Marvel Dice Masters - First Encounter

The other night I had the chance to play a couple of games of Marvel Dice Masters. It was described to me as Dominion with Dice, now I don't know Dominion but I have played a couple of games of Trains, and I can kind of see what my friend was getting at.

This post isn't really a review, I don't think that I got deep enough it to do that fairly, but more my initial thoughts on the game and how I saw it working, and they may not be entirely accurate...

The game is a dice building game, you start off with a pool of fairly limited dice and then you buy other dice to add to your pool. It seems to take several dice to buy another die, and the die you buy will typically be more powerful than than those that were used to buy it. The die that you have bought and the dice you used to buy it will all eventually end up in the pool you can draw from. Therefore as the game progress you ramp up in terms of the quantity and power of your dice pool.

In a bit more detail you actually have several pools of dice and the dice flow between them as you perform various actions. You have a bag full of dice to draw from, a pool of used dice (that will be used to refill the bag when it is empty), a pool of dice representing "knocked out" characters (a "prep area" is what the game calls it, so it might have uses other than I saw), a pool of dice representing characters you have fielded and a pool of dice that you have just rolled (the "reserve").

You start the game with a number of characters on your team (two in the case of our starting game) and each of those will have a number of dice that you can buy that represent them (I think that they come with two dice each). There are also some cards in the middle for generic upgrades that either player can buy.

Each turn you draw four dice from your draw pool add any that were in the "knocked out" (prep) pool and roll them into your "reserve". The dice have lots of different symbols on them that do different things. The uses that I can recall are:

• If it represents a character then you can pay energy to bring them into play (move them into your "fielded" pool).
• Provide energy that you can spend to buy new dice or field a character. There are a number of different energy types and also wildcards. To buy a die you need to have at least one die that provides the energy type that they require and the numbers must add up to the number printed on the card/die.
• Provide an effect that boosts attacks.

Once you've used the dice that you have rolled you can then attack your opponent, you push forward some or all of the dice from your play area and your opponent can then react by assigning characters from their own play area to fight back. Your characters have damage and defence statistics and both attacker and defenders will attempt to damage each other. The outcomes seem to be:

• If an attacker takes more damage than their defence they are moved to the pool.
• If an attacker takes less damage than their defence they are moved back to the "play" area.
• If an attacker does not have a blocker than their damage is applied to the opponent, you have a certain number of "hit points" and loose the game when you take them all.

There are a few implications to this...

• Having a knocked out attacker or defender isn't necessarily a bad thing, they go into your "knocked out" pool and you'll add them to your roll in the next round. So you can roll a load of dice, which you can use to buy loads of things.
• You don't seem to ever actually loose a character, their die will be somewhere in your pool, your pool is only ever going to get bigger
• If a blocker is assigned to an attacker then none of the damage will get through to the opponent. So if you have one low level mook defending against a low level mook and the Incredible Hulk then you're better off blocking the Hulk. The Hulk would do far more damage to you than the mook will if he's not given a blocker.

The second game...

This photo shows my situation just before the game ended (the matt isn't included in the starter set, but it seems very helpful). What you can see:

• I chose Thor and Iron Man as my two characters for the game. They come with two dice, I've managed to buy one of each.
• I've managed to get a Thor and an Iron Man die into my field zone.
• I've rolled more than four dice, the previous turn I had some low level mooks that I used to block some attacks. They got knocked out to my "Prep Area" and I therefore rerolled them alongside the four I drew from my dice bag.

My next step is to attack, I attack with both Thor and Iron Man (this itself is free) the two characters from my "Field Zone". My opponent had just a Hulk to oppose them... But characters have special abilities, and Thor's is that characters of Hulk's type (bashing?) can't block his attacks. So my opponent couldn't block Thor's attack, and Thor's attack was big (characters can have levels, I'd rolled the highest level Thor and paid a lot to have him ready to use). Therefore all of Thor's attack was applied to my opponents hit points and he was knocked out of the game.

Conclusions...

• We played the games in about half an hour or so each, which included me learning it from scratch and some rules look ups. I think that "proper" games involve more characters and more hit points per side so might take longer
• It seemed pretty abstract at the time, but typing this up has helped me think about it and it does all make a kind of sense.
• Things escalate quite quickly, one you buy more dice you can then buy even more next time around.
• Timing your attacks is crucial. If my opponent had even one low level mook available then none of Thor's attack would have made it through to his hit points.

So, would I play it again? Yes I would. It does seem quite fiddly but once you've played through it and are able to just follow each step while also having a bit of knowledge about what you need to do for the future then it clicks together.

