Review: Pax Porfiriana

Game Name:	Pax Porfiriana: Collector’s edition	Published Year:	2012
Game Publisher:	Sierra Madre Games	Player Scale:	1-6
Game Designer:	Phil Eklund, Matt Eklund, Jim Gutt	Run Time:	120 min

¡Bienvenidos a México!

Pax Porfiriana, Latin for "The Porfirian Peace", refers to the 33-year period in the early 20th Century where dictator Porfirio Díaz ruled Mexico with an iron hand until toppled in the 1910 revolution.

Your objective in the game, as a rich businessman of the time, is to topple president Díaz. Being a competitive game, you are going against each other to see who gets the position after him. This indeed not a story of friendship. You can topple in different ways, depending on the actual regime while the topple happens, but you only get 4 chances to do this in the whole game, otherwise, there is a Mexican stand-off at the end and whoever has more gold wins.

How it plays?

The game goes in a sequence of turns until the las topple cards get played. Each player performs all the four phases and then play goes to next player.

The first phase is the action phase. Each player gets to do 3 actions (or 2 if jailed) and there are a lot of options to choose from. You can purchase cards from the market, play or sell cards from your hand, upgrade in play cards, move troops around or speculate in the market.

After this, if there is a headline card in the 0 space of the market it gets played and then the market is restored, moving cards towards the lowest cost and filling up the empty spots. Finally, you get your income based on your enterprises without unrest, extortions and connection cubes.

You see that there are lots of options and moving gears in this game, even if the gameplay is quite easy to pick up there is quite a fair amount of complexity in the gameplay. All the meat in this game is in the cards though, the game comes with 220 cards, and depending on the number of players you will play only with half or a third of the cards, so every game can be very different and it will help keep that game fresh. Also, each player gets a Hacienda card, which will grant a special ability and your initial income.

There are 6 kinds of playing cards in this game. The enterprise cards are businesses that you can purchase are where most of your income will come from. There different kind of businesses, some of them they depend on the kind of regime in play as it affects the mines production and economy, others are more stable and can be improved (but beware as they become juicy targets for others to exploit too!) or depend on other enterprises in play.

The partner cards, they are people that you get for your cause and they are faction related. They will give you different abilities or prestige points.

Troop cards are military units that you can use either to defend your businesses or to extort another player's enterprise.  They are faction related also and most of them they can only be used in one of the 3 regions of the game (Sonora, Chihuahua and USA) as they have jurisdiction. Once you pledge for one of the causes you can have troops as a private army.

Black cards represent defamations, lawsuits, assassinations and other dirty tactics against your political rivals. And orange cards represent bandits, strikers, etc. that will create unrest and steal from your businesses. These two types when used the victim usually gets a reward in prestige points.

Finally, we have the headline cards. These act as events and also include the topple cards. These also can trigger a Depression in the game, if two bear cards are played in a row, and the only way to go back to business as usual is playing two bull cards in a row.

This more or less covers all the interactions in the game, there is one last thing, as I've talked about different regimes but I haven’t explained yet. There are 4 different regimes: Pax Porfiriana, Anarchy, Martial Law and US Intervention. These will affect the income of some of your enterprises and how the topple works as each regime is associated with one kind of victory points. When you try to topple, you will need a number of certain prestige points greater than Díaz basic 2, plus the sum of the opponents with the least points of that kind.

Solo game

As you can see from the gameplay this game doesn't seem very solo friendly as there is quite a lot of interaction between players, but it does have a solo variant that you can play. In this case, you will go against Díaz itself. I haven't particularly played it yet solo, but it does look like it makes a very interesting game.

Also, there is a variant made by Ricky Royal that is highly regarded in BGG's 1 Player Guild, if you want to take a look here are the written rules and the videos of Ricky playing it on his YouTube channel (Box of Delights). Definitely worth to give it a go and I'm particularly looking forward to it.

