Batman Fluxx: A First Impressions Review/Preview

As most UK-based gamers will be well aware, this weekend is the 2015 UK Games Expo: an annual event held at the Hilton Metropole Hotel at Birmingham's NEC.  This year was the second year that we were in attendance, and whilst a general write-up will be forthcoming, there was something else we wanted to report on first and foremost.

A couple of weeks ago whilst pootling about on Twitter, we saw a retweet of an announcement for Batman Fluxx.  As fans of both of those words, this got pulses racing a little here at Games & Tea HQ.  It's scheduled for release in early August, so it was put right at the top of our shopping list and no more was thought of it.

What we didn't realise was that this weekend Looney Labs would have a table at the UK Games Expo, and that Batman Fluxx would be one of the games available for demo (along with a couple of other Fluxx prototypes, which we can't mention due to the copyright negotiations still ongoing).  So we had the opportunity to have a look through the deck, play a game with Fluxx creator Andrew Looney himself, and take a few photos along the way!  Seeing as we completely overlooked the fact that is was Games & Tea's 2nd birthday just a few days ago, this felt very much like a belated present!

The head Looney himself - Andrew Looney - proudly showing off one of the latest additions to the Fluxx family!

Now whilst we have done reviews of games in development before, this is the first time we've reviewed a game after just a single playthrough, and without a reference copy in front of us.  For this reason we've branded this as a first impressions review/preview, and will be putting up a full review once we've gotten our grubby mitts on our very own copy, and put it through its paces to determine its replay value etc.

As with our last few Fluxx reviews, we'll be dispensing with the basic gameplay mechanics, and just address the elements of Batman Fluxx which make it stand out from the rest of the family.  For those unfamiliar with Fluxx on the whole, take a quick look at our Monty Python Fluxx review, in which we explained the game's core mechanic.

So to start with the basics, Batman Fluxx is Fluxx with a Batman theme - yes, this may sound like we're stating the obvious, but the point we're getting at is that you'll find the familiar New Rule and Action cards in the deck which are fairly universal, eg. Draw 4, Trash a New Rule, Draw 2 and Use 'Em, etc etc.  And - as with all other Fluxxes - the backs of the cards are of the same universal design, meaning that they can be integrated into other decks.

Yes, this means you can have Pirate Batman Fluxx.

"Bring me the Jokarr!"

On the front of the cards, the first thing to notice is the illustration style.  Fluxx has always had a cartoony element to it, which both adds to its charm and serves to remind players that it's supposed to be a casual, fun game at its heart.  Whilst the recent Love Letter: Batman Edition featured illustrations from the New52 comics series, such serious imagery would look very much out of place in a Fluxx deck.  Instead, Batman Fluxx is filled with illustrations in the style of Batman: The Animated Series, which fits in very well with the general Fluxx feel.  Combined with the classy art-deco style sidebar and font, and Batman Fluxx is a game which is aesthetically very pleasing to play.

The Keepers in Batman Fluxx cover a range or characters, gadgets and locations.  As with most recent Fluxx incarnations, many of the Keepers have additional rules and abilities, just to keep the game moving at a more interesting pace.  Bruce Wayne, for example (above), must be discarded if Batman ever hits the table.  The Batmobile can be discarded to take an extra turn.  The Bank increases your draw by 2, and so on.  Other Keepers we remember off the top of our heads included Robin, Batgirl, Commissioner Gordon, the Bat Signal, and Wayne Manor.

The Creepers (of which we sadly forgot to take any photos, due to being so caught up in the gameplay!) are where the game truly becomes interesting.  Each Creeper in Batman Fluxx is one of Gotham City's famous supervillains, and so there are a fair few of them in the deck.  The Joker, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, The Penguin and The Riddler are all out in force, to name a few, so the chances are your favourite villain will be in there somewhere!  Now the most Creeper-heavy Fluxx edition to date is Zombie Fluxx, and it worked very well because many of the game's Goals required Creepers in order to achieve victory.  Batman Fluxx works in a similar way, with Crazy Love, for example, giving the win to the player with The Joker and Harley Quinn.  Now the interesting thing with Batman Fluxx - and the thing which makes its Creepers unique - is that if the active Goal doesn't include Creepers then no one can win if there are Creepers on the table.  This is a wonderful mechanic, first of all in that it gives players a Batman-style task of cleaning up the crime in Gotham City, and secondly in adding a whole new tactical element, as win conditions generally become harder.

