The Best Game You Will Ever Play!

Still unsure about Flames of War Version 4? Shot you bolt in Bolt Action? Not warming up to Star Wars based games? Then I have just the game for you! In a few months we will all playing a great new game and I want to tell you about it before it hits Kickstarter. The folks who developed it provided me with an advanced copy and I have been playing non-stop ever since. The other day they asked me to send it back so another reviewer can play it and I said “no way, it’s mine”. The beauty of this game is how you can use components from other games to augment the core set. So I now have a use for those command and staff teams that will no longer be used in FoW. I may even throw in some unpainted Napoleonic figures I have lying about!

The beauty of the game is how the two players create a lot of the game in real time. The mechanics are very simple; during your turn you can move, take an action, or do nothing at all. The core box that will be offered on Kickstarter features old Dir Cast Metal tanks from Corgi. These were the bomb of toys back in the 1970’s and are now reproduced for this great game. The other playing pieces that come with this set are Yoga-Joe’s, and will offer the most seasoned Grognard a tough time when using or facing these guys. Also included in this box are the rules, which are about 500 pages long (without punctuation) however they explain every situation you can get yourself into when you play. Also included and which is key are the related books Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persig and The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump, two life changing literary classics.

The Unboxing
The great thing about the game is that it is ready to play right from the box! Well ready to play after you read the rule book. The beauty of the rules is that you retain none of them and if you do not like a rule you can change or ignore it at any time. So after spending a month going over the readings, I was ready for my first game. The models look great and they add so much flavor to the game.

The Key Mechanic
The most important aspect of the game is how the player deals with both the rules and their opponent. It is important to have an opinion on everything, no matter your expertise or sense of importance, and communicate that opinion in the most passive aggressive way possible. This style of play came about during the first turn as my opponent started to move. They went for the tactic to ignore all movement rules and kept looking for me to object. I said “Stop your tank” a few times and they kept going, and crushed my Zen-Lotus Warrior. What I should have said is “don’t you think you have moved far enough?” which would have stopped the tank in its tracks. Same thing happened in the shooting step, but I remembered my lesson from before and said “haven’t you shot up enough stuff?”

For combat, players have the choice of using a dice of any type, a coin flip, pulling cards from a deck, or even rock paper scissors (lizard, Spock for advanced players) with the winner being the player who scores the highest or lowest (as agreed upon) winning. Want a challenge, play this game with D20’s!

Like all other games, it comes down to the tanks. Tanks can shoot any of the opponents pieces, except for a Yoga-Joe, but it can run over the Yoga-Joe by accident thus killing it.  Unused playing pieces brought in from other games cannot attack, but can be attacked at any time. The defender can suggest that a player shoots at a piece like the Mid-Late War German Artillery Staff team by stating “OK fine, how about shooting at this guy?”.
 

What I love about the game is how during the course of play create an experience which is unique and rewarding. Unlike all other games, the rules state upfront that this game was written for you and you only and it will be perfect, just like yourself.
Another great aspect of the game is that during play your opponent takes notes in a note pad and you do the same when they play. These notes have no bearing on the game, however they are slipped into your game box for you to read later. It is best to wait until 3-4 players have dropped notes in your box so you do not know who wrote it.

Special Characters
The game revolves around using your tanks and special characters. The box comes with its own unique set of special characters; the Yoga-Joe’s. Each Yoga-Joe model has a unique pose witch correlates to a special power. Players can use the special powers as stated in the rule book or make them up as they go. Normally a Yoga-Joe can use their power only once, however they can try to use it again and if your opponent does not say “didn’t you use that model already?” then you are free to use it again.
Other special characters can be brought in as long as they are anthropomorphic and retain the qualities they historically had.
So on turn two I played the Giant Gunny which stopped a tank!

Later on I used the Churchill creamer to persuade a Yoga-Joe to surrender. Being from India and staunchly anti-empire it didn’t work at first; until I found out the Yoga-Joe was lactose intolerant.