Opinion

I will start saying that I like Phil Eklund's games, they are very particular designs that are not for everybody and usually, the rules are not easy to digest. Nonetheless, I haven't played one of his game that hasn't been rewarding to learn to play it. They are all science or history based and have very intelligent and interesting mechanics. This one is probably the easiest Phil Eklund game to get into that I have played.

This is the first game in the Pax series, it was highly regarded in the 1 Player Guild and in BGG in general so I was looking forward to playing it at some point. I wasn't disappointed at all. It makes for such an interesting gameplay the whole game. Turns are fast, there is a ton of interaction between players and is a deep game. With so many cards and different types of them, it makes for a lot of variation in the game too, you never know what will happen or what will come out in the market. Things can change a lot from turn to turn too so is quite a dynamic game, and getting that victory condition when the topple card comes is very hard to achieve.

The interaction between players is great, but you need to be careful as when you do something to someone else you usually give them a plus in prestige points, and a point in this game can give you the victory, such a brilliant design. This game feels a bit like a COIN-lite game but more focused on the economy, for those who don't know me, I'm a big fan of GMT's COIN games, they are my favourite system, and the interaction in this game with the factions and between players reminds me a bit of that system, with a bit less complexity and a bit shorter too.

Pros: High interaction between players, very rewarding gameplay and lots of variability.

Cons: The artwork and game pieces are not very attractive, so that may put some people off but it won't matter when they start playing. This is quite common with Sierra Madre games, though they are doing a great job in their new releases to improve the aspect of their games without increasing the price to crazy levels. Looking forward to keeping getting their games.

You may also like: Pax Pamir, Pax Renaissance, GMT's COIN games.

That's all folks, I hope you liked it and hopefully, I've convinced you all to try a Phil Eklund game at some point!

Review: enDANGERed Orphans of Condyle Cove

Game Name:	enDANGERed Orphans of Condyle Cove	Published Year:	2016
Game Publisher:	Certifiable Studios	Player Scale:	2 – 4
Game Designer:	Jesse Labbe	Run Time:	5 – 40 mins

Condyle Cove is a dark and dreary place.  Stark and devoid of both colour and life.  It’s even more desperate if you are an orphan.  Alone, tired, dirty and afraid, struggling to survive and the odds of that…well, they weren’t great to begin with and they just keep getting worse.

 

 



In enDANGERed Orphans each player is a nameless orphan struggling to survive, you’ll wonder through Condyle Cove seeking refuge and safety where you can, using up your limited Options to try and stay afloat.  When you’re out of Options, the shadows part and the Bogeyman gets you.  If you find yourself running low on Options and truly desperate, you can always visit the menacingly named Kiddie Corner (or cul-de-sac) at the centre of the map and try an Act of Desperation, to breathe some limited life back into your game, but even that isn’t guaranteed.  As you could always uncover the Bogeyman him/her/itself and be lost to the void forever.  Mwahahahahahaha!

Okay, so this game may sound a little morbid and depressing thematically, and you would be kind of right, but let me put it this way:

Imagine Tim Burton had a nightmare and turned it into a board game with a Peanuts-esque artwork.



Interested now I bet, and now you’ve got the right feel for this game.

Playing the game

There are three types of cards in the game. Options – cards that you can play to give you bonuses or be detrimental to your opponents, these also form your life-deck.  Cove cards form the map of Condyle Cove, each card has a special ability which will affect any player on the card, and you’ll use these to map out the game area each time you play.  Acts of Desperation – as the name suggests these are last ditch attempt cards to stay in the game, most of these are “good” cards, and at least one of them is the Bogeyman.  Which is bad.  Very bad.



With that all in mind, the rules are very, very simple.  Move (if you want to), up to two spaces.  Play a card (if you want to), and you can play as many as you like in any order.  Draw two cards (either Cove Cards or Option Cards).  If you get to the Draw phase and are unable to draw two cards then it is game over for you and you always, always have to Draw two cards.  This means that after turn one, you will have to play a card.

