A zombie game I actually like. It's ZOMBICIDE

 

I have never been a fan of Zombie movies, shows, games, etc. until I played this game (oh and the Zombie Fluxx, but that is a no-brainer game that just made it's way into my collection). I saw a demo of this game being played at my local comic book shop and thought it was a bit complicated. However, when I saw the popularity of the game and saw that my store finally got a season 1 box in stock, I told myself, I am going to try this and probably like it... also considering I got it on sale helped the budget a bit.

 

Before I get into the actual game play and review, I just want to mention the amount of expansions and so on you can get in this series: The original box comes with a load of stuff; zombies, survivors, equipment cards, zombie cards, noise markers, door tiles, objective tiles, police and pimp cars, game tiles and more. It also includes a rule book that has 10 different scenarios for you and your friends to try and complete and they are not easy scenarios that is for sure. But of course, if you are a real gamer, this box just won't cut it for you; you will need the Toxic City Mall expansion that has toxic zombies and new game times and zombie cards and new survivors to have even more people playing and even cooler, Zombivors (zombie survivors - yes you can keep playing with your character as a zombie with new abilities and such). Then of course you need more zombies because there just isn't enough already so you get the walking dead 1 and 2 expansions and then the angry zombies and then the toxic crowd expansion and why not the dog zombies and dog companions and finally the Second Season of Zombicide; Prison Outbreak... oh but of course you will need more game tiles so you will want the 3 expansion tile packs that add on to any base set (Season 1 or 2). You better make room in your game cabinet because this is going to take up a lot of room, or simply put all of this in just the base set box and you should have enough room.

 

My fun was playing with my younger boys (yes it says 13+ but they like moving figurines around and destroying zombies too) and taking whichever tiles I wanted and created my own scenario which we almost defeated. This is the main reason this game is so great, because it has amazing replay value (unlike Zombies where you need to buy every expansion and the only thing you do is walk around until you find the helipad and more zombies spawn and you have find health and ammo... almost like the Escape game but less fun) you can constantly change the scenario and with the random zombie cards that spawn new zombies every turn, you never know what is going to happen.

 

This game is really cooperative though, but even if you play alone, you need to use all 6 suvivors (or 10 I guess with the toxic city mall expansion... i should read those rules before assuming anything here) to get through the scenario(s).

 

Here is how it works: to setup the game, you either choose an already designed scenario from one of the many rule books, go online and download some free ones found here (missions) or create your own. Then you simply lay out the tiles and so on as described and start the game.

 

Each player chooses a survivor (1 survivor per player unless you are less players, then you divide the survivors equally - but read the scenario because some start with only 4 survivors) and receives one random equipment card (1 of 6 possible cards - 3 frying pans, a pistol, a fire axe and a crowbar).

Then a first player is chosen and given the first player marker and activates their survivor; each survivor has 3 possible actions (which you can choose from a list of actions - I am not going into this detail) and after that is done, the next player activates their survivor(s) and so on until all survivors have finished their actions.

 

Then, it's the zombie's turn... they attack any survivors in the same zone as them, they move and they spawn at certain locations.

 

And this continues until the objective(s) of the scenario is(are) completed.



The illustrations and details of the game pieces is amazing... the only downer I saw was with one of the survivor minis that is like a darker grey, almost the same as the Zombie minis... they could have used a better color in my opinion. The rules are quite easy to understand once you play a couple of times and having more players just makes the game so much more interesting (you really have to work together because at the start of the game, 2 survivors can open doors and only 2 have guns - stay close to these guys).

The entire game is fun and I simply can't say more than this so 5 out of 5 dice (or zombies) for this game and go buy it as a late Christmas gift if you can still find copies out there.

Provided by Multizone

A card game that Fluxxuates...

Fluxx the card game can be played within a very short time frame, even lasting only about 10 minutes if played right... The game is simple... at first... but within a few turns the game can change dramatically.

This simple-to-learn game can take any non-gamer out there and turn them into a card game winner within minutes; you start each game of Fluxx (and yes there are many different variations of this game - just like Munchkin) with two simple rules: Draw a card and play a card. However, that changes with players playing new rules and goals throughout the game which could lead a player to have to draw 4 cards and have a hand limit of 2 but must play 2 cards while speaking Pirate.

The goal of the game is quite simple, place a goal on the table and reach that goal; it could be that you need to have a cookie and a pear to win the game, or you need a treasure chest and a ship or you need the technician and the captain etc.

Each set of Fluxx cards (there is even a board game) plays as a separate game... I mean you could possibly mix them all together and make one crazy game that would probably last a weekend, but playing the sets individually adds great replay value; even though the rules are the same, the cards are not.

