Nothing much to report here, except some more Descent last week. We didn't have a large mid-week crowd, Andy and Chrispy were both absent, but luckily Chri3 showed up with his little brother in tow. I say "little", he was twelve, but that still meant I had to watch my language. My brother-in-law Jake showed up to. Jake's kind of zany, he is full of raw geek potential, but he has never gamed a day in his life. He brings both an unbridled enthusiasm and a completely random, out-of-left-field unpredictability to the table. It's never dull.
So we cranked out some Descent. You know what? This really is a great game. It's got simple mechanics that are easy to pick up and run with, yet can get complex enough to give you options and feel like you're actually using your brain. The components of the main box are just amazing, and you get so many figures, cards, tokens, board pieces, and the like that's it's jaw dropping. And the replay value is outstanding, and that's not including the expansion sets or the boxed sets designed just for extended campaigning.
You could play this game weekly, literally for a year straight, and never get tired or bored with it. With my group we bounce around too much to make it a regular thing, but it would be nice nonetheless. For dungeon-crawl, RPG-lite action, it's pretty got it all.
For some closeup pics of a couple of painted character models, check out the Adepticus Prime blog, there's some great shots there.
Interesting .... looks great !
ReplyDeleteThanks, it's a fun game for sure!
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think of the miniatures themselves? I've often thought about picking this up to scratch that Heroquest/Warhammer Quest itch, but from the images I can find, the figures don't stack up too well against GW's.
ReplyDeleteI had about the same question as kelvingreen. I have seen this and considered picking it up, for precisely the same reasons. But the Battlelore figs were so bad that it scared me off of these kind of games.
ReplyDeleteThe minis are fairly decent quality, but nowhere near GW. The monsters are fairly consistent in scale...but the heroes are all over the place (especially once you start adding expansions). If you want 4 close ups of painted models, I have them on my blog.
ReplyDeleteI love this game and run a weekly campaign from RTL with a few friends. It's great fun as an overlord and a player. And as you say, Mik...it's totally replayable! I've run the first quest about 5 times and each time it's different (except the players always win!).
Glad to see folks playing it. I'd hate for FFG to give it up as I love it.
@KG & CF: This will TOTALLY scratch that itch. I also own both Heroquest and WHQuest, and they're great for nostalgia reasons, but what I keep telling everyone, you guys too, is that Descent is currently supported, new stuff is still coming out for it which puts it ahead of the game in my book. Plus, Road to Legend and Sea of Blood take the game and "supersize" it, turning it into something truly epic.
ReplyDeleteThe figs aren't award-winning, but taken as part as the overall 'sum of their parts' they work very well. I would take Cawshis Clay up and check out their blog, or even boardgamegeek.com for painted pics and closeups of the figs.
"We bounce around..." What a cop out, we'd play it if you ran it. ;-)
ReplyDeleteYou know, as I type this I'm taking a break from putting the finishing touches on some Strange Aeons fellers I'm planning on running!
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