Kiddie Corner and the Acts of Desperation (AOD) bring an exciting, and terrifying mini-game of chance into endangered Orphans.  You could argue that they are a little swingy, and you’d be right, but a gamble should be swingy.  If a player ever starts their turn at Kiddie Corner, they must pick one of the six Acts of Desperation cards.  Five of these will reinvigorate their Options deck to varying degrees.  One will end their game.  The next player to end up here, well, their odds just got a little steeper.



That’s it.  That’s the game.  This is a player exclusion game, with the last Orphan standing (alone, oh so very alone) being the winner.  enDANGERed Orphans is a quick, light game, that is full of player interaction and most importantly; fun.  It is simple, slick and doesn’t get in its own way with too many rules (I’ll discuss the rulebook a little later on) or limitations.  Simply play a card, do what it says.  Make a friend cry perhaps. And move along.

It is all Take-That though, and the game is very competitive, which may not appeal to everyone.  You can very clearly see you opponents Options deck deplete like a cardboard hour glass, and you’ll see them grin from ear to ear when they have that one card they need to ruin you (having a good poker-face will really help you out in this game).  You’ll start each turn with the seemingly innocuous yet difficult decision about moving.  Since many of the Cove cards grants an ability based on where you are, or are not, but you don’t want to stay put for too long.  Sure being in the Creek is handy for a while that is until someone plays Swept Away and makes you discard everything.  And as much as it is a risk, you don’t want to get too far away from Kiddie Corner, just in case…



The start of your first game, you might play nice.  You might start adding to the map instead of immediately causing problems for your fellow orphans.  But that won’t last.  Soon you’ll be causing cards to be discarded, you’ll be stealing and shuffling other pawns around the board with near reckless abandon. When you play your second game you’ll be a top–class, A-Grade d*ck with a capital “D”, straight out of the gate.  What’s more, you’ll have even more fun.



There may come a point in this game that a loss can fall a little flat, when you’re running low-ish on Options, and then, through a series of unfortunate events (read as ‘Dick moves’) you can find yourself without any viable options, no way to get to Kiddie Corner and nothing left in your Options deck.  This could just be because the people I play against much prefer watching me figuratively bleed-out, rather than just putting me out of my misery, but I do often feel robbed of a Game End when this comes about.

Now, about the components. 

I will start by saying: enDANGERed Orphans has my favourite board game components to date.  Not only is the artwork great in its dreary horridness but the pawns are utterly brilliant – painted or not these look and feel great.  The neoprene play mats: amazing.  The cards themselves are of the highest quality linen finished stock.  The box insert fits everything – including the expansions, with fully sleeved cards – all comfortably, perfectly.  Even the flippin’ box looks great with its spot UV cover art.  I could keep writing words, but you’re better off just looking at this stuff.  Really.



Fundamentally, enDANGERed Orphans is a card game.  In a basic two or three player game, you can strip the game down to around sixty cards and the standees – which you’ll be able to fit into a deck box.   I went with a Flip ‘n’ Tray to fit the expansions and pawns in to make easier to transport, which also adds it to my #LunchBreakGames series.



Bizarrely, it comes with both standees and pawns.  This is only bizarre because the pawns are so awesome.  I can’t see much use in the standees unless players particularly want to something more specific (since the pawns are both ethnic and gender neutral), like a cat.



There are a few expansions also available; Mr Coleman’s Carnival of Captivating Curiosities, Somewhere Down Lexington Drive, these add a new Cul-de-sac artwork card and different and new Acts of Desperation and some additional standees.  Do you need these to expand the game, or get a fuller game experience? No, they just add some more flavour and character.  The one expansion that mixes things up significantly is the Last Winter of Benny Harris which comes with the game which includes a new Cove and ability to draw a different type of card Last Winter, which are bonus actions, some of which are very bad against your opponents, some are very bad for you.  It’s another mini game, big gamble deck which can make the games a bit longer and a little more fun.



…a little later on

One thing about this game that seems to have caused quite a bit of fuss is the rule book.  Is it a very funny, laid-back, jocular and flippant rule book?  Yes, yes it is, there is a very good chance you laugh if not smirk when reading it.  Is it obtuse, vague and occasionally unhelpful, yeah, it kind of is that too.  Yet, as an intelligent, well humoured gamer you’ll get it.  The rules are very, very simple:

Move.

