Friday Rucht Hour: Bearing the Torch - Catacombs

So, I've got a three post segment here where I'm going to talk about getting kids into wargaming.

First of all, I want to say for the record that I knew my kids would be into wargames. I just didn't know when it would happen. How did I know? Well, every so often, dad goes off and plays games with the guys. When I do this, the kids are simply not invited. "Can I come dad?" "Not yet son...maybe when you're older."

This gave all of my wargaming an immediate mystique. In my circle of friends, it is viewed by my two sons as one of the gateways into manhood. And what little boy is not attracted to that?

Also...I play games that have really, really cool toys. In my games, giant robots fight. Undead hordes swarm against knights with electrical swords. The few times I've played something historical, I'm sitting there in front of tanks and troops - things that have immediate appeal to young boys. Plus, it helps that they are all hand-painted and look nice.

The first thing I started them off with was Catacombs. I've posted about Catacombs before. It's a great dungeon-crawling board game that relies on dexterity. Players take on different roles like the Barbarian, Thief, Wizard, or Thief. Their character is represented by a wooden pog. Players move or attack with their character by flicking their pog into the opposing monster pogs. Most monsters are killed by a single hit, but some monsters are tougher. When you hit tougher monsters, you flip that pog over to represent it being damaged. Mik has a more complete review and discussion, here.

So, as you can see, mechanics of the game make it extremely easy for kids to pick up. Hit a monster, and you kill it. Or, maybe you flip it over. That's it. No numbers to read. Nothing to add. Player characters do have multiple wounds, but these are easily kept track of on large cards with helpful markers.

Most characters have only one special ability, meaning there is very little to memorize or think about. What gives these abilities depth is that activating them is usually a expendable resource. The strategy comes in when to to use or not use a special ability.

My kids loved, loved, loved this game. They liked the excitement of seeing what was in the next room, the thrill of collecting money for vanquishing foes, and buying magical items.

Here's how much they loved the game. When they finished off the dragon at the end, they wanted to keep going. "Dad, what's next?" "Um, there is no next. That's the end of the game." "No! What is the next room?" "There is no next room, guys..."

In the end, I had to make it up. I told them a great story about defeating the dragon and let them buy more magical items. It was hilarious. And by the way? We had some friends come in from out of town. Their little girl played with us and had the same reaction. "No! This can't be the end. What's next?"

All right, that's all for now. Next time, I'll talk about their first proper wargame - Crossbows and Catapults. 

Sunday Rucht Hour: ManCabin Round Up pt. 2

Continuing the game count at ManCabin....

Last Night on Earth 

After our rousing game of Epic Spell Battles, we got together a game of Last Night on Earth. Now, Last Night is probably one of my favorite games of all time. If you don't already know what this game is  - it's a cinematic zombie survival game. One or more players plays the zombies, while one or more people play the heroes. Mik has his own review of the game here.

What makes Last Night on Earth so distinctive is its bent towards the cinematic. Zombie players can play cards that make the lights go out in a building, zombies appear out of nowhere, or characters to make stupid decisions like splitting up. Heroes can gather weapons like chainsaws, dynamite, and even fence posts. The zombies start out as slow, but far tougher than the human heroes. As heroes gather more weapons and other playing cards, they become more powerful. However, each scenario has a turn limit, so human better hope they peak early enough to make a difference!

The mechanics for this game are excellent. They are very easy to learn. The game is quick to play as well. You can play a game in two to three hours. Because of these two attributes, it's an excellent gateway game for people just getting into boardgames, or a game that you can play with non-geeks.

Lords of Waterdeep

In a complete surprise, Lords of Waterdeep was the MVP game of the cabin. We played multiple games of Lords of Waterdeep. What made this game so appealing for many of us was that it was a lighter version of Agricola - which, if you've played it - sort of needs a lighter version.

Like Last Night, the rules of the Lords of Waterdeep were quick to learn and each game was quick to play. Again, hitting that two to three hour sweet spot. In this game, you play a Lord of Waterdeep, a character from the Forgotten Realms literature or game material. For example, I got to play as Mirt the Moneylender. As someone who played in the Forgotten Realms back in the day, it was pretty delightful to be able to be ol' Mirt.

Each Lord of Waterdeep attempts to gain the most influence points. You gain influence points by completing quests. You complete quests by sending adventurers on these quests. Thus, it's a resource gathering game, where the resources are thieves, wizards, priests, or fighters. For example, your quest might be to deal with one of the local thieves guilds, and you can only do that if you have 4 thieves, 3 fighters, 1 wizard and 1 priest.

You can see here - the cubes are resources, while the meeples are agents.

To gather these resources, you have to send agents out into the city. This plays like Agricola in that you have to place down a counter, which represents your agent, to an area on the board which gains you specific resources. Place an agent on a certain place on the board, and you might deny your opponent that spot. You might also play an intrigue card to steal resources from another player. While there are a few ways to put the screws to your opponent, the game mainly rewards players who can form a plan of action and gather the most resources. Mainly, you're playing against the board and the game.

The game was so popular with our group because it was quick to learn, fast to play, and a great social game. There are games that are so intense that you don't really talk to your friends while you play. This wasn't one of those games. Plenty of drinking and joking went on at the table.

