. You get to draw one Cheers token for each card on the board and one extra if you manage to reach the Epilogue and achieve a full ending. As this story ended prematurely with a total of four cards on the board (of course, not counting the ones removed by Hazards) she draws four Cheers tokens which, to add insult to injury, turn out to be all ones! She puts three under her coaster and one on top to "buy the next round".

Once all players have had a chance to narrate a story you decide the winner by counting all the Cheers tokens under your coaster then you check who has the most points on top of his coaster as this player get a bonus four points for buying the most rounds of beer! There are also rules for giving some extra points for the best story and there are some card icons that can come into play during the game that is not part of this example - like the Hazard players getting to draw extra cards - but this should give you a pretty good idea on how the game plays!

You might also have noticed that there are some other icons on the cards, diamond shaped like the ones in The One Ring and War of the Ring. These don't have any function in Hobbit Tales, but can instead be used in The One Ring roleplaying game. While any of the cards can be used by the Loremaster to quickly get some inspiration for an upcoming scene there are also structured rules on how to incorporate them during Journeys. The left icon tells you which role is affected (guide, scout etc) while the right tells you the effect of failure and the card itself provides inspiration for the narrative that the Loremaster (or the affected player) presents. Basically it's a replacement for the Hazard table that is in the new Revised Core rulebook and I think it will certainly help to bring some more unique hazards into play.

Thoughts

So, what are my thoughts on the game? Well, it takes about 20-30 minutes to play and has so far provided some great Tolkien-esque short stories that has made me want to break out my roleplaying books so... two thumbs up! As I mentioned above I was a little worried that it would be too much of a narrative game for the regular board game night, and during our first game Claes was hesitant to be the first Narrator out of the gate, even though he's an old roleplayer! Weird I know, but I think it has to do with having to think on the spot and make at least a semi-coherent narrative. These were all silly things to worry about though as we all spun some great stories without breaking a sweat. The combination of card title, art and quote either (or all) of which could provide the inspiration needed to connect the next link is more than enough to get your imagination gears turning. Does it help if you are a roleplayer or enjoy improv? Sure, but it's absolutely not needed.

The game has been a great success and so far we have ended up playing two or three games back to back as everyone has wanted another chance to tell a story. Once we even had a player who was just about to leave but watched a game in progress and decided to stay longer so he could participate in the next two rounds! Still, even if this was just a collection of large sized art cards with images inspired by Tolkien with no game attached I would have got them anyway. Beautiful art and great sources of inspiration! The only thing I feel could have been done better from a design perspective is the Terrain icons as they're done in a different style than the rest of the art on the cards. I understand the need to have these stand out and be easy to spot from across the table, but the kind of semi-photographic effect looks odd next to the rest of the card. There's also a slight shortage of Cheers tokens and you might end up having to resort to writing your score down, or use alternate rules posted by Francesco.

If you own and play The One Ring I think this is simply a no-brainer. Get it. If you're a great Tolkien fan I think you should get it as well, especially if you enjoy narrative board games that has seen a rise in popularity lately. I can't really comment on how well it measure up to other games in this genre as this is the first I've played, but to me the theme is what really makes it all come together and having a decent feel for Tolkien made it really easy to come up with a fun story. The game mechanics work well and it's fun both being the Narrator and a Hazard player, but in the end it's not a game you play to win, but play to experience some great stories set in Middle-Earth!

Read More

No comments

Review of The Battle of Five Armies

As I mentioned earlier I wanted to start the Season of the Ring with a bang, so what could be better than a big boxed, extravagant board game like The Battle of Five Armies?! Ares Games were kind enough to send me a review copy of the game and here are my thoughts on it...

The game was released earlier this year by the guys at Ares Games who made War of the Ring and Age of Conan among others. You can immediately see that it shares a lot of things with its older sibling War of Ring, both mechanically and visually, however it is certainly a different more focused experience. In the wake of the success of War of the Ring Nexus Games released Battles of the Third Age back in 2006 which was both an expansion to the base game as well as a completely separate game where you could play out the sieges of Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith in greater detail. It has been out of print since Nexus went under but The Battle of Five Armies is a kind of reboot of the latter sub-games. Of course, being its own game it has been expanded and improved upon with a lot of mechanics dedicated to the specific battle.

What You Get in the Box

I forgot to take a picture of the contents so borrowed this great image by Uthoroc at bgg. This is the German version mind.

Let's just take a quick look at what you get in the box. First off there's the very nice looking board. It's about half the size of the War of the Ring (WotR) board and features art similar to the second edition. That is to say, it doesn't feature the semi-parchment style of the map from the first edition of WotR, but rather the more naturalistic art of the second edition. The region border lines are also clearly drawn, but only in white. The different territories on the map are instead colour coded in the small terrain icon in the middle of each region. There's the Valley with the Ruins of Dale in the middle, the mountains and hills of the Southern Spur and Eastern Bank to the south and north and the Broken Lands to the east. Clearly marked are Mustering Points for the Shadow Armies, as well as fortifications and settlements for the Free People. At bottom right there's the Fate track that works as a timer for the game and also signifies when certain Free People characters enters play. All in all the map is both gorgeous to look at and very functional in play. I think it finds a nice balance between the boards of the first and second edition of WotR.

Then there's a bunch of cards. Some larger ones with stats for the different heroes of the game as well as the eagles and bats, and the rest regular board game sized cards making up a few different decks. There is a deck of event cards, two decks of story cards (Shadow and Free People's respectively), a thin deck of fate Cards and a bunch of maneuver cards. An assortment of tokens, using the same iconography as in WotR and The One Ring roleplaying game (also by Franceso Nepitelli of course) rounds out the cardstock portion of the game. Then there are some fate dice, some regular dice and two well made reference sheets.

Oh, and a mountain of plastic of course! Hehe! Most of the sculpts are being reused from WotR and Battles of the Third age with "only" the bats, eagles and characters being unique to The Battle of Five Armies. The characters in particular look great and are, in my opinion, a clear step up from the character minis in War of the Ring. I'm especially fond of Thranduil, Gandalf and Bolg! The regular army figures holds a decent standard and has a nice pre-movie vibe to them that in a paradoxical way feels fresh in this day of mass-marketed Tolkien. The painter in me really wants to take the brush to these minis as that can enhance their look even more. There's just so much other stuff to paint!

The rulebook is written in a clear and concise way which is a joy to read! It's certainly nice to see that Ares have learnt from their mistake with the original WotR rulebook that was a bit fuzzy in places and not very well organized. After a few turns you won't really have to consult the rulebook at all since all the pertinent information is included on the reference sheets.

The Rules

Like usual I will only provide a cursory glance at the rules as the actual rulebook is available online for those who really want to get down into the nitty-gritty.