I'd really recommend the play mat though, not only does it look quite nice but it also really helps to understand how the game flows.

Solo Gaming Review - Aether Captains (Print & Play)

Bit quiet round these parts isn't it? Thought I'd liven things up with a quick look at a solitaire game I've just tried out. This one brings another aspect of the hobby into focus though, and that is print & play games. Oddly it was a print & play game that kind of led me back to boardgames by pointing me in the direction of Boardgamegeek, that game was Zombie in my Pocket, and for a free game it certainly has cost me a lot of money.

Anyway, print & play games are, if you are unable to make the logical leap, games you can print out and play. They are quite often free, though some are available to buy, and there are also many, many solo games, in part because of the solo print and play design contest that runs on boardgamegeek. Some of them are as simple as a single sheet of paper, others require days of spray glueing  and cutting out strangely shaped pieces of card. I'm not sure why it appeals to me, part of it is the craft which I find relaxing, part of it is the 'free' games, and the instant availability...though they are generally neither free or instant due to the time and components.

I could waffle on all day, but I should really get to the game in question. This one if Aether Captains, the first in a series of games designed by the prolific Todd Sanders on Boardgamegeek. Todd seems to create, or redesign a new game every few weeks, or at least it seems like that, and he has a really nice touch when it comes to artwork. Seriously check his stuff out, the Barbarian Prince redesign is outstanding, I have a mostly finished copy to try soon.

So the description reads:

"As commander of the the HMS Dauntless, you have been tasked by the Emperor to find and destroy merciless air pirates threatening the skies of the world. With your staunch crew of steam welders, engineers you fly with honor into battle"
Aether Captains is a solo, steampunk themed, dice game. You take on the role of a commander of a worthy, air-going, zeppelin, battling a wave of attacking air pirates.

Mmmmmm steampunky..... It really was the theme that got me, plus the components are cool.

The game uses 1" wooden cubes for the pieces, depicting the various craft and the damage inflicted on them, some also being rolled as dice though a D12 is required for most even resolution.

Above is the initial setup, with my airship vertical down the middle, plus the various attackers laying in to different sections. The enemy cubes are rolled to determine some random enemy craft, which are then placed randomly using the D12, so you should get a nice range of starting points.

After this the game follows a simple set of five phases which are repeated until either all the enemies are destroyed, or four of your airship sections are showing maximum damage. The damage to your ship sections is shown by rotating the cubes, which affects the target values you need to roll for attack and defense, and can also reduce the range of guns if they are available on that section.

All resolution using the D12 is simply rolling over a target value, so rolling greater than the red value on one of your airship sections is a successful attack, and rolling greater than one of the blue values is a successful defense. The same goes for the enemy attack rolls, plus some other rolls for moving the airship, or repairing sections that are damaged.

The phases are:

1. Air Pirate attack and your defense - each enemy gets a chance to attack the section it is adjacent to, and you get to defend, any damage is recorded by rotating the cubes.
2. Air Pirate movement - the D12 is used to randomly move the enemies, they will either move one space clockwise or anticlockwise, or remain where they are.
3. Your movement or attack - this is where you can fight back, some of the cubes have gun emplacements, with a range displayed in black squares. Each gun can fire once at an enemy that is in range, on the same side of the airship as the gun. If you choose not to attack, you can shift the airship one space backwards or forwards, as long as you don't leave an enemy behind in doing so, this helps bring guns into range and move damaged sections away from attack.
4. Your repairs - you can attempt to repair a section by rolling greater than the current repair number.
5. Crew re-roll - the next picture shows the game further along, and includes the crew die which is rolled at the end of each round of phases. Depending on the crew result, you gain various bonuses or dice modifiers which can be used in the next round. 

Rinse and repeat, and you are done. It plays pretty quickly, and there aren't a huge number of decisions to be made, and Todd has stated that it's one of the first real designs he uploaded, and he considers it a bit rough around the edges. It's a pleasant enough distraction though, and I like it enough to try out some of the expansions which have been created by both the designer, and fans of the game. 

Don't bother if you want a game of deep strategy, but if the theme appeals, and you just want to chuck some dice around for ten minutes it's not a bad option. I did have the wooden cubes handy though, so it wasn't much effort on my part to build.

SereneJ's Review of Keyflower

Keyflower - as game names go it doesn't sound very threatening - equally, it doesn't really give anything away about what the game actually involves - but it should have a warning on the box - this game pulls you in!
 