Every box has, I believe, 6 different types of cards: Keepers, Creepers, Actions, Goals, Rules and Surprises. Keepers are cards that you will want to keep in front of you until the perfect goal comes into play allowing you to possibly win the game. Keep in mind that keepers can be stolen, lost or discard due to new rules or other cards played by other players.

 

Creeper cards are just no good to have on the table and the minute you draw one, you must play it and as long as you have a creeper card, you cannot win the game even if you have the keepers needed for the current goal (however, you can get rid of creepers and sometimes, creepers and can actually help you win the game - like in Zombie Fluxx).

 

Action cards, well, they let the player do actions; like steal keepers or cancel another player's card etc. Surprise cards are similar to these but can be played at any time, whereas action cards are on your turn only.

New rule cards and goal cards are pretty much self explanatory; new rules change the current rules in effect and goal cards make it that someone will try and have the necessary cards on the table in order to win.

 

There isn't much more I can say about these games because they are so simple to play, anyone can just pick it up and get into it quickly. I currently own Pirate, Star and Zombie versions of Fluxx and really enjoy all three. There are many other versions to play with and can be purchased at Multizone and if you need more info regarding Fluxx... take a look at their home page: Fluxx.

 

I will give these games 4 out of 5 dice (creepers).

 

Enjoy.

Cheer up! It's time to play GLOOM.

In the Gloom card game, you control the fate of an eccentric family of misfits.

The goal of the game is sad, but simple: you want your characters to suffer the greatest tragedies possible before passing on to the next life. You'll play horrible mishaps on your own characters to lower their Self-Worth scores, while trying to cheer your opponents' characters with marriages and other happy occasions that pile on positive points. Once all of your family members are R.I.P., the player with the lowest total Family Value (the most depressive family) wins.

Printed on transparent plastic cards, Gloom features an innovative design. Multiple modifier cards can be played on top of the same character card; since the cards are transparent, elements from previously played modifier cards either show through or are obscured by those played above them. You'll immediately and easily know the worth of every character, no matter how many modifiers they have. You have to have some sick sense of humour to play this game.

The base set GLOOM comes with four families and enough modifiers to get you going with your family and friends; however, like every other card game, there are expansions to this one as well:

1- Unhappy Homes:
In this first expansion, you get a new family to add another player to the game and also houses for each family. There are new modifier, event and death cards but there are also new mystery cards that can be played on your households in order to have lasting effects for your family; which can also give you a lower family value at the end of the game. There are an additional 55 cards in this expansion and worth it.

2- Unwelcome Guests:
The second expansion that adds, once again, a new family and a new residence for that family to be played along with the Unhappy Homes expansion (and if you don't have that expansion, then just the residence aside - along with any mystery cards in this expansion) and a total of 55 more transparent cards (modifiers, events, untimely deaths, etc.). However, this expansions includes 5 new character cards known as "Guests". These character cards will be placed on the table and throughout the game, they will "follow" a family once their card effect is triggered (ie. when you play a certain modifier, this guest will attach itself to the player's family that just played that card). The guest cards will do this the entire game, which could also make the player closest to winning the game, be the player who has to now kill off a guest in order to win the game. Great little expansion that lets you have 6 players when added with Unhappy Homes.

3- Unfortunate Expeditions:
This third expansion adds another family in order to allow for a 7th player to join in on the Gloomy fun and again with a total of 55 new cards, you will be able to add new modifiers, events, mysteries and untimely deaths. Also included are expedition cards; these are placed on the table out of play until a player plays a modifier or untimely death card that has the expeditions' symbol on it and then that card is put in the middle of the play area and the effects are triggered and effect each player until a new expedition comes into play (there can only be one expedition in play at a time and when a new one comes into play, it replaces the old one. These effects remain as long as the card is in play.

4- Unquiet Dead:
Finally, the last (sort of) expansion for the Gloom card game; this expansion does not add a new family but does add 7 new undead modifiers. These new modifiers can change your character to an undead character such as a vampire, mummy, ghost, ghoul, wereduck, invisible person, or haunted portrait; these undead characters are both living and dead and can have modifiers and events played on them just like on living characters. These cards also count for your family's self worth and can help you kill off your family faster while still bringing down their morale. There are a total of 55 cards in this expansion which can be added to the the rest of the cards; in these cards there are new Story cards which players will want to have on their side of the table because these cards will give you special abilities until another player steals the story. Finally, they have added some timing symbols on the modifiers to show whether a card has an Instant effect that occurs when the card is played from your hand; an Ongoing effect that lasts until it is covered by another card; or a Persistent effect that can last as long as the Character is still alive ... or Undead.

