Octopus Overlords

This is one of the games that I got thru KS. It's been sitting near my desk for several months now. With all the work I put in on the Mage Knight: Ultimate Edition foamcore insert, I haven't had time to play Sentinels yet. If you didn't do the KS, how did you get the Definitive Edition? Is it available in retail now?

Absolutely.

The KS edition came with free foil cards (and a lower price) but other than that, it's the same as the retail edition. The foil cards do look excellent, but I wouldn't consider them necessary by any means.

It is. You can even get it off Amazon.

I’ve been dancing around Sentinels of Earth Prime. Same game, but set in the Mutants and Masterminds RPG world.

Fardaza wrote: ↑Mon Jun 27, 2022 9:48 pm If you didn't do the KS, how did you get the Definitive Edition? Is it available in retail now?

Yep, my store had three copies yesterday.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Mon Jun 27, 2022 9:54 pm Absolutely.

The KS edition came with free foil cards (and a lower price) but other than that, it's the same as the retail edition. The foil cards do look excellent, but I wouldn't consider them necessary by any means.

Okay. Now I really don't understand KickStarter. I'm pretty sure I paid more than $70 for it and waited for about a year to get it. And you can just pick it up on Amazon for less??? What's the point of doing a KS if you don't get extra stuff at a better price than retail???

It was $50 + $9 to ship on KS and it was delivered long before it hit retail chains (unless they purchased a KS bundle). For that $59 you also received the foil promo pack for free (a $20 retail charge now).

So yeah...it was absolutely cheaper and faster than doing a retail option from Amazon right now and you received a free promo pack. I don't know how long it took for it to hit retail channels after the KS delivery (which was back in January of this year).

However, there are numerous scenarios like the one Fardaza mentions, unfortunately. Final Girl being one recent example. I paid nearly full retail to back it…and it was online for much less almost immediately after it shipped to backers. It’s one of the reasons I’m avoiding most kickstarters these days. It’s become mostly a pre order system for larger game studios these days.

Generally, projects shopping to retailers before fulfillment to backers is complete is frowned on, but it does happen (generally to much outcry.)

But lately I have seen more and more products that end up being barely discounted over retail.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Amazon isn't always retail. It's more Ebay than anything these days, and some people back popular titles for multiple copies just to sell them for a markup before the real retail copies hit.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:49 pm It was $50 + $9 to ship on KS and it was delivered long before it hit retail chains (unless they purchased a KS bundle). For that $59 you also received the foil promo pack for free (a $20 retail charge now).

So yeah...it was absolutely cheaper and faster than doing a retail option from Amazon right now and you received a free promo pack. I don't know how long it took for it to hit retail channels after the KS delivery (which was back in January of this year).

You're probably right Smoove. I haven't taken the time to dig thru old emails to find out the actual price I paid. It just seems like it was more than that.

Today I played Heading Forward, a solo deck management game about recovering from traumatic brain injury. I know, this tired theme has been used a million times before, but hear me out.

The most important thing to understand is that Heading Forward is really fun. I think a lot of people would be understandably reluctant to try it given the theme, but it's one of the most engaging and smooth-playing solo games that I've played in a long time.

You are a TBI survivor who is in therapy to re-learn a broad range of cognitive skills. Some are as simple as taking a break to rest. If you can become fully functional in three of these areas before in X amount of (X varies by difficulty level), you win. If you don't, then you insurance provider decides that your progress has stalled out and won't pay for any further therapy. You lose.

Each card is a specific skill you are trying to learn, but can also be used as a resource to advance a different skill in your hand. But if you don't use a skill that you've previously advances, it will atrophy, sending you back to square one. This makes for an engaging puzzle in every hand you draw, as you're trying to take two steps forward while facing an inevitable one step back.

I would easily recommend Heading Forward to any solo gamer. It's fast, fun, and doesn't take up much space. It's certainly on the pricey side for the components you get, but that's indie boardgaming for you.

Sounds interesting — how did you hear about it?

I had heard about it from this review, then a friend bought it and lent me his copy.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Sat Jun 18, 2022 1:46 pmSome additional quick Dark Knight Returns impressions after finishing Book 1 and about halfway through Book 2

This has been sitting on my foyer table for weeks. I need to get around to it. Did you find the system easy to learn?

malchior wrote:This has been sitting on my foyer table for weeks. I need to get around to it. Did you find the system easy to learn?

