Outer Rim Game Review

Our gaming group was lucky to find a copy of Fantasy Flight's newest Star Wars game Outer Rim at our FLGS last week.  The much hyped game has you play as one of the better known Bounty Hunters or smugglers in Star Wars lore as they gain fame and fortune by completing jobs and moving cargo.
 
Characters start the game with one of two basic ships, and either a job to complete or some cargo to deliver.  Each player turn has three sections to it.  In the first section, they can move to a new location, heal,  or gain some credits at their current location.  Then players can turn in any bounties or cargo, buy items from the shop area or trade items with other players at their location.  The shop area contains gear that enhance players, crew that help out, and jobs and cargo for players to complete and sell.  Then players can do an encounter at their location, either meeting with contacts, doing a job encounter, or a location encounter.

The full board

The encounters are somewhat similar to the way FFG did their Fallout game, with cards giving tests to pass based on character attributes.  Tests use two dice, with a critical needing to be rolled to pass. If your character has a tested attribute (Strength, Tactics, Knowledge etc etc) its easier to pass with either a hit or a critical.  Combat works in a similar fashion, with each player rolling dice equal to their combat strength against their opponents dice.  There were only 6 dice included, but we pretty quickly had attributes up to 7 or 8 in value, so FFG probably should ship a few more with the game.

Your player tableau, Bossk in a HWK-290

The game overall is enjoyable.  You jet around and pull heists, find bounties to capture and upgrade your gear.  It takes a little time to get your machine rolling (especially with bounties, since you need to investigate characters first).  Player interaction is a little low, but you can make trades and ask for promises and credits from anywhere on the board.  I was able to extract a favor from another player in return for not stopping them from buying a ship on my turn, which was a fun way of politicing.  Attacking other players is possible, but its limited so its an area that's not really explored in the game.  If you've enjoyed most of FFG's other offerings, this game fits in nicely for a fun time with plenty of memories.

The only aspect that felt not very pivotal was the different faction patrols.  There are encounters with them, and having your reputation up with factions makes it easier to move around.  But overall since the patrols don't do a lot of movement and at neutral reputation just stop your movement they play a very minor role.  If there was more to their movement or more patrols going I think it would make that aspect a bit better.

Keyforge AoA pre release event Results and Thoughts

Thursday was the launch of the new Age of Ascension set for Keyforge. My FLGS scheduled a sealed event for that evening.  This was my first organized play event for Keyforge so I was a little nervous. It didn't help that I hadn't played regularly in a bit more than a month.  But the crowd was friendly and the decks we all got seemed to be in roughly similar power levels. I opened The One who sadly Believes in Sadness.  Its quite different from my best two Call of the Archons decks. The board state is much more pronounced and there is much less pure aember generation. Stormcrawler was an MVP all night helping slow down decks while Tantadin was effective at emptying one opponents archive through our game. I will need a reminder for my Grovekeeper to remember to actually do his ability as well. I do however have to get a bit better with Exhume and not finished with you, and when to pull them. I was also a little disappointed by just how vulnerable Duskwitch is.  Her ability is very good, but she was pretty easy to remove it felt like.

Overall I like the deck, but I ended up just 1-2 on the evening. The first game was tight and I was up 2 keys to 1 with a good board state and a chance to reap and win the following turn. However my opponent played Martin Generosity and Key Abduction to generate a ton of aember and essentially 2 keys. The second game I won pretty handily. My opponent ran out of gas after a quick early key and I was able to keep his board pretty barren through some fights and Natures call. The last game my opponent had a good shadow thief deck and just kept stealing aember. I couldn't get down to my pixies either to help protect myself. Also I kept trying to ping his Bad Penny's back to his hand and get Tezmal to lock them there but it never worked out right.I think with a little more experience this deck would be a very fun one to play, and can time itself correctly to have a huge oppressive board.  The event was a ton of fun and hopefully Ill get to do some more here in the near future.