For Cthulhu fans, there is a second base set entitled "Cthulhu Gloom" and it has it's own expansion as well, but I was not interested in this whatsoever.

Now when you look at all these expansions, 110 base cards and 55 x 4 expansions makes one hell of a big deck of cards to play with, and you are right; myself, I decided to create 3 separate decks using all sets (base and expansions) and mixed up all the modifiers, untimely deaths and events and distributed them evenly among the three decks. I also made theme-style decks; one regarding the undead (so I put less untimely deaths in this deck) which I believe is my "starter" deck, a deck with the stories and mysteries and another with the expeditions and the guests... I think that is what I did, I can't remember. Anyways, I think this is a better way to use all of these cards, but trust me, just the base set is a great way to play this with a few friends now and then.

Quickly, this is how you play the game of Gloom:
First you choose your family (take the residence that goes with it, if you have the Unhappy Homes expansion) and draw 5 cards. Each player has 2 turns; the first turn you can play any type of card (modifier, event, mystery, untimely death, etc.), discard a card or simply pass. The second turn is the same but you CANNOT play an untimely death unless a previously played card allows for an out-of-turn card to be played. Then, you draw back up to your hand limit (which can be modified by certain cards). Simple right, well it is... keep playing cards until one familly has been killed off and count up (or down) your family value and see who wins the game. Just a quick hint, try and kill other player's family members before they get to play modifiers on them.

The real fun of this game is storytelling; yep you can tell a fun story while you are playing this game just to keep it fun and entertaining while trying to be as gloomy as possible. There is a good example of this on youtube posted by TableTop:

Overall, I give this game 4.5 dice out of 5 and recommend it to anyone who has a sense of humour.
I really enjoyed playing this and it made us all have a good laugh.

This game is available at Multizone.

Forget about it... it's Nothing Personal The Board Game

 

A game where each player is trying to gain as much respect as possible while backstabbing, whacking and blackmailing each other player and it's Nothing Personal.

 

 

So here is the game once it is setup for a 3 player game. As you can see this is a well designed game and very sturdy... I mean the box is heavy; you have money that is like thick cardboard and the omerta and blackmail coins are like real money (but heavier). The board and the cards have really nice illustrations on them and the game overall is really fun to play.

 

My video will explain how to setup the game and how to play the game as well.

 

So for now I will simply review the game itself.

 

There is not much to say except that I really enjoyed playing this game with friends, we were six players and it took almost an hour just to get through the first part of the game; it is quite complicated to explain to new players, but once you get the hang of it, you move right along scheming and planning the whole time. There are so many cards in this game that almost every game you will have new gangsters showing; both historical and fictional. The game offers great replay value because of this and each player plays differently it trying to control more gangsters instead of just trying to control the Capo... which could be a good or a bad thing depending on how well you play.

 

This is a great party game for mafia enthusiasts like myself and I would say that the 13+ age group is a little low but I think they could understand it...

 

Overall I give this game a 5 out 5 dice and recommend to all those who love the Godfather movies and any other mafia related film or history.

 

Now enjoy my video:

 



 

Defeat Sauron with dice.

The Lord of the Rings Dice Building Game:

 

Scroll down to view video review!!!

Let's go on an Expedition

Expedition: Northwest Passage is not really your typical game. It was created by Yves Tourigny, who actually live in my current hometown so it is nice to have the opportunity to review a game that is not really know as of yet (also considering it is not for sale yet). Also, the creator signed my box (the owners of Multizone got that done for me).

Like I said it is not your typical game - which usually has some sort of battle, or calculating and so on. Now there is a level of difficulty to this game that it takes a few rounds before you get the hang of this game

The point of this game is to get from Greenland to the Northwest Passage and back again before 10 days have gone by. You also have to do this without getting your ship stuck in ice and losing your crew on a sled.

Along your expedition you will come across expedition interests which if you use your action points (crewman) you can pick them up for more victory points and in the end possibly give you more points if you have one of each point of interest. You can also try and complete islands and the bigger the area, the more points you get.

This game as a really cool (forgive my pun) gameplay mechanic.
You start on with 7 crewmen on your ship and these crewmen are your action points and you can perform one of 8 possible actions and each action requires one or more action points (some require one, like taking a tile, or 3 for picking up a special expedition). Now on your turn, you can spend the required number of crewmen to perform an action and if you wish to to do another action, you must spend the amount of crewmen needed and one extra crewman as well. At the beginning of the game you may not want to spend those extra crewman and just wait until your next turn to play again. If you pass or have no more crewmen to use, and you are the first person to pass, you become the first player on the next round... once everyone has passed, the round ends and sun moves to the next spot...