The game was tight until we had a huge standoff between two major religions, and following the “agree to disagree” rule the game ended. I learned my lesson and for my next game I used the "Peace is our Profession" rule and called in an Arc-Light strike!

I loved this game and so will you. If you win it’s because you are the best and if you lose it’s because of the fact the opponent cheated or that the game was flawed. I also noticed that when I didn’t play the game for a long time, I became a bigger expert at it.

I recommend this game to everyone and I know it will be a huge hit!


Twitter @MitchWWPD
WWPDMitch@gmail.com

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Review: Eclipse

Eclipse is a board game released in 2011. It is extremely popular among avid board gamers, and has maintained both a spot in the top 10 of "The Hotness" on BoardGameGeek since release (which is predominately controlled by the newest releases), also holding an 8.4/10 rating, making it ranked #5 on BBG's rating all-time rating system!

Eclipse is not a casual board game you throw down with some first-time playing mates on a drunken Friday night. Eclipse is a super complicated Euro game that requires some effort to learn, making it ideal to be played between a regular group of gamers. I was originally drawn to the game by the sheer number of pieces (my #1 rating factor for board games). It combines my love of Starcraft's resource management, Eve Online's ship customization, and board games all in to one!

All the pieces. As to be expected with Euro games, your storage solution can be made a lot easier with some Plano cases!

The basic premise is you command a race through exploration, research, industry, and combat. Taken from the game's BBG page: 

"The galaxy has been a peaceful place for many years. After the ruthless Terran–Hegemony War (30.027–33.364), much effort has been employed by all major spacefaring species to prevent the terrifying events from repeating themselves. The Galactic Council was formed to enforce precious peace, and it has taken many courageous efforts to prevent the escalation of malicious acts. Nevertheless, tension and discord are growing among the seven major species and in the Council itself. Old alliances are shattering, and hasty diplomatic treaties are made in secrecy. A confrontation of the superpowers seems inevitable – only the outcome of the galactic conflict remains to be seen. Which faction will emerge victorious and lead the galaxy under its rule?

A game of Eclipse places you in control of a vast interstellar civilization, competing for success with its rivals. You will explore new star systems, research technologies, and build spaceships to wage war with. There are many potential paths to victory, so you need to plan your strategy according to the strengths and weaknesses of your species, while paying attention to the other civilizations' endeavors.

The shadows of the great civilizations are about to eclipse the galaxy. Lead your people to victory!"

How the board is set up at the beginning of the game. Note that their are more tiles that can be explored going outwards, but we usually don't place them until needed.

A closeup of a starting players tile.

Blue expanding through the galaxy

You have, in theory, an unlimited about of actions each round. You can explore new tiles, research new technologies, upgrade your ships and starbases with said new technologies, build new ships and starbases, or move your fleets around the board.

A player's board, naked.

As the game goes on, you move the little blue squares off your board and in to space and territory you control. As you remove the cubes, you gain the resources underneath them, so the more cubes you move off, the better. However, as you take actions, you remove the blue discs, which reveals increased penalties the more actions you take, so it becomes a risk/reward balancing act not to take more actions than your economy can handle!

A player's board fully loaded.

You control how your ships are built by building blueprints from the ground up. You can research bigger guns, faster engines, better armor, etc, and upgrade them to your ships. However, ships are limited by how much power they can support, so you also have to research power upgrades along with new fancy shiney guns!

A barebones Dreadnought. 

A Dreadnought upgraded with some truly frightening guns.

An example of how discs are removed and their underlying stats apparent.

You can keep taking actions until you feel you have stretched yourself too thin, and then you pass. The first player to pass gets to activate first on the following turn, so sometimes it's a good idea to lay low for a turn to get the jump on your opponent.

As new technologies randomly are drawn to be available for research, going first can be crucial to become the first race to unlock something like Plasma Missiles!

The communal board that tracks technology, turn sequence, etc.

Eclipse Board Game on Amazon

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