That's basically all there is to say at this point about the new additions to the game!  In terms of how it all works, it does really capture the Batman theme while keeping things casual.  Things like the "no one can win" rule with the Creepers, Bruce Wayne's exodus from the table as soon as Batman appears, and the Bat-Signal's ability to 'summon' the dark knight from an opponent all fit together nicely.  The Goals we saw during our game were all nice little references to the cartoon/comics lore, such as Secretly His Daughter for having Commisioner Gordon and Batgirl (we are fans of Babs over here).  And of course the overall aesthetic is very pleasing, feeling very much like the cherry on top.

If we had to nit-pick (and as game reviewers, we do feel it's our duty), the win-condition difficulty increase as a result of the Creepers did feel like it would steer games of Batman Fluxx more towards longer play times than shorter ones.  Fluxx has always been renowned for games lasting anywhere from 90 seconds to 90 minutes, but the Creeper rule does seem to skew things more towards the latter, which may put off a few players who would normally consider Fluxx to be a filler game.

One thing we will be interested to see, however, is whether it can convert a few non-Fluxx fans.  It's always been a Marmite game in the gaming community, and we come heavily down on the 'love it' side of the line.  With Batman being so wildly popular, we can genuinely picture a few folks being swayed over onto our side, where we will be ready to greet them with hugs, cake and "I told you so's".

With a normal review this is where we'd do a summary breaking down the pros and cons, the price, average play time and so on, but seeing as this only a first impressions review we'll dispense with that until the full review in a couple of months time.  We will, however, quite happily give it a preliminary score based on our overall feelings from the day...

PRELIMINARY SCORE: 9/10

Castilion Kickstarter Review, Part 2: Gameplay & Verdict

This review is for a project still at the Kickstarter stage. As such, final game contents may vary from those shown here.

Welcome back, gentle readerfolk!  In our last article we dissected the contents of the Kickstarter project Castilion: a 2 player strategy game from Joe Mellanby for 2 players.  Now it's time to draw our swords, nock our arrows and... umm... wave(?) our spears, as we march to battle and bring you our verdict on the gameplay!

In Part 1 of the review we looked at the various different decks of cards which make up Castilion, as well as the gaming board.  Once both players have selected their Castle, General, Royal, and army, there's nothing left but to take to the field and let battle commence!

Each player has 2 playing pieces - one representing the General, and one representing the castle (we didn't show these in Part 1 as we were playing with prototype pieces) - and these both begin the game on their castle's respective spaces on the board.  The castle piece actually remains there for the game, just to mark out the players' strongholds to each other, whilst the General piece tracks the movement of the armies.

Both players have their own gaming area, where their troop deck, movement deck, and graveyard are all kept.  At the beginning of their turn, they draw 3 cards from the troop deck and 2 from the movement deck, and add them to their hand.  Armies can be moved up to 2 spaces per turn, after which they players can discard as many movement cards as they wish out of their hands to continue moving up to the number of spaces on those cards.  Now the rules of the game didn't specify a hand limit, so when we raised this issue with Castilion's creators they suggested we try out a hand limit and see how it plays.
Eventually we settled on a hand limit of 8, and this really did seem to work.  This gave players the options of either filling their hands with movement cards and having light hit and run armies, or letting them load up with troop cards, restricting their movement but allowing their army to pack a wallop when they finally reach their target, which brings us to the main aspect of the game...

Unoccupied castle spaces on the board are effectively safe zones, meaning players can't be attacked as long as their army is occupying one of those spaces.  Those safe zones aside, if a player ends his movement in the same space as their opponent's army - or their castle - then it's time for battle to commence!

Battles are resolved using the troop cards in each players' hands, which is why it's important to find a balance between troops and movement!  All of the cards in the coloured troop decks feature Attack and/or Defence stats in the top-left corner, and these are used to determine the outcome of the battles.

The coloured decks, as mentioned in Part 1, are broken down into Troops, Actions, Formations, and Items.  In order to attack an opponent's army or castle, a player must have at least one Troop-type card.  They can then add to that any other cards from their hand (or their General if they wish), as long as they are of the same colour, up to a maximum of 5.  This makes hand-management essential, as having one colour of Troop in a hand full of a different colour's Actions/Formations/Items means that you're not in as strong a position as you may hope for!
The defending player must defend their army in the same manner - first of all needing a minimum of one Troop, and then adding defensive equipment and formations as they see fit.  Once both players have chosen their cards they are revealed to each other, and total Attack and Defence values compared - the highest total coming out victorious.

In the example above, the green player has attacked using four cards, with an attack total of 60.  The red player was fortunate to have a defensive hand though, and has countered with a defence of 95, resulting in defeat for green!