Talking about the sun... there is a blue part and a yellow part and the sun must never be rotated; why you ask, well simply put, when the sun is placed on the board, the blue side is up and the yellow side is down to indicate what part of the board is frozen and what part of the board is as is. If a section of the board is frozen, you cannot move with your ship only the sled. Now in order to send crewmen to your sled, you have to use an action as normal and then you can transfer as many crewmen you need to your seld.

Playing this game with more players than few is actually a little better because you have more people placing tiles in order to move ahead in the game, but do use your friends to place that perfect tile and take advantage to cut them off to score the greater points of the Nortwest Passage and hopefully get back to Greenland before the 10 days are done.

If you fail to get back, you lose 2 points per crewman that was lost and 2 points if you lost your ship.

The game is well designed and illustrated, I did find that the tokens were a bit flimsy when taking them out of the cutout boards but once that was done, they are pretty tough. The tiles are nice and you do need to read the rules quite closely. Gameplay changes almost every game you play because there are so many tiles to use and each player can play differently each time. Some linger back and pick up all the points of interest and wait for the path to be completed and then just use their crewmen to move.

So I will say that I really enjoyed this game and so did my fellow board gamers. In fact they want to play it again soon. It is not a game for those who like action and boasting, but it is a good game about history and not a bad game for a family to play.

I give this game 4.5 dice out of 5 and recommend it to all.

The game is now available at Multizone.

Gods from afar go to war in ASGARD...

 

 

So I hope my little intro video was viewable? If not, I am sorry about that, this is my first time trying to add a video to my blog and in fact, just creating a video. Wow I think you have to film short shots in order to edit it after instead of one long video which you probably can't cut parts out (like the one I tried to do with actual review - I sneezed very loudly and also my head was cut off - ok I am using a simple camera and not a video camera - my bad for that).

Anyways, getting to the review of the game.

I had a couple of negatives with this game: first major one was that the game was very long to setup and was quite hard to figure the round and turn sequences. There are a lot of rules and special rules and so on that you have to read and re-read the rules. I setup a 4 player game and ended up only getting through one round and it took me a total of about 2 hours in total; I am sure that if it was all setup and I played a second time, I think it would be faster but it was a very complicated game.

Just look at the size of the board and all the little tiles, figurines and cards... Just think about trying to place all of this on the board... it took me about 30 minutes to do this.

Another negative was that it seemed that certain areas on the board were not defined until the end of the rulebook and yes you are supposed to read the entire thing but it would have been nice to see a board layout with area identifications and what the area does.

They do give you a board layout but just in order to place all the little things.

I also have to say that Thor looks kind of dinky in this game.
Now on the other hand, the artwork is really nice in general and board looks really nice. The actual God cards are well illustrated and the little figures are well cut and detailed (as far as detail can go on little wooden figures - but at least you really know which is a giant - larger black figure).

The point of the game is to accumulate as many victory points by the end of the 5th round (and the 5th round is the final battle between the gods) and you do this by following very long and strange phase actions.

You start the game with 3 influence discs and these count towards taking actions from the gods.
In the first phase, you take 3 God cards from your pile and each player (starting with the first player which was decided randomly with the turn tiles) shows one God car and takes their influence disc and places on the Gods' square (each God has different abilities and rune stones - the stones are needed to build temples which give you victory points); if you look at Thor above, if you place a disc on the top rune, you get 2 runes from his supply and you also get the special ability of playing another turn, if you place a disc on the bottom right (temple spot), you can build a temple (if you have the right stones to do it) and then you must pay the God one unit to him or her (which is identified on the bottom left - topmost of the two) and then place your disc there (making it that you lose a disc, thus a future action possibility).

You can also place your disc on the Asgard area, which again should have actually been identified on the actual board, which then allows you to recruit new units, purchase new influence discs (which again is really long to explain) and take those discs and go to battle.

So this goes on until all players have place all three discs and then you move on to the action phase.

In the action phase, there is a lot going on, but once again, in turn order to choose which disc to remove from a God and take the action (which could be taking stones, building temples, or much more stuff - each God has their own unique abilities). Now if you are in the Asgard area, you have many actions you can take (like I mentioned previously).

Then, if needed, there is a battle phase which is cool but just adds more complication to a game that has so much going on at the same time... you really need to focus and look at everything on the board.

So that is all over and the round ends and then you refresh the board and start all over again but this time you add a new evil God to the mix (sorry to mention this so late, but there are three Gods that come into play as the rounds progress).

I don't even know how to really explain this game without actually creating an actual video demo of the game because there is just too much going on in this game.

I was looking forward to playing it and I think it will be a lot of fun playing a real game, but for now...
This game gets 2.5 dice out of 5.

