Post by Gilvan Blight on Apr 24, 2006 16:40:57 GMT -5
Okay this is one of the most collectable GW games out there, and we decided to break it out the other day. We played with all of the adventure cards from all of the expansions but didn't use the city or timescape boards or associated cards.
Summary: a very rpg like boardgame set in the Grim Fantasy Warhammer World. This is the Warhammer of the 80's though, nto the gritty evil place it is now, a much more amusing grim Fantasy. You get a character who has a set of 4 stats, Strength, Craft, Lives and Gold. You move around the board encountering board squares (like the Village where you can go shopping or get healed, or visit a mystic for random events, or the craigs where you can get lost, find your way, or actually gain a strength). Most of these tell you to draw a card, which comes from the adventrue deck. This deck is filled with all kinds of things, from mobs to fight to wicked spells, from witches that turn you into a Toad, to faboulous riches and suits of the finest mail. The adventure cards are really the meat of the game. You travel around the board encountering things, and then using a cool XP system you actually improve you chracter (trade in 7 strength points of baddies you killed to get 1 permanent strength, same for Craft). Eventually play moves to the middle realm. Play is similar but most spots on the board cause you to draw 2 or 3 cards and most cards get buffed by +2 or +3. Evetually the brave adventurers will attempt to travel to the middle realm. Here you battle with either Strength or Craft to get to the Crown of Command (or an alternate ending if using Talsiman - The adventure) This is a tough fight as you often need to roll 3d6 under your stats, so you have to be pretty buff. Once at the Crown of command you get to zap other players each turn until only one is left. At this point the other players pretty much rush to the Crown themselves hoping to wrest if from you.
The Good: the nostalgia factor alone made this worth taking out again. I used to LOVE this game. No other game in my collection has been played as much as this over the years. The miniatures for the game are awsome (sold sparately at the time, now highly collectable), they don't look the best but they have a character you just don't see in miniatures anymore. The rules are still very simple, but the cards make it complex enough to keep your interest. I was a very close game the last time we played with no one player taking the lead an keeping it for the entire game. The art on this is horrible 80s style GW, which means I loved it! The bits are well made and you get plenty of them... now my bits weren't looking so hot after more then 20 years of play. This is such a cool game, the closest to an RPG feel captured in a boardgame (an rpg where you get lots of treasure and level up by killing things, not like Shadows over Camelot where you actually roleplay). It's still a ton of fun after all these years. Also noted during the game, that it was so cool of GW to put out minis for a game that really didn't need them at all. You get cardboard standies with it, there really was no need for it, but they are great and I had to have them all (wish I did get them all).
The Bad: the 80's are I was praising above isn't acceptable on all cards. The Giant Gorilla being the one that really sticks out in my mind as utter crap. The cards in this are very thin, everything is very thin, this means they didn't hold up too great over the years, though really for 20 years they weren't that bad. It's long gone, no more expansions and good luck getting the minis for this one. The random factor. It's pretty big in this one. Lots of rolling dice randomly to move and then drawing a random card. You still get to pick which way to go, plus deciding when to advance to the middle realm or whether to enter the Dungeon or not, so there is still some decision making but not a lot. I wouldn't call it a strategy game. The Warhorse is too damn powerful!
The Ugly: This game is friggin long! Okay when I was a kid I never noticed, but I am sure I felt nothing of spending 5 hours playing something I liked. As an adult I have other things to do and don't have that kind of time. This one really does drag out in the middle. In our personal game the begining was great as I was all geeked with Nostalgia, Church was all geeked because he never got a chance to play it when it was out, Pandora I think was enjoying it at least (not really geeked that I could remember). Then we hit the middle... and things got slow. We weren't tought enough to move on, and there didn't seem to be anything weak to fight where we were. There were a lot of turns of, I roll, I draw a card, I loose a life and get beat down, your turn...I roll, I find a bag of gold, your turn... Eventually we started bulking up (or hoarding great items like Church) and got to the endgame, and that again rocked. It was a very close match ending with Pandora with the Crown with only 1 life left, zapping the crap out of the other two players, with us almost reaching a couple times (Damned Crypt!) only to fail, getting beat down some more, managing to heal and eventually I made it up to the Crown myself and smoked her, then zapped Church into Oblivion. Trust me that was fun, just not sure it was worth the 2 or so hours of slow building up and endless wandering.
Overall: it's still a good game, not quite as good as I remembered it being but still good. It's way way longer a game then I had thought, so expect to spend a good 4-6 hours for a full session. It's still has a ton of character especially when compaired to the newer stuff GW puts out. If you haven't played it I suggest at least trying it out, but I wouldn't suggest buying it at the price it seems to sell for now.