So what is it? What it is - is a game of 2-6 players and is probably best described as a worker placement game that is all about you building something - actually not just something - a village.  A village that you come to care about and in the three games I've played so far I've found it utterly delightful, enticing me into making the best damn village I can - my meeple deserve it. Keyflower, as I've discovered (with the help of the Finely Diced Gamers), is a game that looks friendly (it uses meeples for goodness sake) and invites you to play (the game artwork is lovely to look at), it has some interesting game dynamics but ultimately allows for some potentially bitter power struggles as you try to improve your village in medieval Keyland.

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When you start keyflower your village is one building – your house - ironically you are given an actual starting house which is needed to conceal the different meeples and tokens that you collect throughout the course of the game.  The aim of Keyflower is simple, take your newly founded village and improve it - adding different buildings such as mines, quarries and other equally useful structures. Some of these new buildings benefit you immediately, providing necessary resources (to further improve your village) or more meeples (used during your turn to activate village buildings or bid on unclaimed buildings). There are other buildings that you'll want to claim that provide either the option to select the next player to go first, the first choice of meeple coming to colonise your village or victory points at games end.

  

The game itself occurs over one year, OK - it doesn't take a year to play (I definately wouldn't have time to play the game otherwise) but it is played over four seasons - Spring, Summer, Autumn & Winter – with each season being one turn. From the first season, each player takes it in turn activating or bidding on unclaimed buildings laid out in the centre of the table.  The first person to activate a building only needs to spend one meeple, the next would have to spend two meeples (of the same colour), the third person three meeples (yes, same colour).  Ultimately it comes down to how many meeple you have stashed that can allow or prevent you from activating a building.

So... you see a perfect addition to your village and you decide to bid on it (hoping that no-one has the same idea as you).  Bidding on a building again involves your meeples, with them being used to stake your claim - but watch out - as long as another player has enough of the same colour meeple - you can be outbid.  Can you remember who placed which colour meeple or how many - two, three, four...?
  

Each season ends once everyone has finished placing their meeples - the dust settles and village founders (you the player) look at what is to be added to your village - all the meeple used in the bidding process are lost - gone forever.  However - any building that was activated (by yourself or others) that you now own - those meeple now belong to you to help your village grow in the coming season.

Now you would be forgiven for thinking that all was lost, if a building that you wanted and bid on was taken by another player.  With Keyflower, regardless of where a building is - whether unclaimed, your village or another's village.  If a building can be activated you can place a meeple there - with those meeple going into the building owners's hidden stash at the end of the season.  With some strategic placement of your meeple, you can use another's building to improve your standing - in the process making it more expensive for the actual owner to use.  However, remember that the building's owner gets to keep the meeple used and don't forget - they could easily choose to use your buildings!

So the activation and bidding of buildings is present in every season but once you reach Winter you're essentially looking at how to maximise on the buildings you own to score the most victory points.  Throughout the first three seasons player will be bidding and outbidding each other to have buildings in their village - winter (I think) is slightly different - it's all or nothing.  I've managed to win this game by managing to get a building that another player's strategy required, preventing them from attaining their full potential - admittedly a risky strategy but I won by one point. 

The thing is Keyflower offers lots of strategies, one person may choose to hoard meeples, another may choose to build the longest river, yet another hoards gold - these are just three such strategies that I've seen - however, each strategy can be countered if another player manages to get the meeples in at the right time.  Keyflower could just be the right strategy at the right time but there are more building cards than can be played for each season which means that each game will be unique, there will be variety and you - the player - will have to choose  how you want to see your village expand - what direction will you want to take?

I don't currently own this game but I intend to - it's already on my BGG wishlist! If someone offers you the opportunity to play this game I would suggest you say yes - it's entertaining and its subtly aggressive -  This is a game that our group has played three times in two weeks and I would happily play again - it's a great game!  Who knew colonising Keyland could be so much fun?

I still think there should be a warning on the box!

First Impressions - Bora Bora

"I think they mean boring boring" whispers non-gamer wife to my daughter...

So I'd glimpsed this hiding in David's bag o' games at our previous games night, and we managed to get a game of it played last night with three of us, despite my wife's sarcastic remarks. :)

It's far too early for me to review the thing, and that's probably the best first impression I can give of it. It's a game that will take a while to get to grips with, and not because it's difficult to learn, more that ideas for strategy are only going to come from better experience of how the various mechanics tie together. There are many many choices to make in this game, and there were quite a few moments of silence while we thought through the consequences of those choices. It's definitely not going to work with people who agonise over what to do next.

I don't think any of us found it particularly difficult to learn, there is a certain assault on the senses, partly from the vivid colours in the design, and partly from the seemingly overcrowded collection of mysterious icons. It only took a couple of turns to get the general gist of things though, and I can see this playing pretty quickly if we try a few more times.

