16th November 2019
Saturday night gaming, means gaming at 'Matakishi's'. The first game of the evening was Heckmeck. Read my thoughts about it here.
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12th November 2019
Tuesday night with the Woking board game club at 'The Sovereigns' continues. The final game of the night was 'Love Letter'. Read my blog about it here. 12th November 2019
Tuesday evening is here at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking with the board game club. The first game of the night was 'Race for the Galaxy. Read my blog about it here. 10th November 2019
Sunday afternoon board gaming at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking is coming to a close. We concluded the day's activities with our fourth and final game; 'Port Royal'. Read my thoughts about it here. 10th November 2019 Gaming Sunday continues at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking. Next up was; 'Legends Untold'. Legends Untold is a sort of hybrid card game RPG. The players take on the roles of nascent heroes thrust into adventure by circumstance. These heroes will form a party and explore either caves or dungeons, whilst the role of 'GM' is played by various decks of cards. There are 2 Legends Untold games, 'The Weeping Caves' & 'The Great Sewer'. What's in a game? Legends Untold packs a lot of cards into a relatively small box. These include:
How's it play? The setup for each game depends on which scenario card is used. The scenario will tell the players the number of card to put into each of the game's decks.
The game is divided into 4 phases. Scouting phase
Exploration phase
Time and events As explained above, the scenario will determine how big the event deck is. A common size is 6 cards.
Legends Untold has lots of different types of tests. Lots of them.
Like I said, lots of types of tests. Traps There are 2 types of trap. A normal trap which is encountered when drawing a card from the obstacles deck and a booby trap drawn from the adventure deck, either before combat or when searching.
Combat in Legends Untold occurs over a number of stages.
Endgame Each scenario has its own victory or defeat criteria. Generally, if all the PCs are knocked unconscious, it's a defeat. Campaign Legends Untold includes rules and components for a campaign. The campaign is about saving the refugees of an invasion During the campaign, PCs will increase in level as it progresses. Additionally, the results of a scenario will have some impact on later scenarios in the campaign. This includes rating the players on how many refugees they managed to save. It's sort of like a legacy game but without being asked to rip up any cards! Overall
There's a lot to think about here. The game certainly packs a lot of stuff into a small box. But is it good stuff? The exploration mechanics are quite good. Choosing to follow light or dark routes both have advantages and disadvantages. I like how the readiness rules interact with traps. I like the event deck and how it works. I like how as the event deck gets smaller, events become more common. It gives players the feeling that they are working against the ticking clock. Decisions regarding the spending of time become very important. I like how talent cards are also used as hit points. It removes an extra element of bookkeeping from a game that already has a lot of things going on. Losing an ability when wounded makes you feel weaker. When PCs gain levels, they gain additional talent card, thus they also gain more hit points. But perhaps there are too many character stats and thus tests related to them. More often than not, I found that stats became irrelevant, because across all the characters, they always tended to be someone who gave a +2 bonus. Not only that, there are so many rules regarding tests, that the rule book is never closed. I understand need for variety and the need to make all PC stats relevant. But tests could use some streamlining. In my mind more complexity does not equate to more depth. Combat is equally clunky. It's quite confusing that ranged and melee combat are the same but also different. In melee , it's good that both attack and defence are resolved in a single roll. But why couldn't the same philosophy be applied to ranged combat? I know that the game needs to differentiate between PCs and foes who do and don't have ranged attacks. But I feel that combat needed more work, more testing and more streamlining. Finally, the setting is quite uninteresting. It's pretty generic and uninspiring. Because of the I found it hard to engage with the game. Perhaps it as the steep learning curve. Or perhaps it's because I've played quite a lot of RPGs over the years However, it's quite an ambitious game in its own way. I'm not willing to write it off without trying it another couple of tries. 10th November 2019
Sunday afternoon gaming at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking continues. The next game of the day was 'Heckmeck'. Read my blog about it here. 10th November 2019 Sunday lunch time at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking. 50 Fathoms is still on hiatus, so board games it is. We actually begin the day with a card game. A little 2 player 'Alice in Wonderland' themed game called 'Wonderland'. Yeah... Someone spend a while coming up with that. What's in a game? Wonderland is quite a minimalist game. There is a deck of cards for each player and each deck has only 7 cards in it. 7! Despite the differing artwork, the 2 decks are identical.
The theme though, is entirely replaceable, it could as easily been about cats v dogs or elves v orcs or whatever v whatever. How's it play? The purpose of Wonderland is to place cards down in the playing area (In a 3x3 grid.) to 'win' the rows and columns. After deciding who will be playing who, each player should take their respective deck.
Rows and columns are 'won' by calculating the value of each players' cards in each row and each column, the player who has the highest value in each row and each column 'wins' it and takes that row or column's face-down card. However, it's not just the value of the cards that matter here. The poison and the cake play a vital role here.
Overall
Wonderland is an interesting little game that seems to be about trying to out-predict the other player and ruthlessly take advantage of any error the other player may make. Playing a card with a cake or poison symbol facing the right way can dramatically change the scores. There's also an element of bluffing here, as each player essentially has to discard 3 cards and only play 4. This means it not possible to count cards as a player never knows what their opponent has put into their row or column. Wonderland is a quick game to play and is small and portable. I don't think it's a game that stands up to a lot of repeatedly play. But has a quick filler for 2 players it's OK. 9th November 2019
Saturday evening at Matakishi's is here again and it's time for board games. Tonight we played Heckmeck. Read my blog about it here. |
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