Keyforge Deck Analyis: Keekhling, the Crony of the Depths

Finally getting a chance after the holidays to get back into a normal gaming schedule.Which has meant lately quite a bit more Keyforge.  I've still been laying a lot of The Terror that Purifies Togetherness, and it still continues to perform wonderfully.  But, I've added a few other decks, and this is one of them.

Keekhling, the Crony of the Depths
This is a creature heavy deck, featuring 20 creature cards, 11 actions, 3 artifacts and 2 upgrades.  This deck has a similar synergy between the Mars and Sanctum houses with Commander Remiel and Ulyq Megamouth helping to use creatures form other houses.  You could chain them together to be able to get 4 Aember on a turn when all four are out.  Mantle of the Zealot also lets you do some house cheating, getting a chance to trigger Stampede on an untamed turn to really fire things off. There is also a little ability to archive some cars with Mars, to try to help set up some bigger plays or protect a wounded creature to return later with Zyzzix the Many and Vezyma Thinkdrone.  

Overall though this deck does not play very well. The large number of creatures is a bit of an illusion since 15 of them have power 3 or less with little or no armor. It makes it very susceptible to board wipe effects. It also lacks any wipe effects of its own, besides  Qyxxlyx Plague Master which is limited to humans. It also hits a large chunk of your own creatures and kills most outright. Ammonia Clouds is similar that you'll end up removing most of your own pieces. It also lacks any real aember control for your opponent. No steals outside of stampede and only a couple captures. 

I have yet to win a game with this deck. It might work well against a deck that features less board presence so it's small creatures can't just get bullied or wiped.  There's a little ability to jump Aember from Untamed, but its just too little I think for this deck to be consistently a winner. 

Game Review: Unearth!

Our game group is rolling again now that the holidays are finished, and we started off the year with a gem of a game from Brotherwise Games, Unearth  Its difficult to classify the type of game, because it contains a little bit of everything in it.  Working placement, dice rolling, set collection and hand building.  The theme of the game though is clear.  You're in charge of a team of delvers, as they excavate ruins to help build your civilization.

Game play is fairly straight forward.  Each turn, you will be able to play one of your special Delver cards (examined more a bit later) and then pick a Ruins to excavate and roll one die on it.  Each Ruins card has a score that needs to be matched or exceeded before the winner can claim the ruin, and the player with the highest die on the RUins gets to claim it.  Other players who have a die on the card when it gets scored get to draw a Delver card for each die they have on the card.

This might sound like having the high roll is all that matters, but its not.  Each Ruins also starts out with a number of stones tokens on them, which a player can claim if they a 1, 2, or a 3.  These stones can then be arranged to build monuments, which either offer some special ability (like being able to draw delver cards even if you don't have a die at a finished Ruins) or victory points. Players will need 6 stones to complete a monument, with some having specific requirements (like 4 Red stones).  You build off your hex of stones as well, so placement of stones together can help you finish more monuments,

The Delver cards give you extra abilities during your turn.  Some will let you re-roll die on a card, while others let you roll extra die or increase a die face.  These cards really do add variety to the game, and allow the players some real strategic spots to be able to possibly win a Ruins they were trailing on or steal some stones they need to finish a particular monument.

The game gets scored via set collection.  The more ruins of the same color you're able to collect, the better the pont value for that set.  There are some bonuses for getting one ruins of each color as well.

Ruins with dice and our monument choices

Overall this game was a huge hit with our group.  Its deep enough that you will be challenged to find optimal plays and to track whats going on, but not so complex as to cause a lot of analysis paralysis.  Our turns went quickly and noone felt like they had to sit and think too hard, since most of it came down to planning to finish a Ruins or shooting to roll low to get a key stone.  The different monuments and overall mechanics of the dice rolling also lend to each game being pretty fresh, since its unlikely you'll get certain combinations time and time again. The Delver cards really help to insure players can be on an even footing as well, so the game does not snowball as I've seen too many set collecting games do.  And the hex stones for the monuments add in a bit of spatial reasoning to the game, so there really is something for everyone.  A definite good purchase if you can find it.

