Review: Sub Terra

Game Name:	Sub Terra	Published Year:	2017
Game Publisher:	Inside the Box Board Games LLP (ITB)	Player Scale:	1-6
Game Designer:	Tim Pinder	Run Time:	45-90 min

What seems to be a small cave expedition with your group of friends for a nice Sunday activity turns out a bit different from what you expected. You find yourselves cut off from the entry point and you need to find another exit before your torches run out of power. But that is not your only problem, you find, quite soon, that something else lives deep inside this cave and is not very friendly...

Welcome to Sub Terra, in this survival horror co-op game, you'll be exploring a cave system laying out tiles and trying to survive a multitude of dangers while you all try to make it alive to the exit.

How it plays

Gameplay is quite simple, starting from the player with the first player token, all cavers will take actions, then if any horror is in play it will move towards the closest caver. Next, you draw a card from the hazard deck and resolve it and finally you pass the first player token to the next player. You'll play a certain number of rounds like this until either you're all unconscious or you escape the cave.

[caption id="attachment_1842" align="alignnone" width="4032"] Game setup[/caption]

While setting up the game you will place the exit tile between the last six tiles in the exploration stack, so you have a bit of control on where and when is going to be placed at the end. The tiles are beautifully illustrated and the iconography is easy to identify while playing. The first time a tile is drawn, some of them will represent a potential threat, but it won't trigger until a matching hazard card gets drawn.

 

[caption id="attachment_1832" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Character mats and meeples[/caption]

 

All players have 2 action points they can use in any combination they want from the action list. Some of the actions need to use both points some only use one. You can always try to exert yourself for a third action point, but you will roll for a skill check, if you fail you'll get a wound. Appart from the common actions, all characters have a special ability/action each, there are 8 different characters in the game, each useful in its own way and making for different combinations.

 

[caption id="attachment_1834" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Hazard cards[/caption]

 

The hazard deck is what is going to make your adventure a horror story and acts as your timer for the game. Depending on the number of players or difficulty chosen you'll form the deck with a different amount of cards. There are 5 different kind of hazards: tremors that might hurt you anywhere you are, deadly gas that will stay active in all gas tiles until the next hazard card gets drawn, cave-ins and floods that are very dangerous if you are in one of the tiles where it happens and will make more difficult to move around the cave system. And last but not least the horrors, that will hunt your group down. If you run out of cards, not everything is lost you still have a small chance to make it out running in the darkness, every caver still inside the cave will have to do a skill check if you succeed then you have an extra turn but if you fail, you're dead.

There are different winning thresholds. Gold if everybody makes it out, silver if one caver is left behind or bronze if two cavers are left to the horrors. If 3 or more cavers didn't make it in time then the game is lost for the whole group. And believe me, you'll need to cooperate and organize quite well to make it out alive.

Opinion

The game is easy to play and is taught in a few minutes. It plays quite fast too, with 6 cavers we are playing in around 45-60 min per game now and it's got that addictive factor of one more game because the game is hard and really fun to play, it invites you to keep trying. It took us a few games until only 4/6 cavers made it out, though we had pretty good attempts that almost made it.

Even though the box says Sub Terra plays from 1 to 6 players, you'll need to play with a minimum of 4 cavers, but is not a difficult task as is very easy to keep track of their abilities and their life points. It plays very well solo and in any number of players, though after numerous games in my group we believe the game shines with 6 cavers in play, you have more abilities to deal with the cave, but at least 4 have to make it to the exit.



Production quality is excellent, sturdy cardboard, gorgeous art, and very easy iconography.  Tiles are easily identifiable and once activated the hazard on them the tokens will mark it and differentiate over the ones not active yet. Replayability is very high, as the cave tiles are randomized and the order and number of different hazards are different in every game. There are also a couple of expansions on the way if you still feel like you need more game.

The game also comes with a few extra perks, like a tile holder and the tiles have spots that light up with UV light, same as the die. It makes as a great experience to play it in the dark with a cave soundtrack in the background.

The good: The game plays fast and is hard, a victory will feel like one. Production quality. Simple mechanics makes for a light game that is really fun to play.

The bad: If a player gets stranded and get knocked unconscious early in the game it might be left behind, and makes for a boring game for that person if nobody comes rescue you. with 4 cavers we've found out for this to happen more often as only half of the group has to make it out.

You might also like: Burgle Bros, Pandemic

That's it for Sub Terra review folks!

If you feel adventurous enough I highly recommend it and watch out for the horrors hidden in the darkness...

Hoplomachus: Origins - Review

Game Name:	Hoplomachus: Origins	Published Year:	2015
Game Publisher:	Chip Theory Games	Player Scale:	1-2
Game Designer:	Adam Carlson, Josh J. Carlson	Run Time:	15-30 min

 

“Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutant”

Introduction

The Hoplomachus series brings us back to ancient times, to fight as a group of gladiators in the Roman arena games. There are currently 3 games in the series, but I will talk about the more recent one released, Hoplomachus Origins. On this one, instead of playing in the arenas of Rome, you’ll be playing in 3 different arenas of other civilisations trying to gain fame to finally make it into the greatest arena. This game differentiates from the other two in the series as the fight conditions change and it incorporates a drafting mechanic at the beginning of the game.