Play.

Draw.

When you’re out of Options you’re out!



Certifiable Studios have gone with the less is more system here and on the whole it works.  If you are a Rule Hound type of gamer…fix yourself a cup of chai tea and find your happy place before opening this rule book.  If you can play a game comfortably by playing logically, sensibly then you’ll be fine.  This lack of clarity extends to some of the cards too, unfortunately with mixed terminology that again, will upset the thoroughbred rule hounds.  Certain Cove card prohibit cards being “Taken” from your hand, but the language on the Options cards uses “Steal” .  Another location stops your pawn being moved – but is that moved as in “Moved one/two/three spaces” like the movement phase, or does it include being taken from one cove location and placed on another.  As a personal bugbear I would have preferred that the term orphan was used in place of ‘anybody’, or ‘pawn’ or ‘player’ to keep the theme and mechanic more interlocked.  A future edition of this game would tighten a lot of these “issues” up quickly and simply, in doing so it making this game more immediately accessible to newer/less experienced or younger gamers.

So…

enDANGERed Orphans is a very completive game, with lots and lots of Take That, which could very easily make you fall out with your friends. It looks utterly amazing, and has set the bar very high for any subsequent games from Certifiable Studios.  Ironically, considering the theme of the game, it oozes love and affection from its creators and they have wanted to deliver the very best, most fun product they could.  I feel they have succeeded in this.  Yes, it is a glorified card game, but, oh.  The glory of it!



The Good:

Great player interaction

Brilliant components

Amazing artwork

Quick and easy rule set

Exciting elements of luck mixed with light strategy/hand management

Funny rulebook

The Bad:

Full on Take-That game – which some may not like

Player Exclusion –which again, some might not like

The theme may put you off, but stop being a sissy and play it

Obtuse rulebook

Occasionally ambiguous card wording

Semi-pointless standees (they still look ace though)

This game was purchased/ backed on Kickstarter at The "GREEDY BASTARDS" Level

 

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...

Brain teasers - Insidezecube review

Today I bring you an article a little bit different than usual. Since I was a kid I've always loved solving riddles and puzzles, it is probably why I enjoy playing games so much nowadays. I've always been a fan of logic riddles. But today I'm going to talk about a different kind of riddles, ones you need other abilities than a quick mind for.

At the UK Games Expo '17, there was a small booth that drew my attention. It was full of very colorful cubes with some kind of inscription on them. They let me try one sample and I was immediately hooked. I purchased one of them and after toying around I got in contact with them to know more about these. I'm talking about the people from insidezecube!



The idea behind these cubes is very simple. You are the ball, and you need to escape the labyrinth in the dark, with just your map. Every labyrinth has several layers and you have a map of each layer where it shows the entries and exits. The exit is on the other side of the cube. You'll move the ball by moving the cube and making it roll, and you'll guide yourself by the sound and hits against the walls.



Simple right? Well, prepare to get lost.  A lot! These things are addictive and in the higher levels, it will take you some time to get to the exit successfully. Yes, they have differents difficulties too.

They've got 6 different levels. Blue is the easiest, with just one way down. Green and orange are the next, which introduces 3-dimensional movement, you're going back and forward between levels. The red and brown they add traps (dead ends) and with the brown, you can't open the cube! And last but not least, for the more intrepid adventurers, you've got the black cube. No map.  No cube opening.  Just you and your senses.

 

[caption id="attachment_1594" align="alignleft" width="300"] The mean family[/caption]

 

They also have 3 different series. The novice series are 5 level labyrinths. The Series 0, which is the original one, has 7 levels. And the 3rd, called the Phantom Series, has an extra ball that is enclosed somewhere in the labyrinth that will mess with your senses. As you can see there is a cube for everyone here.

 



With the exception of the black and brown cubes, you can always open the cube to gain access to the different levels, in case you get lost and want to restart. The assembly is very easy, shaped so the levels can only be introduced one way, and each has an identifier number.