Once again, this game was provided by and available to buy at Multizone

 

When you play the Game of Thrones...

 

 

You win or you die... Yep that is the famous line from the books and the show brought to you by none other than Cersei Lannister.

 

Ok well when you play this Board Game you will not literally die but you will have a lot of fun trying to take over Westoros as one of the 6 houses (Baratheon, Stark, Lannister, Greyjoy, Tyrell and Martel). However, the less players you are, the less houses there are to choose from... I actually don't get that part but whatever.

 

On with the review...
 



Here's a game that, when you open the box, you are like WOAH that is a lot of stuff and look at the size of the game board... well it is quite intimidating and quite hard to learn unless you read the rules book very carefully and check out the tutorial video posted by Fantasy Flight Games (best to just buy the game, read the manual and play a few rounds with 3 houses by yourself - that is what I did and now I can play it as well as teach it).

So I started a game by myself as 3 different houses (Stark, Lannister and Baratheon) in order to learn the basis steps of playing this game; some of you are going to say "But you can cheat this way", true, but the point was not to win (which Stark did) but to learn and review.

House setup after a few rounds.

Almost every step of the game I had to re-read the section in the manual until I got it straight the head but even then, I would sometimes make mistakes. For instance I was using Raid orders to remove March orders and you can't do that... Or using the special order of the consolidate power to gain more power instead of either choose to gain more power or to muster new units and a stronghold or castle... Or finally figuring out how ships work. Yep there is a lot to learn in this game including playing Westoros cards, defending against wildling attacks, planning your next move, trying to bargain with other players and make alliances and then breaking them when you are in a good position and so much more.

 

I do love all the details; from the house cards, to the power tokens and the board is just beautiful... large but beautiful. What is cool is that FFG used the same art work from their card game on this game or vice versa (not sure which was first).

 

As you can see, the board is huge and the screens are used to hide the total number of power tokens you have, which are used to bid on the influence tracks.

The fewer players there are, the less houses you can choose from but also there are areas on the board that you cannot even set foot in.

 

This is a really hard game and could take up to 4 hours to play (if you are 6 players). I really enjoyed it and would love to see how this game actually plays out with other players. Like I said the details are awesome and it is a must have for any Game of Thrones fan out there.

 

I find that this game can be easily learned if you know how to play Risk... take a chance at expanding and take the chance of losing the advantage. The picture here shows the round track and the Victory track. If the 10 rounds are up, the house closest to controlling 7 castles or strongholds is the winner, but if a house gets to the 7 before the 10 rounds are up, then kudos to them and they win.

I will quickly go through the gameplay:
Each house screen tells you how to setup your starting positions on the influence tracks, the supply line and the victory track and where to place your starting units.

First round you do not play Westeros cards, you start with placing orders on areas you control with at least one unit on it (a unit is represented by the little plastic figurines - footman, knight, ship and siege machine).

Then, you reveal the orders by all players.

Then, you do the orders revealed in this order:

1. Raid orders
2. March orders (which leads to combat and that is a whole separate area to learn...)
• You declare which area you are going into
• If there are enemy units, you start a combat, otherwise you simply take control of the area.
• In combat you total the unit strength (footmen = 1, knights = 2, ships = 1 and siege machines = 4 - note that siege machines only count their strength when in a controlled area with a stronghold or castle), then you add the strength of the house card you play and then add any bonuses if you hold the Valyrian blade and then resolve the conflict (the house with the highest strength wins and then counting the number of swords or towers on house cards - swords determine how many units are lost from the battle and towers determine how many of those units are safe from the swords - and then retreating the units - for the losing house, to either an empty area or to a friendly controlled area - for the winning house, well they take control of the new area).
• You can also use the defense orders and the support orders in combat in order to help you win or defend.
3. Consolidate power orders.

When all this is done and the board is all clean, the next round begins, but this time you must play a card from each of the three decks of cards (I, II, III) in the Westeros area and do whatever the card says to do (from being attacked by Wildlings to Mustering new units to Adjusting the Supply track).

Then you continue as you did in the first round until there is a winner.



I don't know what else I can say about this game other than how awesome it is and what fun you can have with a lot of players. Also, a great replay value because no player ever thinks the same.

I will definitely give this game a 5 dice out of 5.

This game was provided by and available at:

You are litterally building with dice.

There are all sorts of dice games out there, but when you here dice building game, you think ok like a deck building game right? Well this game actually builds something using the actual dice.

The game is Blueprints, not even on the shelves yet. Multizone was nice enough to lend me a copy of the game to get to know and play it and then review it.

Well Frankly this game is as simple as it gets, ok not as simple as Zombie Dice but close.

The premise of the game is to roll dice and build what is illustrated on the blueprint card. Simple no!!!