Fantasy Flight Games Hyper Space Report: Wild Speculation

SO Fantasy Flight Games has been tempting us with a big news report for all of their Star Wars properties before they kick off the World's events for those games.  The announcement two weeks beforehand has left a lot of time for what they're going actually be delivering for the games, and whether or not its going to be the "Something Big" they've been promising Armada players since GenCon last year. 

I've got a few guesses as to what FFG has up their sleeve for Armada, Legion and Imperial Assault.  I haven't played X-Wing in anything more than a dust off game with friends or anything more from Destiny than the original starter boxes, so I don't really have any pulse on the direction of those games.

Legion

I think after the deluge of info FFG has had for Legion this will be a small announcement for available products.  Likely the next Imperial Commander and their SPecial Forces, as well as with the announcement today of the organized play layout a rules reference update.  I'm going to guess the next commander will either be is going to be either Wulf Yularen, Cassius Tagge, or one of FFG's created properties like Kayn Somos.  Most of the best canon battles had nameless leaders and it focused on space battles.  Ground commanders are thin.  I also think they will wait a bit for Thrawn, since he is likely going to be a buffing commander like Veers.  The Scout Troopers are going to be the unit that gets revealed, since the FFG staff have all but actually spoiled it.

Armada

Armada is due for another wave announcement.  A lot of folks think it wil be an SSD, kicking off epic play for the game.  I am not so certain.  X-Wing epic play really has not generated much interest an the scale doesn't fit for Armada.  We already have 3x6 field.  Epic play requiring something like 6x6 or 6x12 would be impossible to find.  I think instead, its going to be something a little different.  I think we're getting a second campaign, one centered on the Death Star.  The time frame will begin around Rogue One and end with The battle of Yavin. I think it will incorporate more small scale and 500 point battles as both sides try to raid resources and the like. It will come with U-Wings and a few different ship variants for core and wave 1 ships.  With the changes to Gallant Haven and the continued low turnout for VSDs, some new variants could really energize these ships.

I have an outside guess that FFG will also raise the standard game point limit to 450 points. Some people think that will slow games down. I actually think it speeds it up, if you keep fighters capped. Squadrons take time in this game. Extra ships means more guns on targets and things go down faster.

Imperial Assault

I think the biggest announcement is coming for IA.  Theyll start with working through the latest Lothal announcement since we didnt get anything for skirmish spoiled yet.  Then a few new campaigns for the Heroes of the Alliance will be announced. The app has had several updates in the past couple months, including adding support for all hero packs. Then I believe the big news will drop: a new updated version 2.0. It will not include new map tiles, but instead will have several updated deployment cards for older units like regular storm troopers and Boba Fett. With Jabbas Realm shifting the power curve super high, these old units have been relegated to strictly campaign play.

All Properties
For all of their table top properties I think something big is brewing. They've started experimenting with Legion some of the different organized play campaigns. I think FFG could bring all their games together for something similar.  A massive galactic conquest. Maybe it runs for 2 months and stores act as planets. Different games score points for control of the store, or they fit a larger narrative.

This is all wild speculation of course. But it's fun to think of the future for these games I really love to play and obsess a bit about. 

Game Review: Terraforming Mars

In a bit of a lull right now from Armada and IA, in part because my gaming group has been playing a lot of Terraforming Mars. Terraforming is a combination game of machine building and some small area control elements. In it, each player takes control of a corporation that is attempting to be the greatest Teraforming group on the Red Planet. In the base game, all of the corps are the same. We skipped playing that version, instead using the corporations that each have different starting money and abilities. All players are attempting to gather resources (Space Bucks, Steel, Titanium, Plants, Energy and Heat) to be able to play cards from their hands, or to perform terraforming actions on the planet.  Everyone is trying to raise the temperature, oxygen level, and place ocean tiles onto the planet.  Each turn a player can perform up to two actions, like playing cards, raising the temp with heat resources, or buying a forest to raise the oxygen level.  They can perform one action and then let the next player go, but if they pass they are done for that round (called a Generation in the game).  At the end of the game, the player with the most Victory Points is the winner.