When defeated in battle, all of the defeated players cards go to their graveyard, including the general if they took part!  Once a player has no more Troop-type cards left in their deck, they can no longer attack or defend, and so must surrender to their opponent - this prevents players from attacking recklessly, forcing further tactical hand-management to ensure their precious Troops remain in play.

Of course, this only happens if two armies meet each other face to face!  If a player manages to attack an opponent's castle whilst their army is preoccupied elsewhere, they effectively get a free swing at the stronghold!  In this instance the defending player cannot submit any cards to the battle, and so the attacker's total attack value is dealt as damage to the castle, before they retreat back to their own stronghold.  If a player's castle defence value is reduced to 0, they are defeated and the game is over.  This is where having a light but fast army can come in useful - chipping away at a castle a little at a time.  Of course, there are also merits to a slow moving sledgehammer of an army!

So that's the basic breakdown of the gameplay mechanic, but what did we think of it?
Well first of all we enjoyed the overall feel of the game - the map, the troop decks, the terrain cards and so on... basically we didn't feel like we were playing a re-hash of another game.  There do seem to be a fair few projects on Kickstarter which look as though the designer has just piggybacked onto a successful game, whereas Castilion does feel very much like it's own thing, which is good.
The gameplay itself is easy to pick up.  In spite of the fact there are lots of different card types in the game, it's not actually too taxing.  We were furnished with a quick-start set of rules and a full set, but we ended up leaping straight in with the full rules and finding ourselves in full swing fairly quickly!
The castles having different defence values based on their proximity to resources is a nice touch, although in 2 player games we felt that allowing players to pick their castles was better than random selection, purely to prevent them from ending up right next door to eachother!  In larger multi-player games it wouldn't be an issue, but as a house rule we preferred choosing our own.
The troop decks/battle mechanic were one of our favourite things about Castilion - especially after we'd experimented and settled on a hand limit.  Each coloured deck only contains 3 Troop cards, giving each player a total of 6, and seeing as you can't attack or defend without one it forces players to think carefully before charging headlong into battle.  The fact that the attack/defence cards need to be of the same colour also adds a nice hand-management element to the game.
Using cards to move is another well-done element once a hand limit has been put into play again.  As mentioned previously, it's great to be able to choose whether to have a light/fast or heavy/slow army at your disposal, or even to switch half way through the game to throw off your opponent!
And we did like the fact that there are a few different win conditions - obviously the destruction of the enemy castle is the main one, but depleting your opponents troops will also secure a win, as does defeating their General and Royal.  This gives players a few options on how to approach the game, and allow it to fit their play style.

No game is without flaws though (our first ever 10/10 rating is still up for grabs!), and we'd be neglect in our reviewing duties if we didn't mention the downsides.  Whilst we did enjoy playing Castilion, we really do think it's a game which would benefit from more players.  We did bring this up with Joe Mellanby, and if the Kickstarter raises enough funds then extra cards/players will be introduced as a stretch goal.  We do very much hope for this, as frankly it would take the game to a whole other level!  When playing the game we really did think it would great as a 4 player free for all, rather than a 2 player grudge match.
Our other little niggle was the text size on the cards, which older players may have problems with.  The attack and defence values are printed quite small, so it may be a struggle for some to actually read the stats on their cards.
And our final nitpick is that of the troop cards.  We like that you can only attack or defend with at least one Troop (after all, just having a sword is no good if you've got no one to carry it!), but it seems a shame that the Actions/Formations/Items all work in the same way rather than having something to make the categories matter, such as a bonus of +15 if you use one of each, or something along those lines.  Perhaps this will come up in future expansions of the game.

We do have to say though, that Castilion does seem to be a Kickstarter project being done the right way.  Too many large companies approach Kickstarter with a finalised project which backers have absolutely no influence over.  With Castilion, the creators do actually respond to constructive criticism and shape the game accordingly!  It's for this reason that we're forgoing our usual "Good Points/Bad Points" quick list at the end of the review, as it's an evolving project and so unfair to fire bullet points at!

For further details about Castilion visit their website here, and to back the project at Kickstarter level click here!

Recommended Number of Players: 2 (Hopefully 4!)

In it's current base state, Castilion is a 2 player release.  However, pending Kickstarter success it will be expanded for further players (even up to a total of 8 - one for each castle), and our gut instincts have been telling us that 4 players would make for a very good gaming experience.
 

Average Game Time: 45 minutes

We found that our Castilion games often started with us tiptoeing around eachother before one player became gutsy enough to make the first strike.  Once first blood had been shed, however, the pace soon picked up, and our games usually took around the 45 minute  mark.