You do this over 3 rounds and at the end of each round you count the points and give out award cards and at also reward cards (frankly I did not use the reward cards).

Here is a typical 4 player setup:

Each player gets a screen to hide what blueprint they are trying to reproduce and on the back of those screens it shows how to score your points (this is handy when planning your strategy of what resource to use to build your blueprint).

Let's talk about the game play:
The first player is chosen by who built the last thing (in real life) and then on the following rounds, whoever scored lowest goes first and play proceeds in a clockwise order.
The first player than chooses 7 dice from the dice bag (which by the way is really too small for the number of dice they give you so get a bigger bag if you can) and rolls them in the middle of the gaming area and then you place them in numerical order (lowest to highest). The color of the dice do matter in this game but not when placing them on the game area: Clear = glass, Black = stone, Brown = wood and Green = recycled.

The colors of the dice come into play for scoring:

I don't know if you can well or not, but wood dice give you points (you might want to read the screens to see the actual point amounts) depending on how many other dice are touching it (top, bottom, left, right, front, behind). Glass dice give you points for top face value of the dice. Stone dice give you points depending on what level (how high) they are. Finally, the recycled dice give you points for each green dice you use in general to build your blueprint.

So there is quite a bit of strategy needed for this game, but even though it says that the minimum age is 14 years old, I played this with my two young boys and they had fun trying to pick the right dice and just build.

So moving on with the gameplay, again with the first player, he chooses one of the dice in the game area and places it on his or her blueprint taking into account that if you need to build multiple levels you must place a dice with a face value greater than or equal to the dice below it (example: you have a green dice on the bottom with a 3 showing, you must place a dice - any color - above it that is either a 3 or greater) so don't go placing a 6 on the bottom otherwise you will not be able to finish your print.

Once that player picked a die, the player then chooses a random one from the bag, rolls it and places it in line with the others (never changing the face values of the ones already on the table).

Play proceeds until all players have chose and placed 6 dice on their print (however, there may be times that you cannot place a die so that die is lost and you will not be able to finish your construction and not get the extra 6 points it is worth).

Now when the round ends, you count up the points and if you noticed there were two extra dice laid out on the points card, these are used to break ties, the first player of the tie takes the top die and uses it on his print and the second uses the second die and then you recount the points. If a player completed the print, they get 6 bonus points.

Then the awards are given out, bronze to the third highest score, silver to the second and gold to the first.

And as you can see, there are also points for these cards which are added to the final score at the end of the three rounds.







So there is not much more to say about this game, I really liked it and it is a really quick game to pick up and play. I suggest this game for families and even with small kids because it helps them count and learn some minor strategies of gameplay.

I will give this game 4.5 dice out of 5.

This game was provided by and available for sale by:

Dominion made it easy to build a deck...

Hello folks, today I decided to kill 2 birds with 1 stone... figuratively speaking of course :)

Yes today I am going to review not one, not two but five yes 4 different deck building games:
Thunderstone, DC, Lord of the Rings and Star Trek.

I have to start by saying that Dominion is the game that started the deck building franchise and many different companies have taken that game as their basis in creating their own versions of games.

What is a deck building game? Is it like Magic? or Pokémon? or any other card game where you have to buy and buy and buy tons of packs, starter decks and singles just to make the right combination of cards to create the outmost powerful deck to defeat ALL your foes... No, not all; a deck building game is simple and can probably even be taught to a 5-year-old... I actually did teach my 5 year old how to play DC deck building.

The one thing that sets the deck building game apart from the card games, is that you only need to buy one simple single box and if your friends are generous enough and will play with you often enough... maybe you can all split on the cost... why not? Yes every single box is identical so don't go buying 4 boxes of DC or Star Trek or Lord of the rings... ok there are expansions that can be added to or be played separately from the 'base' game if you can say that.

The premises is simple, you start with a simple starting deck of usually 10 cards (well this is the case for these games) which are usually composed of starter cards (in DC you have punch cards and vulnerability cards, in LOTR you have a hero's weapon, some courage and despair cards, in Star Trek you have Starfleet personnel and some gadgets and in Thunderstone you have some heroes and such). Now each game is setup quite differently except for the LOTR and DC since they are all made from the same company which is a bit redundant but still gives you different gameplay value.

Let's start with Lord of the Rings (2 to 5 players):

Setup: Like I said before you get 10 cards that are given out to the players (all the same cards except that here if you choose one of the many heroes (like Aragorn, Gimli, Merry, Pippin, Gandalf, etc.) you also get a special hero card which is usually an item or a maneuver card). Then you place the Corruption cards in a separate pile, the Arch enemies in a separate pile (now there is an impossible mode with the arch enemies but I frankly have not tried yet but I will soon because supposedly it is a good challenge for long time players), the valor cards into a separate pile and finally all the rest of the cards are put into a main deck which will be used to fill in the blank spaces on the table (I will get to that soon).