A central part of the game is the Fate track in the lower right corner as that basically works as a timer. If it ever reaches 15 the Free People win the game and if the Shadow player manage to get 10 points or more by capturing settlements and fortifications she wins. The Free People can also win by killing the Shadow leader, Bolg, or if the Shadow player hasn't managed to get six points by the time Béorn enters play. Speaking of which, during setup you place a number Free People characters at different spaces on the Fate track and when the Fate marker reaches each respective number that characters becomes ready to play into the game. What all this means of course is that the Shadow player is working under pressure and really need to get to it before more reinforcements arrive for the Free Peoples. Bilbo, who is more of a utility character, doesn't seem to dangerous but when Béorn or the eagles turn up you wish you'd pressed the attack!

The first turn. The Shadow player is advancing and you can clearly see the facedown Recruitment tokens.

A turn starts with the Free Peoples player activating up to three of his general characters, to ready their special abilities, and placing Leadership tokens on the board. After this the Shadow player draws one or more Fate tokens to see how far the Fate track advances. These two things are connected as the Shadow player get to draw as many tokens as the number of activated generals, but has to use the last one drawn. This makes for a neat push your luck mechanic (for both players) as the more generals activated the greater the chance the Shadow player has to draw a tile with a low number on it. After this it's time for the Leadership phase of the Shadow player who gets to add Leadership tokens to her armies as well as add Great Bats to the board.

After these preparations comes the Action Round which is the meat and potatoes of the game where both players get to roll their respective Action Dice and take turns using them to move their armies around. The dice are the same as in War of the Ring and anyone who has played that game will have a rough grasp on how they're used. Of course, with a much narrower focus comes a bunch of changes as well. Basically the dice can be used to move and attack with armies, move heroes or armies lead by a hero, muster new troops or play Event or Story cards. There are several nuances that differentiate how the different dice are used; for example, while both the Army and the Character symbol allow you to move and attack with armies the Character symbol allow you to move two regions first, instead of one. On the other hand, the Army symbol allow you to move two of your armies one region each (without attacking) or can be used for a devastating combined attack where you use two of your armies to attack a single enemy army.

The goblins break through the mountain pass and spill down the side of the mountain!

The Muster symbol is used to flip Recruitment tokens that are already on the board, or to Rally (heal) your armies. Recruitment tokens is another critical part of the game and come in three flavours: Dwarves & Men, Elves and Shadow. The board is seeded from the start with a number of tokens but during actual play the only way to get more out is to use certain character abilities or some Event/Story cards, meaning you can never count on a steady stream of reincorcements. The Shadow player has it a little easier in this regard as Bolg has a way of getting Recruitment tokens fairly reliably (still, he's going to need them!).

Besides normal Mustering the Shadow player can also use the Lidless Eye result to build up his goblin armies who are scaling and/or tunneling through the mountains. These mountain passes are closed when the game begins, but when there are five or more goblins in a pass it is broken through and they are free to start rampaging down into the valley! It's a very satisfying feeling when you suddenly can attack from almost within the midst of the enemy. Hehe!

Finally there's the Event symbol that you can use to draw or play cards. You can play any card with the Event symbol, but all cards also have at least one alternative symbol you can use to play that specific card. For example, if the card allow you to place Recruitment tokens it's a fair bet that it could be played with either the Event or the Muster symbol. Event cards, which are common to both players, usually have fairly generic effects like allowing a bit of extra movement or bonus to rallying while the faction specific Story cards often have more powerful effects. Of course, the Event cards can also be used during battle (more on that below).

After both players have used all of their Action dice you do a bit of board cleanup and start another turn.

Battles

Some men of the lake fire at the oncoming hordes using the great looking measuring tool! We saw this kind of measuring tools back when Android was released but I haven't seen it again until now. Love it though! Oh, and for those who know the game, yes this is an illegal move as the Lakemen aren't in hill or mountain terrain. :)

Since combat is a bit more involved in this game than the Risk-like style of War of the Ring I thought it warranted a section of its own. An army can consist of up to five miniatures plus eventual Characters and Leadership tokens. You move them around the board using your Action dice (and you can of course combine or split armies) and when adjacent to an enemy army you can attack it. Each of the different units in your army has their own specific Maneuver card with their stats, Favoured Terrain icon and Maneuver ability. At the start of a battle you check the terrain type in the defenders region and the side who has the most units with that as their Favoured Terrain get to draw an extra Event card. This is not a huge thing, but nonetheless a nice way to incorporate a feeling that terrain matters in the game.

After terrain superiority has been resolved you take all your Event cards (who, beside the Event text, have Maneuver effects in battle as well), the Maneuver card for each different participating unit and finally the Regroup card. Both players simultaneously reveal their chosen Maneuver card and then dice are rolled to determine winner. If you use an Event card as your Maneuver card it usually has some bonus like +1 to hit or roll two extra dice. Using a units Maneuver card on the other hand makes it possible to use that unit's Maneuver ability, if you manage to hit with them.

So both players roll a number of  dice according to their unit stats (normally it's one die per unit, except for Great Orcs and Dwarf Veterans who roll two) up to a maximum of five and each roll of 5+ is a hit. You also get to re-roll one die for each point of Leadership in your army, with Characters providing 0-3 and Leadership tokens 1. Of course, since it can be important to see which of your units actually hit there are both white and black dice provided with white being the regular and black the special Maneuver dice. If you roll a hit with a black die you have triggered the Maneuver ability of that unit.

The final round in a battle where both armies ended up being decimated to the last man!
A good example of when it's better to retreat and fight another time.

For each hit a Damage token is placed next to the army and after the rolls have been completed you check for casualties. As long as the Damage tokens are equal to or less than the number of units in your army you're ok and don't have to take casualties. If you have more tokens than units you have to remove tokens and units on a two for one basis. This means that most fresh armies can take a bit of punishment but when the Damage tokens start mounting up things can get very bad very quickly.

After resolving casualties you have the option to retreat or rout. A retreat can only be done if you played the Regroup card as your Maneuver card (which also allows you to pick up all the spent unit Maneuver cards you might have used) otherwise it becomes a rout. In a retreat you take a little bit of extra damage and then get to move away, a rout on the other hand can be horribly bloody. However, something I've learnt while playing is the importance of knowing when to break off to fight another day. Just going at it, grinding your armies into the ground will most likely loose you the game.

Let's do a little example...

Say I'm attacking with an army made up of two Orcs, a Warg Rider, a Great Orc and one Leadership token. I start by checking the terrain and, joy of joys, it's a swamp! Orcs have swamps as their Favoured terrain and the Great Orc counts any terrain as favoured and since I'm fighting a bunch of puny humans who don't like swamps I get to draw an extra Event/Maneuver card. 

In the first round of combat I play the Orc's Maneuver card meaning I roll two white dice and two (one for each Orc) black. I roll two hits, one black and one white and after the Leader re-roll I manage to get another hit. Having succeded with at least one black die means that I trigger the Orc Maneuver ability which is to add another Leadership token to the army (for more re-roll goodness in the next round of combat).

So I inflict two hits on my opponent who, with the help of a nasty Maneuver card, inflict five hits on me! Since I only have four units in my army I need to take casualties. Removing one of the Orcs allow me to remove two Damage tokens which takes me down to three - which is equal to or less than the number of units I have left in the army. 