But wait, there is more, one of the questions that I had after toying around with the cube and opening to see how the inside looked, was how about switching the levels to get different labyrinths? Insidezecube had already thought about that. They redirected me to a small webapp with a couple of tools that you're going to love. They have a small questionnaire to help you find the ball if you get lost and don't want to give up and they have one that lets you print different maps.



But the best one of them all is the one that you put the levels you own and it gives you all the possible combinations that have an actual exit. So you're buying the cube but in fact, you have hundreds of combinations with your levels. And if you have two different cubes you can mix and match, just amazing!

These guys from neighbouring France have a great idea in their hands, they started it with a crowd funding and have created a small community around these cubes. They have challenges, people interchanging their cubes and an excellent website full of resources to keep you coming back. I know I'll be waiting first in line for their next evolution in the series. If you're interested in giving it a go, you won't be disappointed. If your local shop doesn't supply on these cubes you can always purchase directly from them with very reasonable prices.

 

[caption id="attachment_1596" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Mortal phantom series 0 (before I got irremediably lost)[/caption]

 

For the moment I'll try to find my way back in the phantom mortal cube again before I go completely insane in that labyrinth... Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

I hope you enjoyed the article. I love this kind of puzzles, and they also deserve a mention in the game's world. They are excellent to bring along on a trip or as a gift.  There are hundreds of great ideas out there. If you like the labyrinth cubes, you might also like these ones too.

 

[caption id="attachment_1597" align="alignleft" width="300"] Kepler's Planetary Puzzle[/caption]

 

I love to get them when I visit the Science Museum in London, a great souvenir if you ask me. The latest one I got was the Kepler's Planetary puzzle from the Great Minds series (I love to challenge my colleagues to solve this under a timer).

 

 



You also have reimplementations of classics like the mix of a Sudoku with a Rubik's cube! (only for the faint of heart and looking for a brain burning experience!) from the people at Vcube.

Thanks for reading and take a look at the innovative great ideas from insedezecube!

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

 

Review: Comanchería - The Rise and Fall of the Comanche Empire

Game Name:	Comanchería: The Rise and Fall of the Comanche Empire	Published Year:	2016
Game Publisher:	GMT Games	Player Scale:	1
Game Designer:	Joel Toppen	Run Time:	60-360 min

“Warriors are not what you think of warriors. The warrior is not someone who fights, because no one has the right to take another life. The warrior, for us, is one who sacrifices himself for the good of others. His task is to take care of the elderly, the defensless, those who cannot provide for themselves, and above all, the children, the future of humanity.”

 Sitting Bull (c. 1831-1890),

Hunkpapa Lakota

Introduction

 This is the second game in Joel Toppen's "First Nations" series. Let’s go back in time to North America, XVIII^th - XIX^th Century, the Native Americans dominated a large part of the lands. With this game, we’re going to focus on the story of the Comanche people, the Lords of the Southern Plains. This game is a full solo experience and with it, you will see their struggle against the different Colonial powers of the time. Your objective in the game is to develop your culture and military power and meet the historical period check at the end so your legacy survives.



How it plays

The game plays in sequence of phases, cycling through them in every turn. This will make advance the time at th end of each turn and trigger at some point a passage of time (a jump to the next generation of your people).

It gives you an option to play from 5 different scenarios, each one contemplating different historical periods of different length and ranging from the easiest difficulty to the hardest.

Every turn you play it will emulate from 6 months to two years and every Passage of Time will be a new generation on the tribes, also known as Comancherías.

[caption id="attachment_1114" align="alignleft" width="300"] Historical period cards[/caption]

There are 4 historical periods in total in the game, and they can be linked together through the different scenarios. However;  each time you get to the end of the time period, you’ll need to pass a victory check, if you succeed you can continue to the next period as indicated in the scenario. If you fail then is game over immediately. Another way to lose is if both your culture and war counters are at zero at the same time.