The board is really nice

What we Liked:

The gameplay is pretty smooth.  Limiting things to two actions keeps the pace moving,and noone is sitting for long periods of time as happens far too often in machine building games.  Players are also kept engaged by the fact that they need to know the board state to know when they need to spend on upping one of the terraforming requirements this action phase before someone else can do so and gain an advantage.  Many of the cards also allow you to interact with other players, typically by destroying their resources or inhibiting their resource production.  The rules are also straightforward, and after a round or two everyone we've played with has picked it up and run with it.  It always makes it nice to be able to quickly explain what's going on in a game, and not need to spend several hours pointing out possible edge cases so a new player doesn't get tripped up.  The board art and the cards were another big plus to our group.  While not everyone might enjoy some of the goofier pictures, I found it added a bit of levity to the game.  The flavor text is also quite funny.

What we didnt like:
As well as the board is made, the player tableaus are pretty bad.  The issue is that the cubes that you use to track your production and the amount of each resource you have slide way too easily.  I cannot recount the times we slightly bumped a tableau reaching to place a tile that you're entire economy would be wrecked because you swept it all away.  We did solve this problem by purchasing the Broken Token's insert.  Its a beautiful set of inserts that make it much easier to track and keep the game organized.   It also struck several of us that some of the cards themselves were just better versions of several of the corporations.  Phoblog is one an example, as their ability to have Titanium count as one extra Space Buck is nice, except that the advanced alloys card does that, and allows your steel to also count as one extra.  It also was a little disappointing how quickly your machine can get de-railed in the game due to the card draw.  If youve managed to pump out Steel, but you dont draw any Building Tag cards, its completely worthless.  Some sort of galactic trade hub or the like would be nice, to sell off resources for some cost.

Overall Impression:
This has quickly become a favorite of our group.  Its fast enough to play within a couple hours with 3-4 people chatting and playing, but also has some very deep strategy behind it.  I do hope the exansion will help to even out some of the machine flow issues, but this game on its own is a winner.

Corellian Conflict Squadron Thoughts

I'm extremely excited for the Corellian Conflict coming out for the Armada game.  For those who don't know, its adding campaign style play to Armada.  You and up to five other companions will fight battles at different strategic spots in the Star Wars universe.  It is also adding though a whole mess of new squadrons that have some great twists on the original squadron.  I've got some early thoughts on each of the so far spoiled squadrons and what its going to mean for the Tournament Meta prior to the release of the next wave of ships.

A very nice overview of what we've got from Armada forum member Captain Weather

Imperials:

Black Squadron-TIE Fighter Squadron

The suicide squad has arrived!  The Black Squadron is here to take the heat of of someone, most likely for just one exchange of fire.  For a point more than your typical TIE you'll forgo Swarm to get Counter 1 and Escort. I'm not really certain where Black Squadron will show up though.  Fighters with Escort you're really always hoping to trade for your more valuable squads to do their work.  With just 3 hull, and most rebel fighters pumping at least four attack dice, Black Squadrom might sheer off at best a pair of attacks. They might see some play hanging out as a secondary escort gighter for the Imperial killer Aces (Howl, Mauler, Vader, Dengar and Soontir) to keep opponents from just jumping over Vader to pick off one of the others in the ball, but Most folks would probably rather just have an extra Tie Advanced that might soak up 3 or more attacks.

Valen Rudor-TIE Fighter Squadron

This guy just has the biggest grin on his face, and for good reason.  He is going to simply murder generic fighters.  The 3 black anti squadron dice average 2.25 damage per attack (bumped up to 2.67 with Swarm to give a re-roll), and he has extreme staying power with a Brace and a Scatter as defense dice.  He will most likely be paired with Howlrunner to give him either a bit of extra damage, or a chance at an accuracy to put the hurt on named squadrons.  And at just 13 points, he will be right at home in a big group of TIE fighters, or TIE bombers with Flight Controllers to have some real staying power and provide a lot of plink damage to counteract all the braces on the rebel side.  I have also seen some talk that Vale accompanying Instigator will be worth examining to drive right into enemy squadrons and deliver pure punishement.  Honestly Valen might be the best Imperial pilot to get added.