Yeah it's not too bad. I did watch a playthrough along with the rules though. I highly recommend playing very close attention to the player aid card (note - there's a different player aid card for every scenario, so make sure you have the right one!). It does a great job of walking you through every single step of the turn. Follow that until you get comfortable and you can't go wrong.

I've heard some say it trends towards the easier side, but I got my ass kicked on Scenario 2. Partly because I came out of Scenario 1 so beat up and bruised. Planning on giving it another go this weekend.

Edit: Here's the playthrough I watched. No real spoilers as it's just the first scenario. It helped me quite a bit to understand some general strategy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iP9AQy ... laythrough

Thanks! Super helpful.

Okay, I played a full game of Machina Arcana with the updated rules and the updated cards. The first time I played (a few years back) I didn’t warm to it. The rules sucked hard and failed to explain adequately how the hell I was even supposed to advance the story. It was a mess and I was unimpressed.

This time around I watched a few videos, grabbed the updated rules and read through the tutorial guide as well. And it really clicked for me after about 3 chapters. That’s when I started getting some equipment and could actually do something.

It is very tactical in nature. I think you have to know that going in. It’s less about the crawl as it is the battles. I made it to the endgame with 2 of my 3 characters, but failed on the final map. By that time level 3 monsters had been added and they were just too much for my remaining people.

But I enjoyed it. It felt a bit like a cross between Cthulhu: Death May Die and Diablo the video game. It was all about the loot and continuing to move forward.

I’ve got the next expansion coming soon too, so I’ll have plenty to play through. That’s for sure.

Nice! It definitely felt like more of a "puzzle" game to me - trying to think through turns and come up with a plan, guessing at what might happen (creatures spawning) or how existing creatures would likely move. Not too heavy - just the right amount of crunch.

I think the thing I liked the most is the tiny amount of table space it takes up. Sure, it can get larger once you add map tiles, but it's never bigger than 2x2.

It’s still got some rough edges. I’m not a fan of the “you only do 1 damage if you hit” mechanic (effectively moving away from skills and towards equipment for the bulk of the game), and advancing chapters by lighting the chapter space is still kind of a weak way to move the story along, but once I got kitted up, I was having fun. I need to try a crafter in my next game. I played with the other three classes earlier.

I only played the shortened intro scenario (where you remove a whole bunch of cards), but apparently the game can get rather long if you let it. That was actually one of the reasons I picked up a copy of the new edition - because they said they added the ability to do much shorter scenarios. I might find I like the 6+ hour campaigns, but if I can get to the point where I'm finishing a regular game in ~90 minutes, that's a winner for me (right now). That's why I think I am liking Massive Darkness as well - just the right amount of complexity (low, admittedly) but the feedback / reward loop is much shorter than what I'd been trying.

There were rules for shorter games in the previous editions. All you do is remove some chapters from a scenario. My second edition copy/rules had that.

I am still working my way, slowly (with it sitting on the table), through the entire 3 floors of the Tutorial mission of Burncycle. I know this is early impressions (having finished floors 1 and 2) but I think I agree with Quackalope's statement that this is his favorite Chip Theory game. I like Hoplomachus and Too Many Bones (but sort of regret backing all-in for Cloudspire) but Burncycle is both fresh and interesting in a way not like other games. I don't have any stealth-based "dungeon crawls" and it plays with the calculated planning of Chess with the randomization and tension of Core Space.

Like all Chip Theory games, the rulebook(s) are a mess of exceptions, oft-forgotten details, and easy-to-mistake processes. You can't play without the reference guide being firmly at hand (it reminds me of Arkham Horror, 2nd Edition, which always felt like I was DM'ing when I played since I had to constantly check the rulebook). That said, this is probably a factor of learning, which should improve with practice. My other complaint is that neoprene, which is nice, doesn't always have the best clarity of resolution for printing. This isn't a problem 99% of the time, but is pretty problematic with the red and white items on the network map - I really have to get in close to see the network nodes. This move into my last complaint - they really needed an iconography "cheat sheet" in the box. I constantly have to look up the icons for the patrol types, surveillance effects, and node effects.

Complaints aside, the game itself is both visually stunning and super engaging. I find it pretty easy to two-hand solo, which seems to be a sweet spot (you actually control three bots in this, since you also control the Control Module). That gives you some synergy without being overwhelming. I am a little worried about long-term variety, but I think this is probably silly, given what you get out of the box (and even more with the expansion pack). I was initially concerned that the corporation floor maps are always the same, but doing anything else would likely be pretty annoying. Even then, you get more maps than most other dungeon crawls (and loads of mission/map/bots combinations). I was also pretty happy to see they have a new Gamefound campaign coming in a few weeks for even more content. Yeah, I'll be there.