[caption id="attachment_1115" align="alignright" width="300"] Player aids with the sequence of play[/caption]

The sequence of play is very detailed in the player aids, and once you get the pace of the game you won’t need anything else to play. The first phase is the “War column phase” if there are any enemy war column in play they will move and act based on the war card information drawn that turn.

Then, it will be your turn to act. You have 3 basic action trees to choose from.

[caption id="attachment_1116" align="alignleft" width="300"] War deck[/caption]

The first tree is the Actions tree that will let you use the Comanche bands you have available at your Comancherías to hunt buffalos, move around the plains, raid enemy tribes or settlements and trade. This will drain your bands, as you use them for the different things they’ll lose strength.  The second tree is the Culture tree allowing you to increase and advance the culture of your people. The final tree is the Planning tree, which lets you refresh units and it will update the leadership of your Comanchería.

[caption id="attachment_1110" align="alignright" width="300"] Draw chits[/caption]

The 4^th and last action possible it will usually trigger at points throughout the game, (under some conditions you can take the action voluntarily), this action is called the Pass

age of Time. This action, though taken very few times during the game, will be critical for your success, and preparing well for it will determine if you win or lose the game. It is with this action that you might meet the conditions for a victory check but also is your option to grow the Comanche Empire.

After the player has taken all their actions you’ll move into the last phase, the operation clean up. This is where the AI will take its actions, such as deploy war columns, hunt, settle or recover (there are 10 different possible actions in total). This phase will prepare the map for the next round of the game too.

[caption id="attachment_1112" align="alignleft" width="300"] Development decks, one for each historical period[/caption]

At your disposition during the game you'll have different kinds of resources, some of them you can gather like buffalos or horses, others more powerful like guns you can only trade for them. As you keep playing you'll have options to acquire development cards, which have powerful events that can turn the balance to your side in difficult moments or culture cards that will shape the culture of your people and give you permanent abilities.

Opinion

[caption id="attachment_1109" align="alignright" width="300"] Culture cards[/caption]

The game is a brilliant example of a great solo design. The rulebook is very well done and not very extensive with 20 pages, with plenty of examples, design notes and cultural and historical references. With all that the learning curve is steep, there is a lot going on in this game and decisions matter. The first couple of games you’re probably not going to know what to do but you’ll learn over time from your errors, and this makes a great experience for me.  It is both difficult and rewarding at the same time. Like most of GMT games, this one comes with a playbook, where the designer walks you through a few turns doing the different actions of the game with lots of explanations, this will be your first stop in this game as it will keep telling you which rules to read at the same time you’re playing the game. If this is not enough for you, the designer has done a very good job with a few youtube videos where he goes through this playbook and gives you additional insight into the choices he makes.

[caption id="attachment_1108" align="alignleft" width="225"] The AI engine[/caption]

The AI is very simple to run, and its decisions will adapt to the state of the board in a very straightforward manner; it is a brilliant design. The chit pull system of the game makes things very interesting, as you’ll try to push your luck to get those success chits, but as you keep drawing them the proportions of the enemy action chits will increase. So how much the AI will act this turn will mostly depend on how far you want to go, a reaction for every action, again, brilliant.

The replayability of the game is high, you can play the same scenario a few times and not a single game will be the same. You can also choose to go through different paths via your choice of culture cards during the game, plus the development deck will be randomised every game. He is also very active and helpful on the game’s forums at BoardGameGeek. The game is very challenging, I still haven’t attempted the most difficult scenarios as I still struggle with the easier ones, so it will give you plenty of hours of entertainment before you even think of attempting the great challenge of a full campaign of this game. The production is excellent as with most of GMT’s games, thick counters, mounted board and artwork are thematic and gorgeous.

The Good: The game is challenging, the game system is brilliant and engaging, lots of meaningful decisions to make.

The bad: Might be difficult to get into it to some people due to the uniqueness of the system, but if you struggle and you’re still interested; keep watching those videos, once you get the hang of it, you’ll see how rewarding it is. Even if you know how to play you’ll still need to go through the player aids regularly to apply the process correctly, this might put some people off too.

You might also like: Victory Point Games state of siege series

That’s it for my review on Comanchería folks!

