Octopus Overlords

Posted on their FB page about 10 minutes ago...

Noooooooo!!!!!! Well, okay... Yayyyyyyyyy!!!!!!

Though I just finished a play through as the Brotherhood. And discovered that they are pretty much bastards as well. My first play through was as the Institute.

So now I want to do a play through as the Minute Men/Railroad (I'm really tired of having to slaughter my RR peeps).

Hopefully this next one won't come out "too" soon.

I was also thinking of getting VR, maybe for Xmas, to see how FO4 is in VR.

You know it will be a damn LCG... or a reimplementation of the XCOM board game. The latter is more likely I imagine.

TheMix wrote:Noooooooo!!!!!! Well, okay... Yayyyyyyyyy!!!!!!

Though I just finished a play through as the Brotherhood. And discovered that they are pretty much bastards as well. My first play through was as the Institute.

So now I want to do a play through as the Minute Men/Railroad (I'm really tired of having to slaughter my RR peeps).

Hopefully this next one won't come out "too" soon.

I was also thinking of getting VR, maybe for Xmas, to see how FO4 is in VR.

I am pretty sure they are teasing a board game, not a video game.

coopasonic wrote:You know it will be a damn LCG... or a reimplementation of the XCOM board game. The latter is more likely I imagine.

My guess is something with ton of plastic available in lots of expansions released every couple of months which will kind of sort of but not really work with a second edition re release in two years from now.

I'm betting a LCG. And I'd actually be OK with that, especially if it's a co-op LCG like AH.

LordMortis wrote:My guess is something with ton of plastic available in lots of expansions released every couple of months which will kind of sort of but not really work with a second edition re release in two years from now.

There's already a miniatures-based Fallout game coming from an unrelated developer, so I'm going to guess it is indeed a LCG like Arkham. Or maybe it's a dice chucker.

Smoove_B wrote:

LordMortis wrote:My guess is something with ton of plastic available in lots of expansions released every couple of months which will kind of sort of but not really work with a second edition re release in two years from now.

There's already a miniatures-based Fallout game coming from an unrelated developer, so I'm going to guess it is indeed a LCG like Arkham. Or maybe it's a dice chucker.

Soon to be purchased by FFG, who will then release the game, develop expansions, and then rework the gaming system two years later.

That's the announcement, silly.

And, some details.

Not nearly as interested now. I was really hoping for an LCG.

I just noticed the thread title....

That's what I get for posting before I've had my coffee.

hentzau wrote:And, some details.

Not nearly as interested now. I was really hoping for an LCG.

Now I'm VERY interested. Potato/plasma grenade, ya know?

Interesting. I like that they're trying for something different.

More information was posted:

Your first steps into the Wasteland will be among the most exhilarating and uncertain you’ll ever take. Everything you thought you knew will have changed. Sure, you’ll have your major landmarks, like Diamond City, which sits amongst the ruins of Boston, or Megaton, just outside what was formerly Washington D.C., but everything surrounding these has been consumed by the land and reshaped by radiation.

As you wander the new landscape, you’ll hear whispers of the settlements, ruins, and vaults that represent this new world of yours, but to simulate your crippling uncertainty, the tabletop training module will vary with each and every test. You may stumble upon one of our shiny steel Vault-Tec doors during one game, but that same spot will feature the unlit shell of a Red Rocket station in the next. Not only that, but half of the board is decidedly more scary than the rest, indicated by game tiles in the unforgettable shade: Enter-At-Your-Own-Risk Red.

New preview shared. I believe it comes out this Thursday.

Just got a shipping notice from CSI that it's been shipped. Christmas is coming early!
(hope it doesn't suck)

Man, that's one heck of a tease.

Only 50% above retail on Amazon. Nice.

I was at the discount game store after work and they were unpacking this one. I grabbed a copy for 50 bucks. I’m a sucker for coop Ameritrash.

I read some commentary today that it's not really coop and that the player interaction is rather limited. It was described as something close to Mage Knight. It was just random comments and not an official review so I have no idea if that's accurate. Its sounded like it would be great for solo play (with all the event and quest cards).

Only 50% above retail on Amazon. Nice.

Yeah, good luck finding anything new from FFG/Asmodee on Amazon for a reasonable price.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2017 10:36 pm

Yeah, good luck finding anything new from FFG/Asmodee on Amazon for a reasonable price.

Or old from FFG/Asmodee.

They like to assume that everyone lives near a brick-and-mortar. Buying it for the 50% markup would actually be cheaper for me than driving to the nearest store that would carry it.

hepcat wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2017 10:23 pm I was at the discount game store after work and they were unpacking this one. I grabbed a copy for 50 bucks. I’m a sucker for coop Ameritrash.

I may have to stop by there on the way home tomorrow, see if they have any left.

The Fallout game that I'm actually tracking with more interest is the miniatures game from Modiphus. Pricey, but the minis look pretty nice. And it's a minis game that my son has actually, finally expressed interest in.

Played two solo games over the weekend. Lost both times, but I need to wrap my head around the scoring system as I may be doing something wrong.

Overall it was a fun experience. Both games ended with one of the two factions for that scenario reaching the final space on their power track (one of the end game conditions...which leads to no one winning).

It feels a bit like Eldritch Horror in execution, but it has a few nifty mechanics I've not seen before.

The first is the combat. It's very, very quick. One shot, you win or you lose. You only ever use 3 "V.A.T." dice, which have human outlines on all sides, and different body parts colored in. Each enemy has a corresponding symbol on their token which shows which hits count against their H.P. (which also serves as their XP reward). In addition, some of the die faces have asterisks (up to two), which are hits they do back to you. It's fast, as I said. And it felt very thematic.