Replay Value: Medium

It's difficult to gauge the replay value on Castilion due to the fact it's still in development.  Obviously the different castles, Royals and Generals add some variety across repeat plays, but the grudge match nature of the 2 player game may wear thin without a range of opponents to take on.  Again, we do feel that having extra players will help in this matter.

Price: £30

Castilion has just gone live on Kickstarter, now as a four player game!  Unless you manage to snag an early bird, a copy of the full game will set you back £30 - a fairly standard price for a specialist game.  Backing on the project ends on August 2nd.

 

 

 

OVERALL SCORE: 7/10
(With additional players we'd push this up to a 7.5, maybe an 8)

Tea consumed during this review: A wide range of Twinings herbal teas, gratefully received with our review copy of Castilion! Average brew rating: 7.5/10

If you enjoyed this article and want to see more of the same, come and like us on our Facebook page to keep up to date with our reviews, as well as our general day-to-day ramblings!

 

 

Castilion Kickstarter Review, Part 1: Contents

This review is for a project still at the Kickstarter stage. As such, final game contents may vary from those shown here.

 

Kickstarter is continuing to throw a whole plethora of interesting looking offerings into the big old melting pot that is the specialist games market.  We do keep an eye on the scene as often as possible and do frequently see a lot which catches our interest, but due to financial restrictions (as mentioned in the past, Games & Tea is a labour of love and we have no gaming budget to speak of) we usually have to just wistfully watch them pass by.  More frequently, however, we're being apporached by creators of games in development (such as the recently funded Pirates! and Good Cop, Bad Cop) to give our thoughts on the game before it hits Kickstarter.

Such has been the case with our latest review, as we take a look at Castilion: a board game of strategy and bashing your opponent's stronghold to smithereens from Joe Mellanby.

 

 

Castilion is a game for 2 players (with potential for more pending Kickstarter success), in which each player must manage their army in a campaign to bring down their opponent's stronghold.  Whilst technically a board game, it does have a very card-heavy element, so let's take a look at the contents before delving into the gameplay...

 

 

First of all we have the board.  Now, the more eagle-eyed of you may have noticed the lack of biscuit crumbs and cat fur in this image, giving away the fact that this isn't our photo.  This is an image of the artwork from the final board - kindly provided by the game's creators.  Seeing as the board in our review prototype was missing the outside edge, we figured we may as well show you the proper thing.  The board takes the form of a map, featuring 8 castles, and a few other resource pick-up points, and it's upon this map that the players' armies must face off against eachother.  Around the outside of the map there are points to stack the various decks of cards, so this seems as good as time as any to take a look at them...

 

 

Fist of all we have the castles.  You can't really have a game called Castilion without castles (well, we suppose you could, but it would be maddeningly illogical), and here we have a fine selection to choose from.  as mentioned above, there are 8 castles on the board, and each one has a corresponding card.  Each castle starts with roughly 200 damage points, although these vary from one castle to the next - the weaker castles tend to be much closer to resources, whereas the stronger ones are further out in the wilderness where they generally have to take care of themselves.  Each player draws one castle at random to act as their stronghold for the game, and the rest are discarded.  But a castle is a seat of power, and if you're going to have one then you'll need someone to... well... sit in it!  So let's move onto the Royals and the Generals!

 

 

 

Castilion features one deck of Royals and one deck of Generals, each with slightly differing attack stats (we'll move onto these when we come to gameplay).  The Generals lead the players' armies on the battlefield, whilst the Royals largely stay hidden away in their castle, lording it over the small folk.  Should the general ever fall in battle, however, the Royal has to take over command and continue the campaign until either death or victory!  As with the castles, each player randomly chooses one Royal and one General to start the game, and the rest are discarded.

 

 

 So you've got a castle, you've got a Royal and you've got a General - looks like you'll need an army!  The armies in Castilion are formed of two coloured decks of 11 cards, with each deck containing Troops, Items, Formations, Actions and a Hero and Heroine.  Each player takes two deks, removes one Hero/Heroine from each colour to place face-down beside the board, shuffles them together, and places them face-down in their gaming area.

 

 

No, we're not talking about the waterworks and the electric company.  There are three utility cards in Castilion, all of which are one-shot uses which can change the tide of battle.  These all begin the game face-up next to the board, and can be claimed by any player who heads to their corresponding map location.

 

 

As any battle-hardened general can attest to, knowing the terrain can make all the difference when it comes to besting an opposing army.  The Terrain cards in Castilion simulate that, slowing players' armies to a crawl, or even reducing their battlefield effectiveness at a crucial moment.

 

 

And finally we have the movement cards - a static army is rather easy to outmaneuver or avoid altogether, after all!  Each player's army can move up to 2 map spaces per turn under their own steam, but the Movement cards are where players can start to use hit and run attacks, giving their armies the speed needed to pull off their grand plans.