One big thing - the bronze statues were the best "luxury" buy I have made for most any game (with the exception of, perhaps, Middara's wooden organizer). They are completely unnecessary but add so much in weight, feel, and visual appeal.

I'd like to post some pics of my foamcore insert for Mage Knight: Ultimate Edition. How do I get them ready for posting? I haven't posted pics to any site in probably 10 years.

Fardaza wrote: ↑Mon Jul 11, 2022 10:21 am I'd like to post some pics of my foamcore insert for Mage Knight: Ultimate Edition. How do I get them ready for posting? I haven't posted pics to any site in probably 10 years.

Just upload your images to a free image hosting site, e.g. Imgur.com, PostImages.org, or ImgBB.com.

Then copy and paste the relevant 'BBCode (Forums)' while composing your post here (e.g. found under 'Copy link … > Get share links' on Imgur), and you should be good to go. Also, if your posted images are on the large side, it may help if you use 'bigimg' tags instead. So, rather than posting this: You can use 'bigimg' tags to post enlargeable images instead:

YellowKing wrote: ↑Sat Mar 26, 2022 6:10 pm Started on my grand campaign from the AuZtralia Big Box.

I just got the base game for a birthday present from a friend. I then promptly ordered the two new expansions. RMC and I had played it at Origins a few years back, and while we didn't find enough in the game to warrant buying it at the time, we both thought it was an okay game. But with these expansions, it sounds like they've added enough to make it more interesting.

hepcat wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 10:53 am

YellowKing wrote: ↑Sat Mar 26, 2022 6:10 pm Started on my grand campaign from the AuZtralia Big Box.

I just got the base game for a birthday present from a friend. I then promptly ordered the two new expansions. RMC and I had played it at Origins a few years back, and while we didn't find enough in the game to warrant buying it at the time, we both thought it was an okay game. But with these expansions, it sounds like they've added enough to make it more interesting.

I've been kicking around an Auztralia purchase for a while. Not that I need more games.

What I'd really like to find is A Study in Emerald 2nd edition. I had the first edition but it was pretty badly designed. But even then, it had some interesting mechanics. I sold my original edition at Gencon a few years back and swore I'd try the new edition, but never got around to it. Now it seems to be almost impossible to find.

There's a copy for sale on the BGG marketplace, but it's very spendy ($145)

That's 1 and a half copies of Middara!

...that's how I apply value to things these days. The other day a sandwich cost me 1/13th Middara.

You should buy it as that will guarantee a new edition will be printed. That's exactly what happens to me - so many times, I've lost count.

Airborne Commander was a game I chased for years. Shortly after I finally overpaid for an original KS copy on Ebay and updated reformatted edition was provided cheaper on GameCrafter.

I've only played AuZtralia solo, so I can't speak to how good the multiplayer is. I do love it as a solo "puzzle" as I think it provides a nice blend of random setup, strategy, and luck. I do think the base game can get a bit easy when you start figuring out the best strategies, but it's very easy to scale difficulty up so that's never been a problem for me.

Part of my love for it, though, is that it was my gateway game into worker placement/euro-esque gameplay. I've bought (and greatly enjoyed) games like Wingspan, Lost Ruins of Arnak, Dune: Imperium, and Ark Nova directly because of AuZtralia.

I’m intrigued by the campaign solo mode mentioned in one of the expansions.

..but mostly I just like anything Lovecraft.

Yeah, I've played that solo campaign mode and it's a ton of fun. It's nothing fancy - you're essentially just playing 10 separate games which increase in difficulty, and you're getting penalized when you lose and rewarded if you win. From a balance perspective it sounds like you could spiral into defeat, but it's front-loaded on Easy so if you play smart you can load up on benefits to get you through the harder rounds later.

It's not Pandemic Legacy by any stretch of the imagination, I just found it a nice excuse to play a bunch of AuZtralia.

Got a chance to play my first purchase at GenCon, G.I. Joe: The Deck-Building Game.

I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of the IP, but like most kids of the '80s I watched the cartoon and had a bunch of the toys. So I'm familiar with many of the characters and the nostalgia factor was appealing enough to me that throwing it into a deck-builder sounded like fun.