Hmm... things are looking grim for the next round as I will have to take casualties from any hits inflicted while the Free Peoples army only have three Damage tokens and five units. I put down the Regroup card in the hopes of making a tactical retreat before my troops are turned into pin-cushions...

Attention to Detail

Rallying his dwarf warriors Dáin Ironfoot rush to the ford to confront the goblins attacking from the western mountain pass.

So those are the main rules of the game. There are of course a number of neat details like fortifications and attacking uphill or across a ford. The different characters also provide a number of different gameplay options. From Gandalf's magic barrage to Bilbo's damage soaking ability to Thranduil's ability to order missile troops to fire on distant enemies. Then there's Béorn of course, who's pretty much an army in his own right. While the other Characters work as leaders to support your troops Béorn just walks out there and tears it up himself. You load him up with a bunch of Rage tokens as he enters the game (and more can be added through card play) that works both as health and action points to activate him.

The eagles and great bats also work a little differently from the rest of the units. The great bats are placed in a territory and can help the Shadow player move his armies or inflict extra damage in battle in the region with bats in it, by removing a bat each time they are used. The eagles on the other hand work basically as mobile artillery can can inflict quite brutal damage on the Shadow armies!

Thorin Oakenshield (see right) also bears some special mention. He enters the game when the Fate track reaches six and is placed at the Front Gate (of the Lonely Mountain). There are a number of Fate cards that buff Thorin and he can be a very powerful fighting force if paired with an army, problem is if you move him outside the Front Gate the fortification counts as broken which of course, is a bad thing. Still with the right cards and the right situation it might very well be worth it!

My Thoughts

Alright, so this is what you've actually been waiting for. The moment I share my inspired wisdom! Hehe! Well, as the long time readers of Fire Broadside might have noticed my board game preferences have shifted somewhat, in later years. It used to be either sci-fi or fantasy games with lots of plastic that took up most of my time, but these days I think I've appreciate board games from a more holistic perspective and embrace games with themes or components I would have shied away from five years ago.

However this does, of course, not mean that there isn't room for some bombastic plastic spectaculars! War of the Ring have long been a favourite of mine, as have Age of Conan, and The Battle of Five Armies feels like it's another game from the same designers to add to the list. Besides sharing the Action dice mechanic all three games also stand out as being extremely faithful to their respective setting and made by a bunch of guys who are really into it. Their grasp of the world and "feeling" of Tolkien is, perhaps more than the actual gameplay, the best part of the games as they are as far away you can get from cheap moneygrabs like Lord of the Rings Risk or (*shiver*) Monopoly. These games are made from the heart by fans for fans, and that is awesome.

Having secured the western ford Dáin has moved back to camp but things are looking dire as Bolg is moving forward and reinforcements are on the way from the Broken Lands. Perhaps a dire gamble is the best chance the Free Peoples have...

Of course, it doesn't hurt that the gameplay is good! The Battle of Five Armies is very much a wargame so I was happy to read the rules and see how fighting battles was actually fairly detailed. With a more narrow focus than WotR this was a given, but even so I find the battle system immensely fun when we play. I've read some who think the battles are too long or too finicky, but I can't agree with that at all. In a given turn there usually aren't that many battles anyway so it makes sense to make them important events. In WotR the Risk-style combat resolution works (or is necessary) since there can be many different battles each round. Here each battle is given the attention it deserves!

Planning your battles and trying to figure out where to fight first and how to deplete your opponent's hand of Event cards is a fun exercise and the ever present risk of getting your army trounced in the first round forces you to consider potential retreats as well. Even though there is a lot of dice rolling involved, and you can run into some really bad luck in individual battles, my feelings is that this pretty much evens out over time. Besides with judicious use of Maneuver cards and Leadership you should be able to mitigate the worst of the bad luck.

Where I think luck might play a larger factor is the Action dice. While there are a number of different ways to get around a bad roll of the Action dice it can still hit you hard if you don't manage to roll reasonably balanced during a turn. Of course, rolling all Event symbols (to take an extreme example) will give you a killer hand of cards for next turn and there is always things you can do with the dice. However a bad roll might make you loose momentum. I don't have a problem with as this is a dice game where luck is a factor to begin with, and it's for the most part something you can manage or mitigate.

While Thorin Oakenshield is struck by Gold Sickness and refuse to leave the fortified Front Gate, Dáin rush head on into combat with the army lead by Bolg. In a series of brilliant maneuvers he manage to cut his way through the Orcs and Great Orcs surrounding the Goblin King and in a mighty blow crash his hammer down on his sneering face. The battle is over and it's time to let Crom count the dead. No wait, wrong game!

There is a great balance between the two sides as the Shadow has the brute force on her side while the Free Peoples have their many different characters that support their smaller forces. There is also the race aspect of the game the Shadow really needs to press on before the Fate track rise too high and scary stuff like the eagles and Béorn arrive. I think it's critical to get Bolg out early so he can start reinforcing the Shadow armies as soon as possible. While you can usually take a fortification and a couple of settlements with your starting forces plus goblins you start to run out of steam just as Thorin enters play and badly need the reinforcements that only Bolg can provide.

The Free Peoples player of course has the opposing role and want to delay the attacking hordes until hard hitting reinforcements can arrive. The first character that becomes available on the Fate track is Bilbo who is not a great fighter but can really help with the delay part of the Free Peoples plan. Using the Ring he can absorb a number of hits, although a limited number of times. He also has the ability to be in the right place at the right time. Militarily the Shadow is stronger, so the Free Peoples really have to make sure to utilize their characters to the fullest. The ranged attacks by Gandalf and Thranduil can really turn the tide when used at the right moment and the ability of Dain Ironfoot and Thranduil to place Reinforcement tokens is also critical to not become completely overrun early in the game.

Bottom line is that I really like The Battle of Five Armies. Being a great Tolkien fan certainly helps to get you interested, but there's a solid game engine running the thing that is a nice blend of strategy, tactics and a bit of luck. Just like the rest of the games by Ares The Battle of Five Armies is gorgeous to look at and the visuals are designed in a way to make it all blend in and fit together in a way that also speaks to the creator's familiarity with the theme. Of course, this is reflected in War of the Ring and The One Ring roleplaying game as well. Our games have yet to reach the 90 minutes stated on the box, as they have run 120-150 minutes, but with experience I could see this number shrink.

Is it a replacement for War of the Ring? No, this is a very different experience that nonetheless scratches a similar itch. Although I love WotR it can be hard to get to the table simply because the play time is quite long. The Battle of Five Armies is certainly different, but has enough common elements to fill you over until you have time for the full thing. That is not to say that it is the lesser game of the two, but it is quicker. The guys at Ares Games have hinted that we might very well see updated reprints of the original Battles of the Third Age so we have the sieges of Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith to look forward to as well!

So... do you like Tolkien? Do you like wargames toward the lighter end of the spectrum? Do you feel the need to send giant eagles to rip poor little goblins to shreds? Then this is the game for you!