 

Phew!  So you certainly get a fair old whack in the basic Castilion game!  Head on over to Part 2 of the review, and well go through how the game works, and give our final verdict on the gameplay!

Pirates! Card Game Kickstarter Review, Part 2: Gameplay & Verdict

This review is for a project still at the Kickstarter stage.  As such, final game contents may vary from those shown here.

In our last article we took a look at the box contents of our review copy of Pirates!, a card game by Jules Prick for 2-6 players.  Today we're going to break down the gameplay, give our thoughts on the pros and cons of the game, and give it an illustrious Games & Tea final score (yes, we've now decided our final scores should be illustrious ... it was bound to happen eventually).  As an in-development project it is reliant on crowd-funding, so if you like the sound of our review then please head over to its Kickstarter page and pledge your support.

The goal in Pirates! is to become the greatest pirate captain, either by being the first to accumulate 7 Pirate Points, or by simply eliminating the opposition.

To start the game each players is given a purple Big Sloop as their starting ship, as well as 11 crew tokens to man them.  The Pirate Card and Adventure Card decks are shuffled and placed within easy reach of all players, then each player is dealt 2 Pirate Cards and 3 Adventure Cards off the top of the decks.  Once all players have their starting hands and the beginnings of their pirate fleets, it's time to take to the high seas and find out who has what it takes to rule the waves!

Because sometimes a regular sloop just doesn't cut it...

Each player's turn consists of 4 phases: upkeep, adventure, re-organise, and draw.  The upkeep phase involves drawing 3 Pirate Cards to add to the player's hand, and adding new crew members to their fleets.  To do this, the cargo values (represented by the barrel in the bottom-right corner of the card) are added up across the player's fleet, and they receive that number of crew tokens to distribute as they wish.  The other values on the card are (from left to right) speed, cannons, and starting crew/maximum crew - all of which we'll address in due course.  The gold skull and crossbones icon represents a pirate point - most ships are worth just one, but some powerful vessels are worth more if a captain is ruthless enough to defeat them!

The adventure phase requires the player to place all of their Adventure Cards face-up on the table in front of them, and then decide which cards (if any) they will attempt to beat.  Alternatively, they can choose to attack one of their opponent's ships, which can come in handy when another player is getting close to their seventh Pirate Point!  Most of these cards are other ships which can be added to their fleet, but some are treasure cards which can have altogether different benefits!  Each ship in a player's fleet may only go after one Adventure Card per turn, so the players must decide whether to play the game cautiously or risk it all for gold and glory!  Seeing as combat plays a very large part in Pirates!, let's take a look at how it works...

This Big Sloop has decided to try and take on the David Le Roi for a very desirable reward of 2 Pirate Points.  The David Le Roi may not be tough, but with a speed of 7 she's fast, and so the Big Sloop must catch her first of all!  The player rolls the wind dice, and adding the dice total to the Big Sloop's speed, they must match or beat the David Le Roi's speed in order for battle to commence.  This may sound easy enough, but the wind dice features both positive and negative values, so if the Big Sloop is caught in a headwind then their quarry will escape unharmed!

Fortunately in this case the Big Sloop rolled a +1, allowing them to catch the David Le Roi.  Now they can engage eachother!

Before the crews go head-to-head, both ships get a chance to unleash a barrage of cannon fire upon eachother!  Each ship rolls a number of dice equal to their cannon value, and for each cannon icon rolled the enemy ship loses a crew member.  In this instance the Big Sloop has no cannons so must sit by whilst the David Le Roi fires two shots back at them!  Out of the two dice, one cannon icon was rolled, so the Big Sloop is reduced to 12 crew members before the hand-to-hand fighting starts.

Most pirates are not above using dirty tactics to win a fight...

Each ship rolls a number of dice equal to their remaining crew tokens.  This time, players are looking to roll crew icons on the dice, and for every one rolled the enemy loses a crew.  This process is repeated until one ship's crew is completely destroyed, and then the last man standing takes possession of the now empty ship!  This may sound like a lengthy and repetitive process, but the cap on the maximum crew of each ship brings this down to a manageable level.  The newly acquired ship is then given new crew members equal to its cargo value, and then it joins the victor's armada, adding to their Pirate Point total!