Catacombs

Well, I can't rave about this game enough. I almost didn't get to play it, too. On Sunday, I was milling about, having coffee, and Mik kept pushing me to play Catacombs. "You've been talking about his game for six months! Come on! Go play it!" I had played it two years ago at a past ManCabin. So, I cracked open the box. In about fifteen minutes, I had read and understood the rules. Then, I gathered some people and played. If you want to read more detailed, pictured, and complete review of the game, find Mik's version here.

Each room has barriers which make it harder to just sail across the board and smash an opponent. 

The game is a dexterity game. One person is the dungeon keeper who plays all of the monsters in a dungeon, while the rest of the players are an adventuring party, who are making their way through a dungeon. Each time the players conquer a room, a card is flipped, revealing another room. If the players survive, they eventually reach a final room with a boss monster, controlled by the keeper.

So, here's where the dexterity aspect comes into play. You don't move pieces around a board, you flick them, the same way you would a paper football. If a piece is flicked off of the board, you place it back on the board where it left it. The adventurers and monsters fight each other by bumping each other. Bump your fighter pog into an orc pog, and you inflict a point of damage. Some monsters take a single hit to kill, others require two.

Where the game gets nuanced is all of the different abilities each monster or adventurer has. The archer, for example, can flick smaller, wooden pieces at opponents to hurt them, while staying in the back. The wizard can summon a skeleton pog to flick at opponents, or place a shield counter on the board which blocks opponents. The barbarian can rage for multiple flicks (multi-attack, essentially). And the thief gets extra movement.

Again, very quick to learn and very quick to play. I bought a copy of this game because it seems to have high replay value and it's so easy to pick up. I recently played this with my home group and had one of the other players be the keeper. Yep, it's easy enough that you can give a newbie the keeper job.

Anyhow, all for now.

First Look at Catacombs

Catacombs!


Box components, and the baddie for this particular game, a Gorgon

A company called Sands of Time Games has put out this fun little gem of a boardgame. It's a dungeoneering gig called Catacombs, and I gotta tell you, it was quite fun. Duck Sauce and I sat down for a quick play-through right after opening up his copy and having not read the rules beforehand. Sure it was a tad slow out of the gate, but we were rolling in no time, err, flicking. That's the catch, Catacombs adds the dexterity element to the dungeon genre.


A dungeon room during a clash between the heroes and monsters

The box comes with a ton of little wooden discs, you've got to affix your own stickers, and each represents the heroes, the monsters, spells, and the like. Some discs are smaller than others, and in the dexterity portion of the game, it matters. A tiny little disc, like an arrow or a magic missile has a greater chance of missing than, say, a large diameter monster where your aim doesn't have to be exact. And that's the thing, you're flicking these little discs across the game boards (which represent different dungeon rooms) and when they hit the targets, that's your damage. Depending on how you look at it, this is a great (or hopeless) drinking game! A flick is a move, unless you make contact with the enemy, then it's melee.


The four heroes are pretty archetypal for the fantasy genre; a wizard, a barbarian, a thief, and an elf. Each character has their own specialty, and access to specific items. The barbarian can go 'berserk', which means they can "flick" four times in a row, if your aim is good, or the enemies grouped too close, you can take out multiple opponents in one turn. The elf has a bow, which gives her ranged attacks in addition to her melee. Twice per room she can put a smaller disc within an inch of her token and flick it as an arrow. The wizard gets access to a spell card deck with some very handy utilities, you have to ration them though, they're limited. Spell effects let you launch your own discs as offense, put a large disc on the board as a shield, summon a skeleton to fight alongside you, heal, etc. The thief ended up being my favorite, she can move first, then move/melee/flick immediately afterwards. The monsters have their own abilities, like freezing a character for a turn, missile attacks of their own, and other traits that come into play. Zombies, for instance, will go inert for a turn after they attack (feeding).


The dungeon itself is laid out randomly with a deck of cards. As each card is revealed, you place that tile down with the appointed monsters, then duke it out. After you clear a room you flip the next card. Dungeon cards are 'leveled' as you progress, with the critters getting harder the deeper you delve. Compound that with decreasing hero health, and it starts to get tricky. Twice in the dungeon you get access to a shopkeeper and a healer. You get gold from killing monster, and spend said gold on services. The endgame is to kill the main villain selected from a handful at the end of the dungeon, so your gold is pointless if you don't spend it.

Above you can see the items I bought; a poisoned dagger (cause two wounds with one 'flick'), an invisibility cloak (take token off the board, then place it anywhere you want the next turn), and an enchanted bow (move first then still fire an arrow). These items are character specific, the first two were for the thief, the last for the elf, and the cards are picked randomly from a larger deck. I got pretty lucky with the invisibility cloak/poisoned dagger combo.


The boss fight

The mechanics are dead easy, and the fun factor is very high. There's no fluff but what you make of it, given the right players you could come up with a narrative batrep that rivals even the staunchest of fantasy games. The dexterity element really is important, it's the whole game, but there was so much other stuff going on it's role is somewhat downplayed. If you can't flick a wooden disc across a boardgame surface however, this might not be the game for you.

It is the game for people looking for a nice diversion accessible by all players from hardcore veteran to non-gamers over for the holidays. It's a fun game for the kids too, it's not too complicated and the flicking keeps you in the action every turn. It's going to cost you somewhere in the neighborhood of forty bucks, but it's replay value alone should make it worthwhile. It's also wide open for a plethora of expansions in new dungeon tiles, new heroes, new villains, and the like. Maybe even a Storm Giant disc that's two inches in diameter?