Gamma Squadron-TIE Bomber

A nice add in bomber.  For only a point you lose Heavy and add Grit.  Likely going to be added to most bomber centric builds as a bomber that still move after your Intel ships have been plucked off. Also makes a nice addition for  just tossing in a bomber squadron since it wont require deciated Intel.

Captain Jonus- TIE Bomber Squadron

Ah, a bomber unique now that will give an opportunity to use someone besides Major Rhymer in bomber centric lists.  His ability to aid ships by allowing you to swap a die for an accuracy in attacks is going to really help diversify the Imperial carrier force as well, with the ability for longer strikng Gladiator-II to see some play.  Ive also always felt you really needed to go whole hog with Rhymer to really utilize his ability.  Jonus though could be a smaller splash of bombers that I remember using much more during Waves 1-2.  I don't think we will see Jonus and Rhymer together though so much, since that's now 32 points for a pair of bombers, and that their abilities really work against each other.

Ciena Rae-TIE Interceptor Squadron

Ciena is a standard TIE Interceptor, with some extra staying power thanks to the fact that all attacks against her are obstructed.  This is very nice against a lot of the currently used capital ships that have just a single AA die, as well as providing her with a pretty good chance of being able to use her Brace since any accuracies are likely going to her Scatter.  She;s a little pricey, but she and Valen Rudor could make a nice pair as well since she's likely to survive an encounter or two.  She also could see time with Bomber builds as an Anti-Squad roll and then survive the AA later on to help add damage with her single blue die.

Saber Squadron-TIE Interceptor Squadron

I saved Saber for the last Imperial Squad because I think it will be the best Imperial squadron added, and it might be right next to Rhymer in terms of usage going forward.  For 12 points, you lose the Counter ability but you gain possibly the most game changing ability we will see in this box and next wave: Snipe.  The ability to move in late and stay un-engaged to possibly eliminate Jan Ors is going to be huge going forward.  You maintain Swarm, so you can get something heavier in there to engage and get your re-roll as well to improve those odds.  Several folks on the Armada forums don't seem to think that you will be able to use Howlrunner to add a die to the attack, but I think that will get FAQ'd to Work.  It might also work with Flight Coordinators, giving a possibly 6 dice attack that ignores Counter and Escort is going to be awesome.  It is also the only Imperial with the ability it looks like into the next wave.

Rebels

Rogue Sqadron-X-Wing Squadron

Rogue Squadron removes Escort from the X WIng, and gives it Rogue for a point more than the standard.  Its going to be a popular pick for a lot of folks, especially in a Riekan aces style of list where you might not need so much Escort to keep some key guys alive. Its going to be a nice addition, but its not game changing really for a lot of Rebel players that are running Jan Ors-Xwing groups or YT-2400s.

Biggs Darklighter-X-Wing Squadron

Biggs comes in at just 19 points, and is going to be an interesting play.  His damage shuffle ability is going to make Rebel squads that much harder to kill, especially when you already consider that he will likely fly next to Jan Ors and a few other X Wings, or possibly in with some YT-1300s to take advantage of their large store of hull points.  I like Biggs a lot at his price point, and think he;s going to be a solid contributor.

Ten Numb-B-Wing Squadron

Ten is going to be one of the squadrons I feel like Im going to need to play a lot with to get a good feeling for.  He trades a blue for a black Anti-Squad, and by spending a blue critical die he will do 1 splash damage to opponent's squads.  B-Wings though at speed 2 are not really so great for engaging squadrons, but he will certainly be a deterrence to Rhymer balls and Ors balls making their way towards a capital ship.

Shara Bey-A-Wing Squadron

Shara is going to be someone that you have to shoot at some point, but you're going to hope AA fire can bring her down. Being able to count the criticals on to a counter attack makes her a pretty attractive squad to really run into the middle of dog fights and dare someone to try to killer her.  She's competing with Tycho Celchu, but I think her damage spike and the proliferation of Intel based ships is going to see her at the table very often


So overall, what are the thoughts?  I think of the so far spoiled fighters (still awaiting Generic A wings, B-Wings, Y-Wings, generic and Named, and the TIE Advanced updates) the Rebels got some very interesting tools, but that the Imperial Squadrons have given them far more firepower and flexibility. 