Once this is done, you take the top 5 cards from the main deck and lie them face up so everyone can see and this is where the game begins. So each player draws a starting hand of 5 cards from their deck and any cards that have power options on them, make it that you can purchase cards from the lineup, however, once you are done your turn, you must draw a new set of 5 cards (after discarding you previous hand, even the cards you did not use) and reveal a new card for the lineup from the main deck. Now here you could get an enemy (not the same as an arch enemy) that has an AMBUSH keyword on it... this will affect the current player directly... it could mean you lose a card, gain a corruption and so on; not usually good things, however again there are cards you can purchase have a defense capability to block these ambushes.

Each player does this one after the other and play continues on until someone decides to try and fight the current Arch Enemy. To do this, you need to have more power than what the cost of the card is (kind of like their hit points). If you can accomplish, this arch enemy now becomes part of your deck (just like any cards you picked up from the lineup) and now you must discard your current hand and played cards and draw a new hand and then flip over the next arch enemy... now they have group ambush on them which affects everyone playing unless they have a defense card.

As you can see, I currently have 2 versions of LOTR deck building games, one is the Fellowship of the ring and the other is the Two Towers (they actually have the heroes accordingly as well - you will not find Faramir in the first set and you won't find Boromir in the second set). Now they can be played as separate games (which I actually recommend) or you can mix them together to make one giant game (the rules on how to do this are included with the Two Towers set).

In the first one you have 1 way of losing the game (not including not being the player with the most victory points); run out of cards in the main deck; SIMPLE. In the second one, there are 2 ways to lose; run out of cards in the main deck or run out of cards in the WALL deck (yes there is the Hornburg wall that is part of the second set rules and once it is breached, more problems can occur to the players) .

How to win, simple defeat all the arch enemies and you all win the game, but there still has to be a single winner right? Well count up those victory points and see who did the best at building their deck.

DC deck building (2 to 5 players):

This is pretty much the same as Lord of the Rings, except that the heroes themselves have a super power on the hero card so you don't get that special card with your starting deck. You still get the starter cards and the piles of other cards are separated (super villains, kick, weakness, and the main deck). Same rules, you use power to buy cards and use power to defeat the super villains. The one difference is that when a villain is put into the lineup from the main deck, they don't have ambushes like in the LOTR, but they do have attacks for when you play them as part of your hand against other players. So again you lose by depleting the main deck or you win by defeating all super villains and you have a single winner by victory points (see not much difference - but gives you the choice of games with similar rules).

Both of theses games were created by Cryptozoic and frankly I really liked both versions (I talk about LOTR as one because they are simply add-ons). They offer tons of replay value because the super villains or archenemies never come out the same way, the hero you randomly choose at the beginning of the game makes it that your deck will change almost every game and once you play often enough, you get to know the best combos to play. There is eventually going to be an add-on to the DC game called "Heroes Unite" that will see Nightwing, Hawkman and others join forces with the current game. There is also supposed to be a third add-on game for LOTR but I have not seen any news on when that is going to happen.

So all in all, these two games each get 5 out of 5 dice... (the pics were just too big).

Moving on to Star Trek (this set also includes the add-on).

"Space, the final frontier" well you know how it goes.
Yes they made a Star Trek deck building game and why not... it is based on the same concept as LOTR and DC but it is quite different and can be played for a long time and they added different scenarios so you can play co-op. I do have to complain about the size of the box(es). As you can see in the picture to the left, there is tons of room and I have the base set and expansion in here... they filled in the blanks with styrofoam inserts (which I actually used in the Thunderstone box because there too is a lot of wasted space - I will talk about this later). The box is really sturdy though and could hold a lot of cards, now there is another expansion or a base set for the Original series, but I never saw the original series and frankly I loved TNG.

The setup is practically the same as the two other games:
You have your starting deck which includes a few ensigns and lieutenants and a few extra gizmos that help you get started on decking building quickly.
You have the main deck which contains characters, weapons, events, etc. and I believe there has to be at least 500 cards in there... well ok maybe not, there sure are a lot of cards. Oh yeah this main deck fills the empty whole in the Starbase area... which is a setup of 9 face up cards that you can purchase with XP points (not power).

Then you have the mission deck which is filled with mysterious adventures, missions, starships which you can either attack or try and diplomacy so that you can take it as your own starship (trust me, you will want to get a new starship once you see the crappy starter one you start with), wars and so on.