Read More

No comments

Review of High Frontier and Colonization

A few turns into a game of High Frontier: Colonization

Phil Eklund's High Frontier has made regular appearances on this blog since I first got it back in mid 2012 but, although I wrote a couple of meaty play reports (here and here), I have yet to actually review it. With the release of the new Colonization expansion that I have now hade the pleasure of playing twice I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and review both the base game and the expansion.

However... that's not really accurate. The base game is a bit of a misnomer as it's more of a tutorial game to get you to understand the fundamentals, but it's not the way High Frontier is meant to be played in the long run. In fact, unless I was teaching the game fresh to someone I really couldn't see myself going back to that version of the game after having experience the full glory of a complete game of High Frontier! Even so, let's take a look at what High Frontier is and how it's played.

The game is written by Phil Eklund of Sierra Madre Games who is famous in the board gaming world for his very particular approach to board gaming and rulebook writing. High Frontier is the spiritual successor of his earlier space flight game Rocket Flight from 1999. Phil is a bonafida rocket scientist and judging from Bios: Megafauna and Bios: Genesis (fingers crossed!) he seems to be well versed in biology/zoology as well. In short, a man of science! This is something that certainly shows in all his games - both in the integration of theme and game mechanics as well as how often a large part of the rulebook is given to explain the science and/or history underlying the game.

At first glance High Frontier might look like a game about spaceship design and spaceflight. But while those are two of the elements of the game it is really more about exo-globalization - the industrialization of the solar system and (in Colonization) the future of mankind. How you go about this is very much up to you as there are many ways to succeed within the framework of the game. In other terms, this is a sandbox game that gives you access to a bunch of rocket parts and then lets you loose in the solar system!

The Tutorial Game

As I said above what is called the base game is really only a tutorial to make you into a steely-eyed missile man ready for the full glorious potential of High Frontier Colonization! Still, it's a good starting point in talking about how the game works and what you do while playing. But first, let's talk a little bit about the beautiful map of the solar system that forms the game board.

PRC are using a solar sail and make several quick, cheap trips to get all the needed equipment to its destination. As you can see on the playmat the rocket's tanks are empty. Solar sails don't need propellant!

There are no squares to put your rockets and cubes in. Not even hexagons! Instead we have many intersecting lines that all represent... well, let me quote Phil:

The High Frontier map divides space into two topographies: circumplanetary burns (steep gravity wells around planets), and interplanetary Hohmanns (shallow heliocentric gravity fields). It scales to energy, not distance! Note that each spot represents a stable orbit, so rockets do not "drift". To change orbits, you must achieve a "velocity increment" that costs mass and energy. 

-High Frontier rulebook, page 1. 

So basically you move along the lines of the map and whenever you enter a pink circle you need to do a Burn which uses propellant. The number of Burns you can make and how much propellant is used each time is dependent on the thruster you are using and the mass of the rocket. More mass=more energy required to move=more propellant used. It all comes together on the player mat where you track your rocket's mass and how much propellant is in its tanks. There are other kinds of circles as well, sometimes containing different hazards, that are risky to enter. Where two lines intersect is also a space where your rocket can thrust into a new trajectory at a cost of either more propellant or more time. Alright, so with that out of the way let's continue with the rest of the game.

There are five different playable factions in the game; NASA, ESA, UN, PRC and the Shimizu Corporation. They have some different abilities like the UN getting money when anyone prospects or industrializes a site or ESA who can boost a rockets thrust by one, thanks to their laser powersats. Each also have a crew card that can be used for prospecting and some other stuff. What you first need to do when the game starts is get a rocket going as that is the main way of getting around the solar system. The game ends when there's a set number of factories built (usually two per player) at which time you calculate victory points that you get from how much you've been able to industrialize, from glory missions (like being the first to get your crew to Mars and back) and from "Space Ventures". At it's very core this is a (space) racing game.

In the base game there are only three kinds of parts, or patents, available through research. Thrusters, robonauts and refineries. You need thrusters to go anywhere (although some robonauts also have thrusters), you need robonauts for serious prospecting (they're much better than your crew) and you need a refinery to turn your prospected claim into an industrialized site (a site being anything from a small asteroid to the majestic plains of Mars). Researching in the game takes the form of an auction for the different patent cards and the one who bids the highest gets the card in question. Of course, currency in this game takes the form of Water Tanks that are used both in auctions as well as for refuelling your rocket and boosting stuff into orbit. Anyway, just slapping everything together and heading for the stars is usually not a good idea as that creates a rocket with very high mass that takes lots of propellant to get moving. If you have managed to find a thruster with very low fuel consumption, like the Metastable Helium thruster pictured right you might be able to do it, but even then you'll have to plan your expedition well.

ESA is running a more traditional rocket using the VASIMR thruster.
Don't worry about the generator and reactor... we'll get to those later.

Most of the time you start by going out just with a thruster and a robonaut to prospect some promising sites that you've had your eye on. This is not an automatic process and depending on the robonaut you are using there are many sites you simply can't try to prospect, and others that might be too small to chance it. Once you've got an interesting prospect or two claimed you leave your robonaut there, and start working on getting a refinery to the site in question as both are required for industrialization. If you have enough propellant left, or if refuelling in situ is an option you could go back and pick up the refinery. You could also decommission your thruster and simply boost a new one together with your refinery. Costly perhaps, but you might save time in the long run and don't forget that this is a race!

You also need to keep in mind the spectral type of the site as this decides which of your patents you can upgrade and make better versions of in your space factory. If you've industrialized a stony (S) site you can do a production action and flip one of your S cards over to its black side, which will give you a more powerful/effective thruster, a better robonaut or a refinery with some special benefits. So as you prospect more sites and build more space factories you can slowly upgrade your rocket with black cards that allow you to reach further and accomplish more!

As you industrialize a site you can also construct a simple "tea kettle" freighter that can hold one card in its hold and move one burn per turn, freeing up your rocket to do the heroic stuff instead of simply shipping parts around. This helps with logistics as you need to move one black part from a factory to where you're rocket is going, or back to Earth to sell.

More sites are being prospected and industralized.

Then as the fourth or sixth or seventh factory is built the game ends and you tally up your points. This might seem a little anti-climactic but remember that this is the tutorial game only, and all the really great stuff is coming later. Still the first few times you play this is more than enough to boggle your mind. Player interaction in the base game is usually limited to indirect action like buying patent cards your opponent dearly crave, prospect a site before your opponent get there or brokering deals for patents or assistance during the game. There is no direct confrontation possible, although the PCR can "claim jump" and steal other players prospect claims!

It's worth mentioning that the play reports I linked to above were played only using the tutorial rules. Now let's have a look at the full game.

The Full Game

Actually, it's called the advanced game, but that sounds misleading. This is simply the full version of the game and how it is meant to be played. Now we're getting into expansion territory, so let's talk a little bit about that first. At the same time the basic game was released in 2010 an expansion containing the parts needed to play the full game was released - some more cards and a second game board that extended the play area to include Jupiter and Saturn, as well as containing information about events and space politics. This is the original "Advanced Game".