Imperial Assault: RGC List

One of the games that my group has picked up recently has been Star Wars: Imperial Assault Game by Fantasyflight Games.  Its a Star Wars skinned version of their previously good Dungeon Crawl game Descent.  The skirmish version allows you to build a small squad sized army to fight out a battle defined by some specific objectives. 

This past weekend I broke out my favorite list currently that features a Royal Guard Champion, 2 Elite Stormtrooper squads, 2 Regular Imperial Officers and an Elite Probe Droid (like what Han Solo shoots on Hoth in Empire Strikes Back).  The RGC hits like a truck, and is able to move in and out fire with the help of the Officers using their Order ability to give him extra movements.  The real star this past weekends game though was the Probe Droid.  Previously I had discounted this little unit, mostly because the regular version is so flimsy.  The Elite version though, with its two Yellow attack dice and recover 2 damage surges can prove to be a real thorn int he side for a lot of players trying to kill it. 

This weekend I was able to also use it to good effect with the RGC.  I was playing a friend of mine who was running a rebel trooper list with Leia, Gideon, C3-P0, and some troopers.  After a few turns, the probe droid and the RGC were able to maneuver into point blank range of Leia and the last two troopers of the unit.  The probe was left with just a single health, so I decided to activate self destruct with it.  I rolled two damage onto Leia, the troopers and the RGC.  However, this defeat allowed the RGC to interrupt and move up to attack Leia.  I swung well, and his blank defense die allowed her to die.  Having initiative this next turn allowed me to finish off the trooper group and win the match. 

This next week I'll try to get a more in depth battle report, along with pictures. 

Yetisburg

 Sometimes you see a game at the store and the name just begs you to buy it.  That game a couple weeks ago was Yetisburg, a civil war combat game with a fantasy setting twist.  The Union and the Confederacy square off with the aid of melee combat specialist Yetis and long range artillery Mastodons.  

Each player has access to identical armies, each with infantry and cavalry (regular and elite troopers, the elite being able to withstand more damage before needing to head to the hospital), Generals, Mastodons and Yetis.  Game play is pretty straightforward.  Each player has 5 columns of troops, 3 rows deep.  The first and second rows, the front and reserve lines, are face up and can make attacks or take advantage of abilities.  The third row is the supply line, face down cards that will be used to replenish the first two rows when when those cards are killed in combat.  Player's take turns attacking by playing a card from their hand, and ordering all troops of that card type to attack.  Results of the attack are created randomly, by drawing a meat token and flipping it over to see what direction the shot went, and what the range of the shot is.  Damage is dealt by counting the number of rows in the direction listed, according to the units ability. Regular troops all deal one damage while yetis and mastodons deal damage equal to the range. Killed troops are sent to the discard pile, and lines are replenished.  This goes back and forth until both players have either exhausted all their troops or both players pass their turn to attack. After that, players can use their Generals in the field to refresh troops for the next turn, swap positions, or bring troops back from the discard pile into the fight. The game continues on until someone cannot reinforce their lines from the supply line, or when drawing cards for their hand cant draw anymore.  

 Yeti combat is a little different from regular troops. They move to a row in between the players front lines called the trench.  Yetis crash through their own lines, killing friendly troops to get into the trench, and if their is an opposing Yeti in the trench for their column, they will knock them back to the opponents front lien, killing any troops that are there.  If a Yeti gets hit by friendly fire, they swap sides, going under control of your opponent until they get hit again.  Yetis only deal damage to the units directly next to them.

My game group has played this game now a few times and has come to a pretty much unanimous consensus: The game is a a fun, quickly paced short game, but the randomness doesn't leave you really wanting to play it again and again.  The combat mechanic makes it extremely likely you're going to on more than one occasion shoot your own troops, especially those at the left and right of them.  If there was a way to somehow get a little more strategic control of how units were shooting the game would be a bit better for replay value, especially since the artwork on the cards is so fantastic.