Finally, there are three piles for the ensigns, lieutenants and commanders you can purchase and add to your deck in order to use to buy future cards (you can pretty only buy cards using these three types of cards so make sure you have a good stock of them... however there are also come cards and characters that allow you to upgrade a card for another).

The player turns are rather simple but could get confusing at times... first you draw five cards and you can either do the following (in any order):
1- Search - which means you select a card in the starbase area and discard and replace it with a new card from the main deck (some cards let you do this more than once).
2- Purchase - buy cards from starbase or from the three other piles (ensigns, lieutenants or commanders) and add them to your deck.
3- Explore - which allows you to flip over the top card of the mission deck and attempt to win victory points by completing the goal or mission, withstanding an event, winning a war or defeating or diplomacy a starship.
4- Trash - this means you can simply take a card from your hand and trash it; no longer use it. This sometimes comes in handy if you have too many ensigns clogging up your hand.

I won't go into the exact details of the rules, so please read them carefully or search the Internet for video tutorials (which is what I do for most of my games).

This one I thought I was going to get my wife to play along because she is a huge Star Trek fan, but she actually has not tried it, however she did try the DC game and really liked that one (but in all fairness, my wife is NOT a gamer like I am). When I read the rules I found it a little hard to understand, now I mentioned before about different game versions in this game, well there are two extra scenarios where you faceoff as a team against the Borg, there are missions involving the Klingon civil war and the Romulans... for each of these scenarios, there are extra cards that need to be in the mission deck and certain starter starships to use. I have to be honest, I have not played any of the other versions but I do intend on doing so soon.

I really like this game as well, it was fun once you got into it and understood everything you could do... one think I liked, was the fact that the game did not end until someone reached 400 victory points via the mission deck, so even if the main deck ran out of cards, you simply reshuffled them and started all over. A two player game can be short, but a 5 or more player game can be long but still a lot of fun. It is fun to see all the characters from the TNG shows and the movies that involve the TNG crew... and even sometimes you will fall upon the picture of a character on a card that you will recognize the face and say "Hey this actor played another Star Trek character in another show."

I do have to say, though, that there are some really useless cards in this game, I am sure if it is because I don't really know what they do, but I just find they are cards no one would actually want to have in their decks...

All in all this game will get 3.5 dice out of 5.

Finally, THUNDERSTONE... I am sure most of you know this game as the Advanced version, well the one I have is the starter set and let me tell you, it really is a starter set... they really want you to purchase the expansions just so you can actually use some of the cool stuff this box offers...

 

Ok the great thing about this box, not the game, is that it comes with really nice dividers for all the different kinds of cards, but as I mentioned before, waste of space if you do not intend on getting the expansions... see on the right, look those are the foam inserts from Star Trek just waiting to be replaced with more cards; oh and look at that centre hole just begging to be filled by something cool... I don't know what that could be but anyways.

Onto the review... this one is a bit more complex and the goal is to the defeat the red dragon that is protecting the Thunderstone in the caves... I really suggest you read ALL the rules or play with someone who really knows what they are doing.

You start the game with basic cards and the setup of the game is quite complicated because you have to setup based on setup cards you draw beforehand... long story short, it took about 30 minutes just to set this game up... and about 2 hours to play and that was on the short version...
Now, once again you have an area (called the village) where you can buy heroes, upgrades, weapons, items and so on in order to help you defeat monsters in the cave. To enter the cave you need a torch card or a card that shows a number of torches it is worth... the more torches you play the less power you need to defeat a monster in the cave... simply put, if you enter a cave without a torch, the first monster will get a +2 power advantage, the second monster will get a +4, the next on a +6 and finally a +8 on the last guy, so if you can amass a good number of torches you can avoid these add-on powers (I hope I got that right, I don't feel like peeling through the actual rule book right now).

So you keep buying cards and entering the cave to defeat enemies in order to win the game... you only lose if, once the dragon appears, makes it's way to the first position of the cave. Simple no... well it is once you start playing.

Frankly I was hoping for something a bit more similar to LOTR and DC or even to Star Trek, but I was a tad disappointed in this one. However, if you are into it and want to proceed on adding the expansions, it might have a great replay value because right now the purpose is to destroy the dragon and that is all... and I find the cards that can make up the village area are a little weak in my opinion.

So this game will get a 2 dice out of 5.

Well that is all for now, hope you enjoyed reading about these deck building games and I hope that you will even choose to try some of them or even purchase them...

Don't forget to leave comments or questions below the post so I can have a view of what people are hoping to get from these posts.

Thanks and build on...

Games provided by and available at: Multizone

181 rue Principale Gatineau
819-685-3399

140 Boulevard Gréber Gatineau
 819-561-1411