However, it has been out of print for quite a while now and the new Colonization expansion contains everything from the original expansion plus some additional stuff that makes it even cooler, so this is the version I will be covering. For all intents and purposes I will continue writing the review as if the original expansion didn't exist in the first place. Just for simplicity's sake.

The eight different patent and colonists cards as well as the VP board, Sunspot cycle and Polity tracker. 

In the full game quite a few new concepts are introduced. Some of them core to the entire experience and some in a modular format that allows you to pick and choose which you want to play with (although, I personally wouldn't play without all of them). The core elements are the addition of three more patent support cards: reactors, generators and radiators. In the full game many of the thrusters, robonauts and refineries require support cards to run. A thruster might require an electric generator or a burst plasma reactor with two therms of cooling provided by radiators! So instead of just picking your favourite thruster and robonaut and get going you need to make sure they are powered and have enough cooling.

This is an entire game in itself as you want to build as efficiantly as possible. Having a thruster that needs a pulsed generator while your robonaut needs an electric generator might not be a good combination for example. If they both use the same generator you just need to bring one along to power both parts. So you'll spend a lot more time cajiggering with your rocket than in the base game. On one hand it's trickier, on the other you have a lot more options for making cool combinations and making thrusters that rarely get used in the base game actually workable thanks to efficient support cards. Getting a half-decent rocket together is one of my favourite parts of High Frontier and it's a great feeling when you manage to get something together that will actually get you where you need to go!

PRC has constructed a better solar sail, a nanobot robonaut and a lighter refinery using his space factories. For further exploitation of the Solar system! His promoted Bernal is still in its start orbit at Earth-Luna L3 with the Botany Bay convicts on board.

You will also need to keep an eye on the rad-hardness of your parts. Flying through radiation belts (like the one surrounding Earth!) can be risky if your parts aren't well shielded or if you're going slowly. And even if you pass through all right there's the ever present risk of a freak Solar flare or coronal mass-ejection which can fry your electronics. So keep the rad-hardness in mind. Especially if flying during the Red Sector.

Red Sector?! What the hell is that! Yepp, another core element of the full game is the Sunspot Cycle. It consists of twelve spots in a ring and every time the first player takes his turn you move a marker to the next spot in the ring. It is divided into three different cycles which can have different effects (red=solar flares, blue=election year, yellow=budget cuts) and every other spot comes with an event that you need to roll for. An event affects all players and can be anything from glitches in your rocket to pad explosions to government elections. There are ways to protect yourself from many of these things but you need to plan for them nevertheless.

During an election all the players make a bid and the highest player gets to move the polity marker one space. This can have different effects depending on where it moves and if it moves into the spot of a certain faction, say PRC's Press Gangs, it will be worth VPs at the end of the game. The marker can also be moved into anarchy and war. And yes, during war you can attack other players rockets and factories, using your robonauts and thrusters (as missiles)! I have yet to actually see any combat in the game, but it's a very real danger.

Besides these core concepts Colonization also introduces four new card modules: Freighters, Bernals, Colonists and Gigawatt Thrusters, and a new endgame module. So let's take a quick look at each of these.

• Freighters. Using this module you don't automatically build a freighter when industrializing. Instead it is patent card that you need to research and then build at one of your factories. There are five different freighters with different capabilities. They have different movement and different sized hold. They can also be promoted to their purple side, making them more effective and providing a Future (more on this later). 

• Bernals. A Bernal Sphere is gigantic space habitat in the vein of the O'neill Cylinder or the Stanford Torus and if you play with this module each player has a Bernal in a starting orbit near Earth. It functions kind of like a second rocket, except it's very heavy and slow to move around. If you promote it, by giving it a generator, it flips to its purple side and it can then move by itself as well as provide some special abilities. If it's placed adjacent to one or more of your industrialized sites it's said to have these sites as dirtsides, meaning you can produce directly to the Bernal. Basically it becomes your base away from low Earth orbit.

• Colonists. There's a deck of colonist cards that you can recruit. Each of them functions pretty much like your original crew card, except they all have special abilities and some of them have built in reactors or generators. Bust most importantly, the provide you with extra actions during your turn! They also provide votes that are added to the players bids during an election (voting for the faction they areactually loyal to, which may or may not be the faction you're playing) and all of them can be promoted to their purple side, with some of them providing Futures. There are also some Robot Colonists that need to be built at a factory. They work a little differently and can't vote unless someone has performed the Suffrage Operation to give basic human rights to them, in which case they always vote for their Emancipator (awesome, right?!).

• Gigawatt Thrusters. These are similar to your regular megawatt thrusters from the base game except they need to be built at a factory and they are stingy with their propellant - if it's an S GW Thruster it can only refuel at an S site. However they are very powerful and with one of these babies you can seriously start considering going beyond Saturn towards Uranus and Nepune. They can also be upgraded to their purple, Terawatt Thruster, side which is even more powerul and which also provides a Future.

• Endgame Module. I've talked a lot about promoting and Futures. What is that? Well, all these four card modules really come together in the Endgame Module and this is why I feel it would be weird only playing with Bernals or only Colonists. You can promote a card by building a Lab and taking the card there. A Lab is any industrialized site at a trans-Neptunian science site... and they are pretty hard to get to. Your Bernal also becomes a Lab if it has a dirtside at any science site, which is normally easier to achieve. 

Many promoted cards provide Futures, and this is the new endgame condition of the game. In a two player game the game ends after the first Future is achieved or attempted. In a three player game it's after the second Future, and so on. So wha tis a Future? It is basically some neat sci-fi idea that you need to accomplish to show that humanity is carving its mark on the universe. Perhaps you need to build aerostat factories on both Saturn and Uranus, or maybe you need to try and create a mini black hole with one of your scientists, or it could be that you want to strap a Gigawatt Thruster to a comet and crash it into the Earth (ending the game with a bang!). If you succeed at a Future you get some VPs and the game is one step closer to ending.

And... that's about it. Sorry for getting a bit rules heavy there at the end, but I felt it was needed to get the scope across. Right now it might seem like all these things would be impossible to remember and keep separated in your head during play, but if you start out with the tutorial game and wrap your head around rocket flight 101 you shouldn't have any problem graduating to the full game!

Both ESA and PRC have managed to create labs at their Bernals as their dirtsides (at comet Elst-Pizarro and the subsurface ocean of Callisto, respectively) are Science sites. Some cards have been promoted already, like ESA's Frankenstein Navigators at bottom right. Now it's time to start looking at available Futures!

It's might be worth mentioning here that Phil has also constructed High Frontier: Interstellar which is a print-and-play sequal to Colonization where you use the resources you created there to move around the stars in generation ships. You could also start from the beginning with Bios: Megafauna, use the creatures you create there as the basis for your culture in Origins: How We Became Human, use the end of that game as the starting foundation to High Frontier and finally play Interstallar. Pretty neat!

My Thoughts

So with the workings of the game figured out what do I actually think of it. Short answer: High Frontier is my favourite board game. Full stop.