Some Pirate Cards can be played to give ships permanent upgrades, whereas others can give bonuses which last for just one round of combat.  These cards can also be stacked to give brutal combinations which can change the course of a game.  In the photo above, the Big Sloop has been upgraded with +3 cannons.  At the start of the battle, it was given the card "Chain Shot" - giving it a further +3 cannons - twice, and "Fast Reload", giving it x2 cannons.  All of these bonuses combine to give the Big Sloop a devastating +18 cannons for one round, giving it the chance to destroy an enemy ship's entire crew before the hand-to-hand fighting even begins!  This is a great example of how managing the Pirate Cards can be used to tremendous effect.

Following on from the adventure phase, the reorganisation phase allows players to redistribute their crew across their fleet, and sell any unwanted ships for their cargo value's worth in crew tokens.  Whilst this may sound counter-productive, selling ships to boost your total crew can prove to be a life-saving decision if players find themselves spread too thin!

Finally, in the draw phase players draw 3 new Adventure Cards to be played next turn.  You may be wondering why this is done at the end of the turn, rather than the beginning of the next one, and we have to admit we wondered the same thing when we first read the rules.  Once we started playing, however, we realised that this actually increases the strategic depth of Pirates!, as it forces players who are under attack to decide whether to use their Pirate Cards to help defend their ships, or to keep them in-hand to help complete their Adventure Cards in the next turn.

Play continues until one player secures that coveted seventh Pirate Point, or until only one remains in the game (the loss of a player's final ship results in their elimination).

So that's Pirates! in a nutshell!  So the all important question (and the one, we hope, for which you were awaiting an answer): what did we think of it?  Well to start with, we liked the fact that it's a card game with a little bit extra.  It might sound shallow, but the simple addition of some tokens and a themed-dice mechanic just makes it feel like it has a little more substance than a regular card game.

Looking beyond this, there's a lot about Pirates! which has been well thought out.  It's nice to see a card game which isn't a party game, but works well with more than two players.  It toes the line well between being a casual game and one which requires some slightly deeper, forward planning, giving an enjoyable experience without becoming too taxing.

The battle system works very nicely for the most  part - in the world of gamers there do seem to be a lot of anti dice-rolling voices, but in our opinion it adds a nice random element to any game.  Sure, no-one likes to just roll straight dice against eachother, but as an addition to a tactical element we believe it has its place in games, and it works well here - it's a great thrill when your opponent boards one of your ships with a larger crew, and some lucky dice rolls leave your crew heroically victorious against all the odds!  There's a nice variety of ships to chase down and plunder, from heavily-armed galleons to swift little sloops, and the wide range of Pirate Cards allows for some dramatic table-turning and devious thwarting of enemy plans.  Also - and this did surprise us a little - none of the Pirate Cards are drastically overpowered.  Many card games do suffer from having a few overpowered action cards which give the holder an unfair advantage, but Pirates! seems to have steered clear of this pitfall.

As mentioned earlier, the small touch of drawing Adventure Cards at the end of players' turns is another good mechanic, as it allows players to plan out their turn ahead, and forces them to decide whether to stick to the plan or use their cards to intervene if their own ships come under attack.

The victory condition of 7 Pirate Points seems spot on as well.  In many of our games, players would quickly reach 5 points as they each focused on their Adventure Cards rather than eachother, and then the game would become much more aggressive as they each tried to prevent eachother from scoring those final 2 points, whilst trying to edge their way there themselves!  This made those final points a very tough slog, only adding to the careful tactical planning of each turn.

This is something of a double-edged sword, however.  We did have a few games where a couple of players both reached 5 points fairly quickly, and then in the following few turns their attempts to keep eachother from winning ended up knocking both players back down to 2 points.  This was repeated a few times, making the game feel as though it was stuck in something of a "Groundhog Day" loop.

You may have picked up on the fact that we said the combat mechanic works "for the most part".  The only downside to it in our opinion came up when two large crews went up against eachother.  When you have two ships with roughly 20 crew members and 10 cannons each going head-to-head, the dice-rolling can start to become a little tedious.  This didn't come up very often, but during one battle over 80 dice were rolled before one heavily-battered ship emerged as the victor!  We did wrack our brains for a while to try and think if there was a way to streamline this mechanic for larger engagements, but we came up blank.

So, let's break it down into a nice, bite-sized summary...

The Good Points

• Pirates! fits together very nicely overall, and works as a nice semi-casual game.
• It's a quick game to learn, but has a tactical edge for players can develop.
• Up to 6 people can play Pirates! at once, making it a good social game.
• It doesn't require a great deal of space to play.
• It's about Pirates!  Everyone loves Pirates!

The Bad Points

• In larger battles the dice-rolling element of combat can go on a little too long.
• Players can sometimes get stuck in a loop of mutual annihilation, although this lessens with higher player numbers.