This is a game that every solo gamer should at least try once if not own, and I believe it will appeal to not only wargamers but to any gamer due to the uniqueness of the system. This is a keeper for me and as far as I am concerned I will follow Joel Toppen’s future games closely.

I hope to see you around in the Great Plains.

Jesus

[caption id="attachment_1164" align="alignnone" width="700"] Coffee Coolers Meet the Hostiles, by Howard Terpning[/caption]

Review: Leaving Earth

Game Name:	Leaving Earth	Published Year:	2015
Game Publisher:	The Lumenaris Group, Inc.	Player Scale:	1-5
Game Designer:	Joseph Fatula	Run Time:	60-180 min

"It [the rocket] will free man from his remaining chains, the chains of gravity which still tie him to this planet. It will open to him the gates of heaven."

(Wernher von Braun)

Welcome to Leaving Earth, a game about the space race. In this review, I will cover both the base game and the expansion Leaving Earth: Outer Planets. In Leaving Earth, you’ll take control of one of the world’s space agencies and will try to accomplish missions in space. If you want to be the first and grab the glory, you’ll need to plan and assess the risk of doing the mission before other players grab the points.

[caption id="attachment_926" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Full game setup (using only 1 of the 5 agencies) with the Outer Planets expansion.[/caption]

How it plays

[caption id="attachment_927" align="alignleft" width="300"] Base game map.[/caption]

You are presented with a map of the solar system detailing different zones and how they’re interconnected. The base game is only composed of Planet Earth, the Moon, Venus and Mars. If you get the second edition of the game it will come with a mini expansion integrating Mercury.

 

The Outer planet expansion will add Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and a number of their satellites for you to explore. The locations that can be explored have multiple copies so the exploration results will be randomized in every game, as you only use on of them per game.

[caption id="attachment_929" align="alignright" width="300"] Multiple copies of an exploration place with different results in the reverse.[/caption]

The game will play in a limited number of rounds representing each a year, starting at 1956 and going all the way up to 1976 on the base game or 1986 with the Outer Planet expansion. Every year all the agencies get the same amount of funding and they need to spend it on developing technologies, building spacecrafts, training astronauts, … In your turn you can also build spacecrafts with the pieces you already have and launch missions into space.

Each round, all players get a turn and they can perform as many actions as they can or are able and then the next player goes. If you don’t spend your funding it is lost, and in the next year you’ll start with the same amount as every year. Once everybody has done their actions you resolve all the end of year actions like feeding your astronauts in space or resolving any perils.

[caption id="attachment_919" align="alignleft" width="300"] Technologies and manoeuvers.[/caption]

There is a large selection of technologies you can develop, and these will be prerequisites for most of the rockets you can build or certain manoeuvres you can perform in your missions later on. When you develop a technology, you always get a certain amount of outcome cards that go along with it. Every time you fire a rocket or perform a manoeuvre involving one of the technologies you have to flip one of those cards.



You can have 3 different results, a success, so everything goes as planned. A minor fail, which usually result in something not working but able to be repaired. A major fail, which usually result in everything getting lost in a big ball of fire. Independently of the result, you can get rid of the card once revealed by paying the amount indicated, if not it will get shuffled back with the other cards. This mechanic will include a bit of luck and uncertainty to every action you do in your missions. You can perform tests as many times as you want, paying to get rid of the cards, once you have no more cards is always an automatic success, however; this requires money and time that you might not have, remember, this is a race after all.

[caption id="attachment_923" align="alignleft" width="300"] Mission cards[/caption]

 

Missions will be assigned in the game’s set up, depending on the chosen difficulty for the game you will draw a certain number of cards from the easy, medium and hard missions decks.  Including the Outer Planets expansion this changes a bit, apart from the missions you draw from these decks, there will be a certain number of non-explorable missions from the outer planets, and while exploring the locations it will add extra missions. As you don't use all missions in a game this will add to the replayability of the game. All missions are available for everybody and they are worth a number of points. The first person to accomplish a mission gets the corresponding card with its points. When this happens, all other agencies receive a bonus in their funding for the year. There is a wide range of missions, from a simple survey, to find life or bring samples back to Earth.