Long answer: High Frontier was a real eye-opener for me as a board gamer, or gamer in general. I've always been a fan of a strong theme in games and in the past that is why used to found myself oogling the stuff FFG et al with all the mountains of plastic and bright shiny cards. The word theme gets bandied about a lot and for many, including myself a few years ago, theme means just that - nice components. I've played most of FFG's games at one time or another, and I do like some nice components but a true thematic experience comes through the integration between theme and mechanics and there is often a disconnect there. That doesn't have to be a bad thing necessarily. Lords of Waterdeep is still a good game, even though the theme is just a thin veneer. And no matter how great looking the room tiles and miniatures are for Mansions of Madness it's a long way from actually sneaking through a haunted house.

ESA succeed in moving the Polity marker to the left, away from war and anarchy.

So where am I going with this? I think I said it in my firt impressions-article on Bios: Megafauna, and that is that when Phil makes a game he does it with the approach of a simulationist - as in 'how could I realistically portray function X in board game terms? Like, how do I simulate realistic rocket flight on a game board?'. In a game like Firefly, that has no aspirations to scientific realism, you simply move a number of spaces and draw some cards. In High Frontier all the trajectories, burn circles and Hohmann intersections are calculated correctly as well as thrust, fuel consumption, radiation strength etc and then the game is extrapolated from that. Again, let me quote from the Game Scale section of the rulebook:

• A thrust of one is 0.75 kN (750 newtons, or 169lbs, the weight of the game designer on Earth!). Each additional point doubles this.

• An acceleration of one is 0.38 milligees or 0.38 cm/sec², and each step more doubles this.

• A size one world has a surface gravity of 0.75 milligees, and each additional step doubles this. Size 1 worlds have the following diameters based on density: comet nucleus 52 km (only Centaur comets approach this size), S-type asteroid 22 km, M-type asteroid 14 km.

• Beamed power emits a 60 MW laser beam. Generators produce 60 MWe of electricity. Reactors produce from 650-2000 MWth of thermal energy, either in neutrons, pions, or plasma jets. Each therm radiates 120 MWth of heat. (Subscript e = electricity, th = thermal).

• Each burn requires a delta-v (velocity change) of 2.5 km/sec. Each brachistochrone is 5.0 km/sec.

• A solar flare die roll of 1 is an M1 flare with an X-ray power density of 10^-5 Watts/m². Each point more is 4 times this. Thus, a die roll of 6 is a X95 (Carrington-class) flare with a power density of 10^-2 Watts/m².

-High Frontier rulebook, page 13.

This might look scary to the casual observer, but remember that this is all under the hood calculations that have been wrested into a (relatively) easy to understand board game. It's just a great feeling to play the game and know that all the underpinnings are not simply numbers crunched to fit the game, but actual "real" numbers that the game has been wrapped around. And this design principle goes through the entire game, and all the other Sierra-Madre games I've played!

What this means is that the theme and mechanics of the game are so deeply integrated with eachother as to be virtually unseparable. For example, there is simply no way of re-theming High Frontier into anything other than a game about rocket flight and space industrialization, and the same thing goes for Bios: Megafauna. You might change the map around and give the parts different names perhaps, but you wouldn't be able to turn it from a game about rockets to a game about cooking food (something which can't be said of Lords of Waterdeep for example).

To win (or at least end the game) PRC need to create some antimatter! They can do this by using a promoted engineer at a factory on a science site and succeed with an "Epic Hazard Op" - meaning they need to roll anything but a 1 on a die.

Ok, so I've taken a long time to say that the theme is a core part of the game and not simply an afterthought. Great. But what about the game? Is it fun? That is the other thing. Not only is the theme well executed but the mechanics work not only as a simulation but as an actual competetive board game. Yes, I'll be the first to admit that I was a bit daunted when I first started reading the rulebook, but that is more about me not being familiar with this style of writing rather than it being a bad rulebook. The first time you go through it nothing will seem to make sense at the start, but by the time you finish it it has all become clear. Then read it again with your new eyes and you will discover how clever the design is. 

While FFG might make rulebooks that are better at introducing the game they are rubbish as reference tools. Sierra-Madre rulebooks on the other hand can be tricky to read the first time through, but then work great while you are actually playing and need to look up a particular rule or two. Especially with the new Alive and Complete version of the rulebook available for download.

I'm a big space exploration and rocket enthusiast so naturally High Frontier would appeal to me. The game might be a hard sell to players who are not as interested, but the actual game is meaty enough to get anyone hooked if they can just get past the inital learning hump. Most people will struggle with basic rocket movement for their first few turns, or their first game, but once it clicks you start looking at that map with whole different eyes!

At the same time ESA is racing to get their scientist to their Bernal where they would be able to score a Future! They're currently in low Earth orbit though. Will they make it?!

The tutorial game is a sandbox and this too can be daunting because there is no hand-holding involved. Nothing telling you exactly what to do or where to go. You need to decide what mission to undertake yourself, based on the patent cards in your hand. It requires planning and patience and going off half-cocked is usually a good way of stranding your crew. Still, the base game is limited in time. Usually, by the time you start getting to the really good stuff, like factory produced thrusters and robonauts the game is about to end. You rarely get to play with your new toys more than a dozen turns or so.

The full game changes all of this. If the tutorial game is a sandbox this is a desert! The sunspot cycle with its events and the polity tracker plays a large role in how the game will evolve and using the support cards means that you will see a lot more different rockets being used. These core concepts alone takes the game to the next level, but then adding Colonists and Bernals etc really helps making the game epic! These modules also help to make the game world feel more alive and as you play you can't help but make little stories in your head. While the tutorial game can be a little clinical in its execution the full expansion experience is gritty reality! You can really feel those Attican Secessionists who want to declare independance from Earth or your Bernal hauling new technology from its dirtside factories. It makes not only for a great gaming experience, but for a great storytelling experience as well!

PRC is quicker to get their Future and the game end shortly after. Counting the victory points it's a close race, but the PRC come out the winner, thanks to the 12 points for completing the firt Future!

The politics and deal-making of the game is also something to be mentioned. The first few times you play you'll usually be too busy making sure your rocket isn't exploding to really pay detailed attention to what the other factions are up to. But as you progress in the game and learn more about the different patents and good paths through the Solar system political and economical maneuverings will start taking place. Buying and withholding  a patent card critical to an opponent suddenly becomes an effective tactic (especially if you play the Shimizu corp.). You can make all kinds of deal throughout the game, like paying for an extra boost from ESA or trade patents.

The Political tracker might seem like a quaint detail mostly centred on theme at first, but getting the Polity disc into one of the spots providing special rules, like only allowing NASA to initiatie research, or banning any and all reactors can have quite an impact on the game. Not to mention anarchy and war - whenever the political climate turn into anarchy every player starts to eye the board for chances of stealing other factions claims!

The game usually starts out slowly with everyone getting their bearings and start working out plans on where to go and how to get there. During the mid-phase there might be some struggle for patent cards and sites to prospect and during the last phase it's all about getting your lab up and running to be able to promote cards to get some Futures available. It's more of a marathon than a sprint, but High Frontier is certainly a race!