Recommended Number of Players: 4

The first games of Pirates! we tried out involved just 2 players, which does work, although the odds of a mutual annihilation loop do increase!  3 players works nicely, but we found that 4 provided the best overall experience, giving players plenty of targets to choose from without spreading their attacks too thinly.

Average Game Time: 45-60 minutes

Pirates! isn't one of the quickest card games in the world, but that's entirely down to the tactical element of the game.  Unlike some card games such as Fluxx, which can feel like they'll go on forever, Pirates! always makes the players feel as though they're heading for their goal.  We found 2 player games lasted around 30 minutes, with that time slowly increasing with the player numbers.

Replay Value: Medium

There are enough combinations of Adventure Cards and Pirate Cards to keep Pirates! fresh for quite some time, although not forever.  The games do go on for long enough though, that a decent games night will probably only accommodate one or two rounds, so it shouldn't be a game that goes stale too soon, and the potential for future expansions (see below) can only enhance its longevity.

The Future: Bountiful 

Being a project currently in development, it's difficult to pin down the future of Pirates!, but we've been in touch with the creators to get a rough idea of where this game may go if it achieves post-Kickstarter success.  Whilst we don't want to go into too many details and make promises on behalf of the Pirates! team, ideas are currently bouncing around for future expansions which will include additional mechanics to give the game a little more depth.  There is certainly potential here for Pirates! to grow far beyond its humble beginnings.

Price: £20

Being a Kickstarter project, backers have the choice of how much they want to put in to try and help it on its way.  A small amount can go towards simply supporting the project, whilst larger amounts reap greater rewards, such as a sloop tour down the canals of Amsterdam!  To simply secure a copy of Pirates! upon its release though, will set you back £20.

OVERALL SCORE: 8/10

Tea consumed during this review: Our penultimate bag of Twinings green tea/every day tea blend, with milk and 2 sweeteners.  10/10

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Pirates! Card Game Kickstarter Review, Part 1: Box Contents

This review is for a project still at the Kickstarter stage.  As such, final game contents may vary from those shown here.

 

If there's one thing here at Games & Tea that really gets our blood pumping (other than games and tea) it's zombies.  Ironic, really, considering the lack of blood flow in the undead themselves, but each to their own.  If there's a second thing that does it, then it would probably be pirates.  There's a certain romanticism about the freedom of sailing the seven seas, going wherever the wind takes you, and stealing vast quantities of shiny things.  There's something even more fun about the notion of catching a good tailwind and pulling alongside your best friend's ship for a devastating broadside!  So with that in mind we were all too happy to receive a review copy of Pirates!, a card game for 2-6 players by Jules Prick, in order to bring you our thoughts for the Kickstarter launch.  The last game we reviewed with exclamation marks in the title was the distinctly average Zombies!!!, so we were trusting in those roguish seafarers to restore our faith in our favourite item of punctuation.

 

Drink up, me hearties, yo ho...

 

The goal of Pirates! is a simple one: to become the greatest pirate captain on the high seas!  It sounds simple enough, but when you have 1-5 other pirate captains with their eyes on the same title, things become a little bit tricky.  To become the greatest pirate, players must accumulate 7 Pirate Points, through feats of adventure and fighting prowess.  Alternatively, for the more aggressive player, victory can be achieved by simply annihilating the opposition!  But we're getting ahead of ourselves (as usual), so let's take a look at the contents and mechanics of Pirates! before delving into our thoughts on the game...

 

 

There are two main decks in Pirates!, both of which are communal, giving no player an unfair advantage right off the bat.  The first of these are the blue-backed Adventure Cards, of which there are two types: ships and treasure.  There are different types of ship in the game, each with different stats in terms of speed, firepower and crew capacity, and defeating these ships to add to your fleet is the main victory tactic.  The treasure cards are generally used to boost players' pirate forces by giving them extra crew members for example, as well as serving a second overall purpose: the player with the most treasure cards at any time takes possession of the oversized Treasure Cave card, giving them one additional precious Pirate Point.

 

 

The second deck consists of the red-backed Pirate Cards which are used to form the players' hands.  There are three different types of Pirate Cards; Your-Turn-Only and Battle Cards, which allow players to take actions which boost their resources or give them the edge during a battle, and Inventory Cards which are used to upgrade ships in their fleets.  Managing these upgrades and making the best use out of these actions can turn the tides (see what we did there?) of battle, and determine which captain is left standing when the smoke clears.

 

 

In addition to the two main decks, there are also the purple-backed Big Sloop Cards.  These are the basic starting ships, and each player receives one at the beginning of the game - even Blackbeard and Davy Jones had to start somewhere!