[caption id="attachment_920" align="alignright" width="300"] Example from the rulebook of planning a mission.[/caption]

 

Planning a mission is an essential part of the game, and unfortunately, might involve too much math for some people. Based on the difficulty of the manoeuvres and the mass you’re trying to move you’ll need to calculate the amount of thrust you’ll need for the different manoeuvres. Fortunately for you, if using basic mathematical formulae and calculator seems out of place for a game, each agency card has a table saying how many rockets of each type you’ll need to use depending on the difficulty of the manoeuvre and the mass you want to move. You’ll still need to plan using pen and paper for the hardest missions.

[caption id="attachment_925" align="alignleft" width="300"] The Outer Planets calendar track shows the windows of opportunity for the slingshot manoeuvres.[/caption]

With the Outer Planets expansion the slingshot manoeuvres were incorporated, as these depend on the alignment of the planets, you’ll need to look for windows of opportunity based on the calendar year planning your missions, adding, even more, depth to the game system.

 

 

 

Solo Game

[caption id="attachment_918" align="alignright" width="300"] Components for one of the agencies.[/caption]

The solo game is a bit different, you still run the space program for an agency, but as you are not competing with anyone you can perfectly plan your movements. There is a win condition though, you need to have more than half of the points of the total missions by the end of the game. To keep the game challenging is recommended to play in difficulty high or very high. With the addition of the Outer Planets expansions, some of the missions are unknown until you explore the planets or satellites, which will add further difficulty. The agreed convention on how to play this is you need to accomplish all the non-explorable missions of the outer planets and then with all available, you have to score half of the points. This is one of my favourite games in my collection to play solo, I highly recommend it if you like the theme and don’t mind doing some basic math.

Opinion

[caption id="attachment_922" align="alignleft" width="300"] The 5 space agencies of the game[/caption]

The game is all about planning, there is a bit of luck involved with the outcome cards as you can get delays due to fails, but the game is very strategic. The different agencies add to the theme, but they are all the same, so there is no asymmetry in the game. There are different approaches to each mission, there will be an optimal solution, but it will take you a few games to gain enough experience with all the technologies and there is the race aspect of the game, your mission might be the optimal one, but if someone tries their luck and achieves the mission before you all that planning might be for nothing. This is where you need to assess if taking the risk is worth it.

There is definitely a learning curve in the game, but with the different difficulty levels, you can approach the harder missions at your own pace while exploring the game. The fact that the exploration places are random and that there are so many missions in the pool is going to be rare to play the same game twice in a row, the replayability is very high. The fact that the game is so mathy might put some people off, but for me is one of the reasons I like this game so much. In big groups, the downtime might be too long if a couple of players suffer from analysis paralysis frequently, and for me, this is a brilliant game as solitaire.

The artwork is just magnificent, it’s got this retro vibe of the space race and the map looks gorgeous displayed on the table. The components are good quality but being a game produced by demand you can see that is not from a big production company. One of the problems of this is that is not widely available though now is easily ordered in different online shops in EU. As a fan fact, if you happen to visit NASA you can actually grab a copy there. The rulebook is very well displayed and I didn’t find it difficult to get into the game, and Joseph is always willing to answer anyone in BGG forums if you have any questions regarding the game.

The good: Highly thematic, gorgeous artwork, brilliant gameplay. Multiplayer is quite tense and solo is a great puzzle.

The bad: If you play in a big group the down-time between turns might be quite big if the players like to take their time planning. Some people might not like the mathy aspect of the game.

You might also like: High Frontier (3^rd Edition)

That’s all for the review folks!

If the idea of cruising into space making the next great discoveries of humankind appeals to you, this is a piece of art to have in your collection. Try to replicate the Voyager program or the Cassini mission which will end in September ‘17 with the spacecraft crashing into Saturn. I leave you now with one of the latest photographs of this great mission (thanks to the NASA image gallery)