TheFoeHammer
Known Hero
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posted August 12, 2005 05:26 PM |
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Origins Review
I had the pleasure of previewing this game at Origins in July. I have to admit it was sheer luck that I stumbled onto this. I did not even know that such a game was in the works. I also typically don't hang out in the miniatures/boardgame hall since my LOTR minis game is played in the CCG hall. Regardless, I was there, saw the sign, and being a big fan of the Heroes III computer game, made a beeline for the table.
The designer, Jonathan, and some of his family and volunteers were there teaching folks to play. After some casual looking on I decided to let one of the younger players (Jonathan's nephew) show me the basics before I ran off for another event I was going to. And promised to come back the next day for a more thorough viewing.
At first I thought some of the concepts were confusing. Especially the deck cycling since I am not a regular CCG player. In this game you use cards in your hand as "money", paying a quantity of cards to your discard pile to pay a cost value printed on the upper right of the card. At first glance that mechanic almost turned me off to the game, but I stuck it out. And boy was I glad I did. Once I saw other items like how combat is played out, how locations on the map get defined from your deck and guards generated from other players decks, some of the strategy of the game and the deck building became clearer.
The object of the game is the same as the Heroes game, eliminate your opponents towns by generating income (cards) and building an army (also cards). You can only build what your town card says it can make for the levels you have purchased or for creature dwellings you have defined and fought for on the map. The more towns and/or income locations (like Gem Mines) you own, the more cards you draw. At the end of the turn you cycle a card into your "adventure" deck as well. Cards in your adventure deck cannot be used as money but can be purchased as creatures for your army or pulled in for other reasons. So cycling is really another form of "income". Also your hero cards can gain skills by successfully winning combats and pulling a skill card from your hand or adventure deck.
Combat is played out in a very creative format. You must at least put 3 stacks in a melee rank, anyone else can be farther back, and if they have a ranged attack this is a much safer place to attack from since only ranged attackers and flyers can hit them there. Stacks of multiple cards can combine their levels to the top cards attack value to make even cheap cards capable of taking down a large monster (just like the computer game!) and counterattacks can choose to attempt to wipe out the whole stack or pick on a smaller quantity. Creatures can only attack in their "phase" which brings the speed factor from the computer game into the mechanic. You may have a Dragon attacking with a powerful attack in Phase 4, but my wolf horde may take them out in phase 3 and make it a moot point. Also retaliation is built into the game and some figures get unlimited retaliations as well as many other special abilties and/or spells.
Later that evening I made it back for the preview tourney. We were still playing sealed decks and I chose Nature which was not quite able to build up as fast as the Order player I was up against. But I had a great time and of course learned more about the mechanics of the game. One thing I did notice, the game can go long. If a player chooses to turtle and the map happens to separate them a bit, a game could go 3-4 hours or more. But a lot of that could be because it was a new game and we were learning strategies and mechanics at the same time.
The next morning, despite my already full schedule, I could not resist coming back for more. Jonathan gave us a real treat by letting us pull cards and build custom decks from the demo materials he had. I was able to build a Nature deck that was more capable of producing income to counter Order and was building up a strong army before I ran out of time and had to turn over my deck to someone else (I hope he won with it.)
I honestly can't wait until this game releases. I plan to run events in the Chicago area and help promote it anyway I can. Overall it is more complex than some of the miniatures games I play, but the mechanics are clear and mirror the computer game very well. Hats off to Jonathan for an excellent design!
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