So the mechanics?...well it's what...dice placement?...worker placement? I'm not sure what it would fall under, and there are several other intertwined mechanics that make it a little different anyway.You roll your dice, assign them to various actions which can help you perform a number of things, and those actions are determined by the value of the dice. The nice twist though is that to if an action already has dice assigned to it, the next player who wants to use that action has to place one of lesser value than the lowest currently there. This leads to some nice choices on where your dice can best be used, and also where you can block the other player's actions by the use of low value dice.

There is a map of the five islands where you can place your huts, and use actions to expand to other positions on the map. This in itself can gain you some points, and leads to a nice little game of fighting over particular spaces to gain extra points at the end. The placement though, also gains you resources, which can then be used to build on your own player board, which is another source of point scoring.

You have tasks to complete each turn which can score you more points, there is temple mechanism which leads to another avenue of point scoring, and if that isn't enough you can buy jewellery to gain more points, and tattoos which push you up the status track for yet more points, and turn order.

I'm pretty sure I've forgotten something, and I've not even mentioned the god cards and tiles, which can help you in a variety of ways.

Anyway, if you can tell, my initial impressions are extremely positive. It has that great combination of tons of choices, and never enough time to do everything you want to which combine to create some of my favourite gaming experiences. I'm really looking forward to trying this one a few more times, and maybe then I'll write something slightly more focused.

I lost by the way :)

SereneJ's Review of Skull & Roses

So a review of Skull and Roses, a game that I was introduced to in a pub and found it to play really well; admittedly I first thought we were getting some expensive coasters for our drinks but I was quickly corrected. The rules were simple and easy to digest, probably less than a minute and we were away trying to out bluff each other.


However, it’s a more recent play of the game of Skull and Roses that I want to talk about here. It begins by my wife trying to get the extended family seeing each other more regularly, since they live close by. To do this she invites my three cousins and their partners for a meal and drinks at ours, this ultimately means I’m going to be doing the cooking but fortunately lasagne is a quick meal to prepare.


Going slightly further off track, a little bit of info about my family, they aren’t board-gamers, they are muggles to magic wielders to coin a phrase. You would normally find them playing games including the likes of Trivial Pursuits, Logo & oddly enough Texas Holdem Poker (with poker chips & normally for money). My wife’s plan for the evening involves drinks, sharing a meal and lots of conversation; I felt we were obligated to provide entertainment.


The meal concluded, coffee and mints provided (I like to think we offer a proper sit down meal, thank you), Skull & Roses was brought to the table. Immediately a hush falls, then the question of what’s being brought out since the Box art is quite striking to say it’s so small. Now I know all those present can play poker so I tell them that this is like poker, just more refined, with no actual playing cards or poker chips – guffaws are audible.


Once the box is opened the coasters decks are displayed, showing each rival gangs colours. There’s almost a gleeful mischief in the air, disbelief that a deck of four cards and a square mat can be used to play a game. Each of the eight takes a look at the decks that have been layed out & slowly one by one they choose their colours. For this game both the Skull and Roses Black (original) and Red (expansion) box-sets were being used since there were eight people playing.


The game started slowly, everyone being cautious about how to bid, the order of laying down cards - after the first turn’s completed it’s understood. Next round, they eagerly want to lay down cards, who starts? 


This game of skull and Roses goes on for an hour, we’re having fun, drinks are going down and the conversation is flowing equally as well. Each turn you know at least one person is looking round at the number of cards on the table, counting (they’re not even necessarily doing it quietly), calculating their magic number, their bid, which could win for them or could lead them to losing yet another precious card from their deck.


The end comes quickly, the teacher doesn’t win (I have a solitary card left and it’s a skull), everyone’s smiling, more so the winner. I’m told en-mass that they would play again, another of my family asks if next time we gather to play poker if I would bring Skull and Roses along too. They’re already planning on playing it prior to the game of poker like an aperitif and there planning on playing it using money; could be an expensive evening!


Skull and Roses is a brilliant game, I’ll be honest I loved the artwork on the cards as soon as I first layed eyes on them. That said, I didn’t understand initially how so few material items could be used to play a game that was comparable to poker? What no deck of cards, no poker chips, no dealer button?  After playing my second game (my first game teaching the rules), I’m a believer!  Regardless of whom you invite to play this game, your board-gaming buddies, your friends or your family –  I believe they will love this game too!

Skull & Roses is not complicated to learn but will get your heart pumping faster and you will find yourself getting competitive, you will want to be first to turn your square mat over twice; a nice touch for a scoring mechanism. 

This (I believe) is a must have game, it needs to be in your collection!