I played true solo and 2-handed, and I think 2-handed is the way to go. Solo doesn't differ much other than you have a slightly higher chance to recruit some more powerful cards and you get 2 turns per round. However, I found trying to keep track of the 2 turns per round thing was a pain in the ass even with the little tracker they give you.

The game plays out over a series of 9 story missions you have to beat, and side missions will spawn out of these from time to time that you have to deal with. To take on any mission you must assign at least one Joe card to a Vehicle, and the vehicle's size determines how many total Joes can go on the mission. It's a neat thematic thing that really feels like you're sending your best operatives out to tackle the bad guys.

Beating a mission requires building a dice pool (yes, dice in a deck builder!) based on the Joes on the mission. If a Joe's skill set matches the mission's skill targets, you earn extra dice for the pool. And other cards in your hand may also add mitigating effects or more dice. Side missions stick around if you fail them, but you only get one shot at the story missions. Win or lose, you'll reap the awards or suffer the consequences.

Overriding all these battles is a C.O.B.R.A. threat tracker that you'll have to keep in check to avoid losing, as well as making sure Cobra Batallions don't overrun your market. Speaking of market, recruiting works much like it does in the Legendary games. Cards played all contribute recruit currency that you can use to purchase cards every turn. I also liked that the game gives you ample opportunity to destroy weaker cards as the game progresses.

Dont' be fooled by the kid's IP though - this game is TOUGH! And playing a full 9-card Mission can take a couple of hours or more. There are 2 missions in the base box, and replayability is high due to 6 of the 9 missions being randomized, as well as randomized Complication cards that bestow side missions and negative effects on each story mission.

I'm having a blast with this one. If you like the simplicity of the Legendary games but want to mix it up with some dice mitigation and a neat hook in terms of the Vehicle element, it's a great time.

I've had my eye on it. I lived for GI Joe for a couple of years in the mid-80s. I obsessed over it. I'd love to fiddle with it in game form.

It's a fun game; I really enjoy it solo. Very much makes me feel like I'm watching an episode of the 1980s cartoon. I think the tiny changes to the deck building format (shared vehicle use, surprise mission "twist") elevate it from an ok game to something much more enjoyable. I've already preordered the Serpentor set (because Serpentor), so I'm definitely a fan.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 4:52 pm Got a chance to play my first purchase at GenCon, G.I. Joe: The Deck-Building Game.

I was surprised to find out this is by the same developer who made My Father's Work.

Okay, started my Dungeon Universalis (DU) campaign after a full 10 days of reading rules, watching videos, etc..

The first thing I did immediately before starting was to order the bestiary cards. There's an online site that a fan made that does about the same thing that I mentioned in the kickstarter thread. But the cards just seem to make things a little easier as I don't have to stop and look things up on the app...and pray that it's still online. Of course, shipping from Spain cost the same as the cards, so that was fun.

Anyway, I started with the first of two introductory quests in the campaign. It simply teaches you about movement and combat. No Artificial Dark Player (ADP) to begin with, and the AI for the enemies is dead stupid.

DU is a tactical miniatures game first and then a dungeon crawler/RPG. However, that doesn't mean the last part of that description is lessened or ignored. It still has a TREMENDOUS amount of things going on that you would expect in a dungeon crawler...hell, that you'd expect in a full RPG.

The campaign mode consists of a large map with tons of different territories on it. The front of the rulebook has the same map, but with all the quest numbers on them. You just start at one of the red quest markers (indicating a campaign start position) and off you go. There are 3 campaigns in the game, and you can run one, two or all of them at the same time with the same party.

When moving across the campaign map, you note the turn number because the game does have two seasons: winter and everything else. During winter, the northern part of the map freezes and you can access some stuff across the frozen lakes and rivers that you couldn't before without a boat or other mode of transportation that allows for that. It also has detrimental effects on camping, I believe.

When you enter/leave a territory/town/settlement, you have to pull an encounter card matching the region you just entered. Then roll a 6 sided die to see if the event occurs. If you get below that number, nothing happens. Otherwise, turn the card over and do what it says. It could be simple, or it could lead to an "epic quest" which is a full blown quest you can choose to play.

As for the actual dungeon crawl portion of the game, it's very tactical in nature. There are a slew of modifiers for combat and movement, but most of them are common sense and taken from any number of other, similar games.