I mentioned it at the start: this is my favourite board game, and I've tried to convey why in this article. It is tough to get into, the rulebook and the graphical design of the game might look odd to you the first time you encounter it, but if you persevere and actually learn the game you will be richly rewarded both in regards to a thematic, immersive experience as well as a tight racing game focusing on resources and maneuvers.

I really can't recommend the game enough, and it only gets better with Colonization. Get it!

Read More

4 comments

Review of Age of Conan the Board Game

I've been lazy in this review and just nicked pictures from BGG. Sorry.

Age of Conan was one of the Nexus Games/Fantasy Flight Games joint releases that had all kinds of cool things going for it: the designers of War of the Ring, beautiful components, artwork from the comics and, of course, the Conan license itself, yet it kind of puttered out and dissappeared from the radar fairly quickly. It received generally favourable reviews but still failed to make an impact and it often shows up in FFG's holiday sales (together with Android).

I think there are a couple of reasons for this. Number one seems to have been that you don't actually get to play as Conan. The game is a strategic wargame where Conan acts as an unpredictable force of nature that you have to take into account as you plan your moves, it's not an intimate dungeon crawler or skirmish game that some people seem to have expected. They wanted to decapitate enemies and claim scantily clad princesses as their prize! Number two, it was overshadowed by two other games released by FFG just a couple of months later: Chaos in the Old World and Middle-Earth Quest. Both these games used a setting with a larger fanbase than Conan and in a way they're probably more accessible. They were also announced just as Age of Conan was hitting the streets and I imagine a lot of potential buyers decided to hold onto their money and wait for one of those instead of splurging on Conan.

The release schedule was unfortunate. As for the game format, well... it's just that playing as Conan wouldn't be much fun... except for the Conan player. Perhaps it could be made into a two player adversarial game a'la Descent with one player controlling Conan and the other a bunch evil Stygians or something, but still, I think setting the game during the Hyborian age and have Conan as an imporant component but not actually a controllable game piece (well... more on that later) was a genious move by the designers.

Speaking of the designers - Roberto Di Meglio, Marco Maggi and Francesco Nepitello - they together created War of the Ring, currently ranked 2nd/4th best thematic game and 16th best game overall at board game geek. A big part of that game's popularity was it's strict adherence to the setting. Nothing felt tacked on as every mechanic was well integrated with the Tolkien theme. It was apparent that the designers knew what they were doing when it came to handling Tolkien. Naturally Nexus and FFG hoped they could do the same for the Conan setting.

With that little introduction out of the lets have a look at the actual game!

How it Looks and Feels

Age of Conan comes in one of FFG's medium+ size boxes, just like War of the Ring. It's not as huge as Runewars, Twilight Imperium or (the first edition of) Descent, but slightly larger than Arkham Horror and Fury of Dracula. It has a pretty decent insert that I've actually kept, which is rare for me, and is filled with plastic goodies! The gameboard is a map of Hyboria with extra spaces for cards, dice and the Empire (victory) point track. I think the board is beautiful! The colours are sort of muted and there are lots of small details that really brings the theme to the forefront. I'd say it's comparable in many ways to the board in Chaos in the Old World which also brings out the theme.

There are some different cards as well; Strategy cards which allow you to influcnce both military and intrigue contests, Kingdom cards which are unique to each faction and consist of dirty tricks and special events, Adventure cards which shows what Conan is up to and Objective cards that are well... objectives in the game. The cards have the same kind of muted colour scheme as the game board and use artwork from some of the classic Conan comics which is pretty cool!

Of course, what you've been waiting for is the plastic minis! You get quite a few of them: 24 per faction plus nine each of forts and towers. Each faction have unique miniatures so the Stygian soldiers and emissaries are different from Turan's or Aquilonia's. They are all great sculpts though and provide a huge amount of character to the game! In fact I liked them so much that I started painting mine. So far only the Aquilonians are done but I think I might have found the inspiration to continue with the rest. The towers and forts are the same across factions, which is a bit of a pity, but in the end they're not as important as the other miniatures. The buildings are of a nice blocky design and has a slight Egyptian or Sumerian feel to them which I think fits the theme well. They snap together to make a city which is a nice touch.

The dice come in two varieties: the purple Fate Dice that you use for determining your action during your turn and the red Contest dice that you use in military and intrigue contests. They are dice so not much to say there, however the icons again help to bring the theme to the forefront (lots of blood splatter and axes on the Contest dice!) which is nice.

Finally we have an assortment of tokens, although not as many as some other FFG games. They do their job and share the same colour palette as the rest of the game.

I was very impressed by the visual design of the game and it's still one of my favourites when it comes a strong theme. For example, Runewars look great on the table with nice looking miniatures and board, but it doesn't have the same "weight" as Age of Conan. It looks like a colourful board game whereas Age of Conan looks like something you might actually find in the sands around Zamora! I'm using hyperbole here, but I hope you understand what I mean.


Basic Gameplay

There are four factions in the game: Aquilonia, Turan, Hyberboria and Stygia. You start the game with a few soldiers and emissaries in your home kingdom as well as a couple of cards and, if you're playing Hyperboria or Stygia, some Sorcery tokens than can be used for re-rolls. The game is played in three "Ages" and in each Age there are four objectives open for grabs. They give you victory points, which you also get from conquering other provinces.

At the start of the game the first player rolls the seven Fate dice to see which actions are available. The different actions you can take in a turn are printed on the dice and when it's your turn you take one of the available Fate dice and perform its designated action. This provides an element of uncertainty to the game as you can rarely be sure if the action you want to perform will be available to you. Figuring out which of your opponents want which Fate die is also an imporant part of the meta-game as it can allow you to block or delay certain strategies. The system works the same as The War of the Ring only there are four players instead of two.

There are three actions you can take and there are several different options on how to perform each action. The Military Action allows you to move armies around, attack or (as a last resort) recruit two army units. The Intrigue Action allows you to move your emissaries around the board or use one to take over a neighbouring province using diplomatic means. Finally the Court + Conan Action allows you to draw cards, play certain of your own Kingdom Cards as well as influence Conan in some way or another (more on that later).

The main gameplay revolves around the Military and Intrigue actions. You only get victory points for conquering other provinces but it can be a relatively long and costly affair; each province has a number of terrain icons on it and each of these represents a battle. You can either try to attack one of these icons per turn, or do a 'forced march' - sacrificing one of your units to attack again immediately. This means that a military attack is quite a commitment and might very well run for two or three turns. You can mitigate this with your special Kingdom cards that might allow you to force march for free, or give you an extra military unit, but it's still a large undertaking. That you can have a maximum of five units in an army makes losses hurt badly and even though the resolution mechanic favours the attacker you really want all the insurances you can get when you go into battle. The actual battle system is a jazzed up Risk but with the ability to modify the rolls with strategy cards played from your hand, as long as the terrain icon on the card matches the one you're actually fighting on. If you win the entire campaign you remove one of your soldier units and replace it with a fort, which gives you victory points.

The obelisk is used to show Conan's current destination.