The second is the leveling up mechanic. There are tokens with S, P, E, C, I, A, and L on them, that slot into their corresponding space on your player board. When you get your first XP point, you move a peg to the first token you have. Then each additional XP moves you to another token you have. When you pass the L, you blindly grab two more SPECIAL tokens from a bag and choose one. If you end up with on you already have, you can grab a perk card (little powers or goodies to help you out). As you gain levels, it takes longer to level up again, of course. It works out really well.

The SPECIAL tokens give you rerolls during combat or skill tests for each matching letter token on your equipment. So having more of them equates to being better at more things.

Each turn you perform two actions (you can do the same one twice with the exception of encounters): move, fight, explore (reveal a face down map tile adjacent to your current space), encounter a card if you're a space with one of the three encounter symbols, finish a quest that requires an action or camp (to refresh cards that were previously exhausted and gain 3 H.P.).

After you act, you reveal an Agenda card which has a row of icons on the bottom. Enemies with the matching icon on them activate and move one space towards the closest player. If you run through the deck, you reshuffle and move one or both of the faction's power tokens down the power track.

The meat of the game is the card library though. Around two hundred cards form a ton of quests and encounters. Many of them leading to other cards that you either "stage" (place out for general availability) or "add" (cards that are shuffled into their appropriate encounter deck). So you get chained quests and/or encounters that take you through a story (a thin one, admittedly...but a narrative nonetheless).

You also get Agenda cards which are worth one VP (or Agenda point, I believe they call them). These cards also give you extra points if one of the two factions involved in the scenario you're playing goes further down the power track than their rival faction during the game. At any point, if someone has enough VP to win (11 for a solo game, 10 for 2 player, etc.), they can announce they've won and the game ends. You can have up to 4 Agenda cards, and you get more from finishing quests and/or encounters.

I'd give it 7 tentacles out of 10. The only reason I didn't go with 8 is because getting enough points to win before one of the two factions reaches the end space on the power track and ends the game seems way too hard. Which is why I suspect I'm doing something wrong.

But it is a fun game and plays very well solo. Replayability should be pretty decent as there are multiple quests on many of the cards in the card library. During both of my two hour-ish games, I think I only saw, at most, 8 to 10 cards too.

We played a two-player learning game yesterday and immediately started a 2nd game. We ran into the same issue... our game (one of four scenarios) ended with the Institute winning while we had 6 and 7 points out of 10 needed to win. I think we pursued what was obviously the main quest too hard, and gave too many points to the Institute and should have tossed the Railroad a few quests along the way. At the end, we revealed our agendas and we both had pro-Institute cards so it made sense that we both went that way, but didn't appreciate how quickly that would escalate and bring the game to a close. Eventually... (minor spoiler)
Overall we like it a lot. Combat is very quick but still satisfying. One interesting thing about this game that wound up being very frustrating for my son was shopping. At setup you lay out 4 cards from the market deck so you can see what's available, and you can potentially shop at any settlement... but you have to resolve an encounter first and depending on the card you draw, your choices and/or the results of a skill test, you might not get to shop. Encounter cards usually have 2-3 options you read off to the active player (without telling him what the potential outcomes are).

My son had 15 caps at one point. That seemed like a lot as I had only managed to gather 5, but he never got a chance to spent it. Every card I drew and read for him when he did an encounter either didn't allow shopping at all, or he chose poorly, or failed the test, or was prevented from shopping because he was playing as the Super Mutant.

That last point was another interesting aspect about the game. Some of the encounter choices we saw are fixed if you're the Super Mutant, or have the "Vilified" trait.

Down to $40 at Amazon now.

The new expansion really fills in a lot of the gaps that the core game had, imho. More map tiles, assets, loot, quests, and new characters. Also, the big coop scenario removes the fiddly end game conditions in favor of a long game that allows you to really level up, gear up and explore.

I think that the biggest issue we had was that a lucky draw or two would make the winner clear early, early in the game, and the rest of the players would just be tagging along for the ride.

It sounds like you're playing agenda cards incorrectly. You aren't supposed to reveal your agenda cards to other players unless you declare loyalty using one of them. You can tell people what you have, of course. But I'm not sure why you would unless you were trying to make a deal with another player. So you really shouldn't know who is ahead "early, early in the game". If you're going by the number of cards held (which is public knowledge), that's quite often irrelevant to their standing when it comes to scoring, as it's easy to have influence points on those cards that cancel each other out if played concurrently.

But even with all that, the new coop scenario completely does away with agenda card scoring. Also, there are some great variants for the agenda card scoring system that seem to be pretty popular on BGG.

I started up a coop game last night and I think after 4 turns I've only moved between two tiles. The quest line I'm on is hilarious so I'm following it through.

No, we were using them correctly. What happened every time we played was that one person would get a couple of lucky breaks and get a powerful item or two early on, and would be unstoppable, while the rest were struggling to stay alive. That one player would walk all over everyone else.

I'm not sure how you knew they were way out ahead if they didn't show you their agenda cards.

Like I said, simply seeing that someone has 4 agenda cards to your 2 doesn't mean they're winning necessarily. Oftentimes you'll have two agenda cards that cancel the other if you play one. And having powerful items doesn't ensure a win. It still comes down to those agenda cards. What items did they have that made you think they were going to win so easily?

There was no way to tell if they were ahead in points. The problem was that they were so far ahead in effectiveness that it became blatantly noncompetitive. As to the specifics? It's been a few months since we played. I do know that by the time we ended that last time we played, one player had almost his entire SPECIAL bar filled with perks to burn and the rest of us had one or two extras, max.