Combat is interesting. It's based solely on 6 sided die rolls and "tests". To shoot someone with a ranged weapon, you make an "unopposed test" which means you roll two 6 sided dice and add your shooting attribute. If you get 10 or higher, you succeed. Double 1's is a blunder and you could drop and/or break your weapons. If you roll a six, you add another damage die during the damage portion. Each weapon has a damage rating that is either an attribute like strength, or just a number. You roll that number of six sided dice and for every die that meets or exceeds the armor value of the opponent, you score one hit on their vitality.

To hit with melee, you make an "opposed test". That means you both roll two six sided dice and add your combat attribute. Whoever gets the highest total wins. Again, any sixes you roll add to damage dice. And double 1's is a critical failure that means you drop and/or potentially break your weapon.

Magic is unique as you either cast a spell to buff or summon for your side, or try to debuff/damage the enemy. In either case, you make an unopposed test roll using your intelligence and then if you succeed, you just do what the spell card says. You can only cast a spell (normally) 3 times during any quest, and you start with (normally) 4 spells. You also get 8 mana usually to start (2 per spell). Some spells cost 1 mana, but some are elite and cost 2.

This is not a simple game. So if you're looking for quick setup and ease of entry, this is not for you. You're going to spend at least a few days reading and grokking rules (the rulebook is 120 pages of dense writing). And I suggest you just ignore the basic rulebook. They included it to make things easier, but I don't feel it does that at all. That's also the general consensus on BGG.

This weekend I'm going to tackle my first game with the ADP. That's going to take a bit more reading as that's about 10 pages of stuff I need to understand. But I love that it's Turczi levels of originality. The ADP has points that it earns during the game that can be used to pay for cards that do things after you draw them. If you can't do what's in the card, discard it and add the number of points on the discard icon for the card to the ADP's bank. Thus making it more likely it will spring something on you later.

I like it (so far) because it is a dense game. I love crunchy games and this is very, very crunchy. However, I also know that it's going to be tough to get back out in the future if I take an extended time away from it.

I also like that it sent me searching through all my other dungeon crawlers yesterday looking for figures for my characters. Between Altar Quest, Descent, LotR:JiME and some others, I was able to dig up enough to cover everything and avoid using the standees.

Oh, and final word on the standees: take the time to sort them numerically and then create little dividers with a numbering system like "1 - 10" if you need to/want to use the standees. Trust me on this.

Thanks for the write-up hep. This is one I sort of regret not backing, as I came *very* close to doing so.

However, your mention of the heaviness, while appealing to me logically, also means it would have likely been tough for me to get to the table consistently. So I probably made the right call.

Glad you're enjoying it, though. Looks like an amazing game.

Yeah, that's good to read. I have been slowly getting away from deep/complicated/highly mechanical games, but I backed DU with the feeling it would be nearly impossible to get my hands on if I didn't. I'm still sorting (it's a beast) but your write up gives me hope at least that I can at least focus on a a single meaty game and just let that one be it. I'd seen some people were using the plastic organizers (tackle boxes) to sort the standees, so I'll probably go that route myself.

Honestly, considering how many dungeon crawlers we all own, you should be able to find the miniatures you need/want already in your collection. Altar Quest alone had a crap ton of the stuff I used yesterday. Sword and Sorcery had the rest. The Folklore stuff is actually slightly larger than heroic (traditionally 28 to 30mm) so they look a bit too large on the map...but if you can ignore that, there's another resource to select from. I'm probably going to head down to my local game shop and try to find just the right minis for my party though (even though the ones I used yesterday were perfectly fine).

I started with an evil group as I really wanted a necromancer. Apparently raising and controlling the dead is frowned upon by many communities, so I had to go evil. Otherwise I would have gone with my standard Witch Hunter group.

And yeah, it's an entire system first and foremost. Think of it more like Frostgrave than Descent. It has MANY of the same rules found in tabletop miniature games. Since I've been a tabletop minis player for years, the rules (once I read them) made perfect sense in almost every case.

Most of the complexity will come from the ADP if you play coop/solo, and the campaign map (which now that I'm reading it, isn't really that bad).

Note: if you play solo/coop, use the Online App. It's free and you can use it to create your character, track your campaign and (most importantly) play the actual quests in which not everything is discovered at the start. The app will only reveal the next portion of the map when you select the explore arrows.

Hell, you can play the entire game with a group online if you wanted to, as long as someone had the game so they could look up info on monsters, perform the travel encounter steps and read the fluff on the campaign and its quests.

Addendum: you can tell I've played too much of a Dark Souls game recently as I subconsciously thought the acronym for Dungeon Universalis was DS. I've since sacked my editor and made the change.