Summary: a very rpg like boardgame set in the Grim Fantasy Warhammer World. This is the Warhammer of the 80's though, nto the gritty evil place it is now, a much more amusing grim Fantasy. You get a character who has a set of 4 stats, Strength, Craft, Lives and Gold. You move around the board encountering board squares (like the Village where you can go shopping or get healed, or visit a mystic for random events, or the craigs where you can get lost, find your way, or actually gain a strength). Most of these tell you to draw a card, which comes from the adventrue deck. This deck is filled with all kinds of things, from mobs to fight to wicked spells, from witches that turn you into a Toad, to faboulous riches and suits of the finest mail. The adventure cards are really the meat of the game. You travel around the board encountering things, and then using a cool XP system you actually improve you chracter (trade in 7 strength points of baddies you killed to get 1 permanent strength, same for Craft). Eventually play moves to the middle realm. Play is similar but most spots on the board cause you to draw 2 or 3 cards and most cards get buffed by +2 or +3. Evetually the brave adventurers will attempt to travel to the middle realm. Here you battle with either Strength or Craft to get to the Crown of Command (or an alternate ending if using Talsiman - The adventure) This is a tough fight as you often need to roll 3d6 under your stats, so you have to be pretty buff. Once at the Crown of command you get to zap other players each turn until only one is left. At this point the other players pretty much rush to the Crown themselves hoping to wrest if from you.
The Good: the nostalgia factor alone made this worth taking out again. I used to LOVE this game. No other game in my collection has been played as much as this over the years. The miniatures for the game are awsome (sold sparately at the time, now highly collectable), they don't look the best but they have a character you just don't see in miniatures anymore. The rules are still very simple, but the cards make it complex enough to keep your interest. I was a very close game the last time we played with no one player taking the lead an keeping it for the entire game. The art on this is horrible 80s style GW, which means I loved it! The bits are well made and you get plenty of them... now my bits weren't looking so hot after more then 20 years of play. This is such a cool game, the closest to an RPG feel captured in a boardgame (an rpg where you get lots of treasure and level up by killing things, not like Shadows over Camelot where you actually roleplay). It's still a ton of fun after all these years. Also noted during the game, that it was so cool of GW to put out minis for a game that really didn't need them at all. You get cardboard standies with it, there really was no need for it, but they are great and I had to have them all (wish I did get them all).
The Bad: the 80's are I was praising above isn't acceptable on all cards. The Giant Gorilla being the one that really sticks out in my mind as utter crap. The cards in this are very thin, everything is very thin, this means they didn't hold up too great over the years, though really for 20 years they weren't that bad. It's long gone, no more expansions and good luck getting the minis for this one. The random factor. It's pretty big in this one. Lots of rolling dice randomly to move and then drawing a random card. You still get to pick which way to go, plus deciding when to advance to the middle realm or whether to enter the Dungeon or not, so there is still some decision making but not a lot. I wouldn't call it a strategy game. The Warhorse is too damn powerful!
The Ugly: This game is friggin long! Okay when I was a kid I never noticed, but I am sure I felt nothing of spending 5 hours playing something I liked. As an adult I have other things to do and don't have that kind of time. This one really does drag out in the middle. In our personal game the begining was great as I was all geeked with Nostalgia, Church was all geeked because he never got a chance to play it when it was out, Pandora I think was enjoying it at least (not really geeked that I could remember). Then we hit the middle... and things got slow. We weren't tought enough to move on, and there didn't seem to be anything weak to fight where we were. There were a lot of turns of, I roll, I draw a card, I loose a life and get beat down, your turn...I roll, I find a bag of gold, your turn... Eventually we started bulking up (or hoarding great items like Church) and got to the endgame, and that again rocked. It was a very close match ending with Pandora with the Crown with only 1 life left, zapping the crap out of the other two players, with us almost reaching a couple times (Damned Crypt!) only to fail, getting beat down some more, managing to heal and eventually I made it up to the Crown myself and smoked her, then zapped Church into Oblivion. Trust me that was fun, just not sure it was worth the 2 or so hours of slow building up and endless wandering.
Overall: it's still a good game, not quite as good as I remembered it being but still good. It's way way longer a game then I had thought, so expect to spend a good 4-6 hours for a full session. It's still has a ton of character especially when compaired to the newer stuff GW puts out. If you haven't played it I suggest at least trying it out, but I wouldn't suggest buying it at the price it seems to sell for now.