How it plays



The first part of the game corresponds to the drafting. The two players will have to choose, one at a time, the gladiators and tactics they wish to use for their combats. There are different gladiator houses that you can choose from and you can mix as you wish. You will choose a total of 8 chips, and in every combat, you will use a maximum of 6. You’re also limited to use only one champion per combat, though you can draft multiple if you wish, these are more powerful gladiators.

There are two different kinds of chips you can choose from. Gladiators, which have different abilities depending on their class, and different stats. There is a wide range of abilities in the game, ranging from basic attacks of different kinds to alternative attacks or passive abilities. This is one of the most interesting parts of the game as depending on the different mix of abilities you have in combat you’ll have different strategies. The other kind of chips are tactics, these are special abilities you can deploy in a fight to temper with your opponent or aid you, but at the expense of taking the space of a gladiator.



Once the draft is done, the fights begin. You will play on the 3 arenas, but at in a randomly chosen order. Every arena has a different objective. In the Atlantis Arena, the first gladiator deployed will be your leader, which will have double the life, and the objective is to kill the other leader. In El Dorado arena, both teams have a treasure chest, and your objective is to carry it to the other side of the arena. And the third arena, Xanadu, you’ll need to control the centre of the arena, where at the beginning of the round you’ll score a point for every gladiator you have in those hexes and whoever gets to 6 points first wins the fight. Alternatively, you can always win by killing all the gladiators from the other team.

The fights play with a very simple set of rules: deploy, move, attack. In a player’s turn you will be able first to deploy a gladiator and/or tactic, then you’ll be able to move all your gladiators deployed in previous rounds and finally attack with those gladiators. Then is the other player’s go. As you can see the gameplay is very simple, but there is a lot of strategy behind your choices, as the fights are brutal and fast to play, every decision matters.



As a handicap for the winner, the player who’s lost will choose one of the chips in the opponent’s pool and will eliminate it from the game. Also as you are running a house of gladiators you will earn and lose reputation as you keep winning or losing. This reputation will hold for all your games of Hoplomachus Origins, and will modify the drafting rules at the beginning of every game just for you. This is a very cool addition to the game, that you don’t need to use if you don’t like it, but is a very cool system to compare scores with your friends, and remain in the top of the reputation chart will be a real challenge, as for every 10 reputation a harder handicap will come in effect.

The solo game



The game comes with specific solo rules, in the form of 20 different trials. In the solo game, you will face different challenges against special champions. You will only draft 6 and the rules for drafting will be different for every trial. These start quite easy but will rapidly increase in difficulty and will be a real challenge in the latest ones. The premise of the solo game is that once you win a trial you can go to the next one, and if you fail you can attempt it once more or you will fall to the previous trial. The opposing team will follow some simple AI rules to move and attack, plus the champions will act depending on the dice rolls.

Opinion

The game system is very simple, so is very easy to explain and get going, but there is so much strategy in those combats with all the different abilities, that makes every game unique and very challenging to master. There is a lot of interaction between the different gladiators that you can exploit in your favour. Fights play in 5/10 min each, so is very fast to play, and it makes for a very interesting game in such short gameplay time. Just using this game, you have 33 different skills, not counting the different basic attacks. The game comes with a total of 20 Gladiators from 5 different schools, plus 8 tactics. But the good thing is that if you own the other games you can mix the units to have a bigger pool for the draft, increasing the choice and replayability of the game even further, which is already big. The solo mode is very well implemented and makes for a challenging and very entertaining game that plays fast and is quite different even if you replay the same trial.



Component wise, this is very high quality, the games are not cheap but they are worth every penny, not just for such a good gameplay but you get top notch components. All the information is displayed in the heavy poker chips and the art is quite good. The arena maps are on neoprene mats with very cool art. This game is the cheapest of the 3 in the series so it makes a good entry point if you are interested. The games can only be purchased from Chips theory games website directly, they do that to keep the cost down as and now they support EU friendly shipping with very reasonable prices. The box is quite big and it comes a bit empty, but they will probably release more content for it in the future, plus there are already a few mini expansions that are compatible if you want to increase the pool of gladiators.

The good: Lots of strategy and tactics involved in the game and it plays fast with simple game mechanics. The components are very good quality. The solo game is excellent. The house reputation is a neat addition to the game.

The bad: The price is high, you get quality, but it might put some people off. For me is worth it, and this is the best entry point being the cheapest of the three. It will take a few games until you see some abilities in play and start forging your tactics.

You might also like: Hoplomachus: The Lost Cities, Hoplomachus: Rise of Rome and Too Many Bones.

That’s it for my review of Hoplomachus Origins folks.

I’ll see you around in the arena and don’t expect mercy!

Jesus