 

 

Pirates! also features some rather unique dice, which are used to determine the outcome of battles.  In our opinion these are the coolest things about the box set, with the sides of the black dice featuring cannons, cutlasses and compasses!  The blue die is used to determine the vital wind speed in ship-chases, and so features plus and minus values.

 

 

Finally, we have the crew tokens.  These are used (as you might have guessed) to keep track of the number of crew on each ship under the players' commands.  Each ship has a maximum crew compliment, and players will want to try and keep them as full as possible to ensure victory over their opponents!

 

Being a review copy our game didn't include them, but in addition to the oversize Treasure Cave card mentioned earlier, the full game should feature a few more oversized Fame Cards, as well as quick-reference setup and turn order cards to help speed the game along.

 

So that's the box contents of our review copy of Pirates!  Come back for Part 2 of our review to see how the game plays and our thoughts on it as a whole, but in the meantime check out their Kickstarter page here to find out some more information from the creators themselves!



A Project With Balls...

Geddit?  'Cos it's a sportsball game.

...okay, we'll leave now.

A few months ago we posted an article about a trio of projects we'd chosen to back on Kickstarter, and judging by the number of hits on the entry it seemed to be of genuine interest to you lovely folks.  Well with gaming funds running a little dry of late (our FLGS' ongoing Warmachine league has proven a drain on resources!) we haven't been backing too many projects, but a few days ago our fellow hobby blog Gmorts Chaotica pointed us in the direction of a project which just instantly grabbed our attention: Guild Ball

 

 

Guild Ball is a tabletop system with a fantasy take on good old English football (soccer, to our readers across the pond).  The game's creators can put the background into words far better than we ever could (probably on account of the fact that they created it), so here's their description from the Kickstarter page:

 

Guild Ball takes place in a land now known as the Empire of Free Cities; it’s essentially a pseudo-historical setting with strong European flavours. The lands of the empire are made up of a huge variety of climates, cultures and landscapes each controlled by a sovereign City.

 

Mob football is a game generally played between neighbouring towns and villages on feast days (hence the popularity). The game was originally played in the middle of towns and villages where the objective was to take the ball to the opposing side of town. But to prevent the inevitable collateral damage it rapidly evolved into being played in the surrounding countryside, often in a special field set aside for the purpose. At its core, players on opposing teams, clash and struggle to control leather wrapped inflated pig's bladder and attempt to kick it into the opponent’s goal. Over the years, rudimentary leagues and tournaments have sprung up, there have even been some national level games between city states.

 

The Guilds have taken advantage of the huge popularity of the sport and have invested vast sums of money, creating professional teams and structured leagues. The public went crazy as the game was elevated to new heights of spectacle. Guild Ball was born amidst a blaze of interest and publicity and with it, a whole new business and revenue stream for the Guilds. Games are now played out in front of vast crowds of fans, whilst behind the scenes the results can mean fortunes are won or lost on the kick of a ball.

As we mentioned with Mantic's DreadBall, we're not the biggest sports fans here at Games & Tea, but as a tabletop system we do rather enjoy them as an alternative to shooty/smashy skirmish games.  With Guild Ball it's nice to see a game based on soccer, rather than the 'safe option' of American football which other developers seem to flock to.

 

It promises to be a fast and intuitive game which is quick to learn, but rewards players with in-depth gameplay and tactics.  But above all else we were sold by the lavish concept art and beautiful looking miniatures!  The Kickstarter page for the project contains 3D renders of two of the team captains, as well as a shot of an early Fisherman's Guild captain model, and they are looking rather fine.  The miniatures are available in both metal and resin (with a slightly higher cost on the resins), and having looked at the artwork for the teams (also on the KS page) we're really excited about seeing how some of the other characters will turn out (the Masons Guild is our #1 team of choice).

 

In the 2 days since backing Guild Ball we're also realising just how much they value the input of their backers.  Unlike many projects which effectively use Kickstarter as a pre-ordering service, the Guild Ball team genuinely seem to enjoy touching base with the people who have shown their support.  Updates are flowing regularly, they've launched some great competitions on Facebook (the most recent of which gives away an amazing "design a character" prize), and they've already released quick-play rules to the public so that their backers can run through an early version of the game and sent them their feedback.  To sum it up, it seems to be a Kickstarter project done right!

 

Backing for Guild Ball finishes on March 22nd.  £30 will secure you one of the four teams of your choice, £50 will get you two (if you get in before the Early Birds are all taken up!), £82 will get you three, and £105 will get you all four.  We've also thrown in an extra £26 for the hard-copy rulebook, dice and tokens, and there are other add-on rewards to choose from too.