Intrigue on the other hand is a lot quicker and easier. You roll against the province's resistance and you get more dice for every neighbouring province you control or that has one of your emissaries in it. If you win the roll you immediately take control of the province by placing a tower there. You also get gold equal to the province's resistance. However, this does not give you any victory points and the tower prevents you from building a fort there (since that can only be done after a successfull conquest). It does provide you with instant gold as well as more gold in the Age change phase. So a common strategy is to take over several provinces with intrigue actions during the first Age so you get enough gold to buy a large army for use in the second and third Age.

During each Age change phase (of which there are two) you first resolve Raider tokens (see below), then check to see who claims which objective and adjust the Empire points track accordingly. Then you receive gold for each of your towers and cities and you get a troop unit at each fort or city. If you want you can forego this unit to upgrade a fort into a city, which is usually a good idea. You get to spend your gold as you wish on soldiers, emissaries and cards and then the next age begins. At the end of the third Age the game is over and you calculate your final Empire point score by adding up all your current provinces as well as getting bonus points for various things like having most gold, having won most player versus player battles etc.

The Role of Conan

"So what about Conan?!" I hear you say. He plays a pivotal role in the game and several things hinge upon his doings. I've talked about the three Ages in the game, so how long is each age? As long as it takes Conan to complete four adventures. Each Age Conan will have four adventures and before each adventure the players vye for "control" of him. This is a simple bidding mechanic and is actually one of the few elements of the game I don't like; while it works from a game perspective it doesn't have a connection to the theme. I don't get to control Conan because I offered the most money or the prettiest princess, I get to control Conan because I bid the token with the highest number. You could try to rationalise this by calling the tokens political influence or something, but in the end it comes down as gamey in an otherwise very thematic product.

Anyway, the winner of the bid gets to control Conan's movement across Hyboria. The Adventure cards tell you what adventure he's currently undertaking, ie where he wants to go and what kind of rewards are available in the form of Adventure tokens. Each adventure has three to five Adventure tokens drawn randomly and they can be monsters, treasure or women. The player controlling Conan choose where to move him at the beginning of his turn and is free to move him to any adjacent province. However if Conan moves closer to his adventure destination the controlling player get to collect one Adventure token. These tokens are then used at certain points in the game, most importantly in the third Age when you can use them to try and crown Conan as king of your realm. If you succeed in this you get some advantages during victory point calculations and if you don't Conan simply cuts your head off and you are out of the game!

So most of the time the player controlling Conan wants to move him closer to the adventure destination. Of course Conan is a cunning warrior and a brilliant general so if he's on your side in a battle there are all kinds of bonuses, so sometimes it might be worth foregoing an Adventure token to use Conan in a nearby battle or siege. The Conan player can also use the Court + Conan action to move Conan an additional step as well as placing a Raider token in a nearby province. These tokens represent Conan's presence stirring up trouble and will cost you either Empire points or soldiers to get rid of. If another player picks the Court + Conan action he simply takes the next Adventure token in line, basically allowing you to snipe high value token beore the Conan player gets them.

Conan with a few Raider tokens nearby.

At the end of the game the players with most monster, treasure and women tokens get bonus points, unless Conan has been crowned king in which case only the crowning player can get any of these points. You also use them during the Age change phase to bid for three powerful artifacts that can help you in different ways.

My Thoughts

Age of Conan is a different beast from most other warfare board games (that I've played). It plays kind of slowly and it's important to have at least the outlines of a plan for the coming Age. I like how you have to fight through an entire campaign to conquer another province and the different terrain again is a nod to the theme. The balance between military conquest to build forts, and later cities, and the easy money of erecting towers through intrigue is great as it really forces you to think ahead.

As a rule of thumb it's a good idea to try and roughly plan out how to act during the coming age to allow you to claim objectives and maximize your income during the Age change phase. However you will have to modify your plan according to the Fate dice and, of course, the actions of the other players. There is a slow buildup as you start to expand outwards and it's usually not until the second or third Age where battles between players will become common.

Then there's Conan himself to consider. He acts as a force of nature, constantly moving through Hyboria with his own goals in mind. He is not an I win-button but rather an opportunity to take advantage of, he can certainly turn the tide if used correctly. And if you're having trouble expanding your Kingdom you can instead try to gain control of Conan often and hopefully amass lots of Adventure tokens which would set you up for possible Conan coronation. There's an excellent example of this in this session report.

I haven't talked much about the Kingdom cards that are unique to each faction, but they also bring a lot of the theme into the game and serve to differentiate how the factions work. Just last week Mats as Hyperboria managed to get a whole bunch of his powerful Kingdom cards in play and they helped convey the Hyperborians as a sinister, sorcerous faction who don't even shy from necromancy!

As for the flaws of the game, there are a couple. I've already mentioned the gamey feel of simply bidding for Conan with some un-thematic tokens, and this extends, to a lesser degree, to the actual adventures. While they serve their function well I wouldn't have minded some more detailing. They are, undoubtably, the greatest source of theme for the game and I think they could have been more thematic than simply being a destination and four or five tokens drawn at random. Having Conan as a kind of wandering NPC is a great mechanic, but I do think the game would have benefited from fleshing out his role more. However this is a flaw from a thematic standpoint only, not from a gameplay standpoint.

Something else that is not necessarily a flaw, but something to keep in mind is that the game can be fairly low in player interaction in the beginning. Or rather, the player interaction comes from indirect things, like blocking a particular action or bidding higher for Conan rather than direct military conflict. I have no problem with this but it's worth mentioning.

There was an expansion waiting to get produced by Nexus Games (ie the design was done) but unfortunately they went under before it saw the light of day. Apparently it addressed the issues I mentioned above by making Conan and his adventures more detailed, even having him in his different "life phases" - thief, warrior, general, king - as well as systems rewarding earlier player versus player aggression. Although I'm sad it never got published I also think that Age of Conan is an excellent game just the way it is.

EDIT: And here we are, two years later and through deal with FFG Ares Games have acquired all the leftover stock as well as the rights to Age of Conan. Of course, the guys at Ares are the original designers so it's back in its rightfull hands one might say. And finally we have the expansion! It's called Adventures in Hyboria and features new rules for Conan as well as a bunch of other stuff. Kickstarter (already funded) currently happening right here! Oh, and it's an excellent way of getting the base game as well if you already don't own it.

Conclusion

It all boils down to this: Age of Conan is a solid wargame set in the world of Hyboria with Conan playing an important part. I love to see different games exploring the same setting, and to me this is the large scale political view of Hyboria during the age of Conan. You could play the RPG from Mongoose if you want to experience the visceral "first person" perspective which I don't think a board game could capture properly anyway. I'm a great fan of the setting and Howard's short stories and I really hope this is not the last we've seen of Conan in board game form.

If you are looking for a wargame at the lighter end of the spectrum (as in, not ASL) which rewards planning ahead and strategic thinking Age of Conan might be for you. If you also happen to be a fan of the setting then it's definitely a game for you. If you also consider the fact that you can often find it for a good price thanks to FFG's holiday sales then it's simply a no brainer, by Crom!

Read More

2 comments