Boardgame Review: Descent - Journeys in the Dark

 

Boardgame Geek Link

This game is a cross between and RPG and a boardgame about dungeon delving. One player takes the GM role and the others are the party adventuring into the dungeon. The GM attempts to thwart the players with his cards and his action tokens and the players attempt to stay coordinated, stay alive, pulverize monsters, and achieve a dungeon-specific scenario (in the one I played, it was kill the giant at the end of the dungeon).

This sort of game would be familiar to anyone who has played dungeon-crawl board games or RPGs. Someone opens a door, someone goes through the door, monsters are seen, fights ensue, treasure is looted from the room, traps go off, more monsters are fought, etc.

There seems to be a variety of monster quality levels and special abilities and that makes for some interesting decisions. The Ogre, for instance, possesses formidable knockback as well as good damage dealing. The hell-hounds had area-effect conic firebreath.

Combat is by means of customized dice. You roll dice, which differ in face values by their colour. On the dice, you can get hearts (wound points), numbers (range for effects), lightning bolts (special power activators), nothing (blank!), and probably some other icons I forget. A typical roll for a character with a sword might be three dice of differing colours and might generate 6 damage points, 1 range, and 1 power activator. The power activators can be used to trigger powers on items your character is carrying (such as +1 damage or the like).

Of course, being a dungeon delve, it comes with gear you buy at the start and magical and loot you find along the way (plus money). These items take the form of armour, weapons (ranged or melee) with bonuses to damage, magic items which increase magical attacks, and other special ability items. One example of the later was a magic item that let me spend a fatigue to heal two life for another player.

Characters have some skills which let their characters do extra things or have bonuss. In our run through, one character could spend fatigue points to charge and do more damage. My character had bonuses to defense from parrying and from willpower.

Each character also has variable statistics for fatigue, life points, natural armour/defense, and for what dice they use in melee, ranged combat, or magical combat. They also have special powers - my character was sort of a whirling dervish who could trade fatigue for wounds or wounds for fatigue on my turn.

The characters try not to get killed, try to efficiently kill the monsters and limit the DMs respawn locations by keeping line-of-sight to as much of the explored area as possible. The DM in turn tries to find out of the way spots to spawn in monsters and throws traps to slow down and attrit the party.

The players have control of their tactics, their character's gear distribution, and where they want to go at junctions in the dungeon. The GM has control over which of his cards he plays or discards and whether he spends his action tokens piecemeal to bleed the party along the way or saves up for crushing waves at more distributed intervals.

The game also has a campaign system and this apparently lets you run an entire campaign with the same (barring dying) characters. Even more like an RPG, but on the light side and with very sort of simple dice mechanics and a focus on "open door, whack monster, get loot".

Not sure if the game would sustain my interest over the long haul - different monsters, powers, items would help (and there are a lot of expansions). But it isn't a full fledged RPG and its rather one dimensional play (dungeon crawl, shoot-n-loot) would probably get tiring after a time. Still, as a one off or short campaign, it might make for some excellent fun.

Fun: 3 of 5
Strategy: 2 of 5 (there are tactics, not much strategy)
Speed of Play: 4 of 5 (for games of its ilk)

Session Report:: [Olostin's Hold] Bugbears and Body Bags

 

The party stood before the stone door to the bugbear lair. The mage was tired and a bit mentally fuzzy; Being up all night takes a toll.

The warriors Dhallon, Hagis and Reagan put their shoulders into the surprisingly well-crafted stone door, but to no avail despite their best efforts. This led to a discussion and a search for other entrances, while Hagis and Dhallon went back to the building with the tools to acquire some pick-axes.

Just as the two warriors arrived back, distracting everyone, a Bugbear opened the door and stuck its head out. Hagis raced up to jam the door with Dhallon right with him. Jastra and Reagan moved up behind but could do nothing with the Bugbear in the way.

The Bugbear tried to flee, and Jastra chased him down and skewered him, striking deep into the major artery in his leg and finishing him off as he tried to get through a door to a room full of his cohorts.

The fight was on! Three Bugbears hurled Javelins, swung morningstars, and grappled with Hagis, Dhallon and Jastra, with Murklane adding fire support. Reagan watched the party's rear with Sturv, only to find himself being overrun by another four Bugbears!

Sturv and Reagan fought a holding action against the four Bugbears, while Dhallon, Hagis and Jastra finished off those in the sitting room. Hagis joined the fight in the hallway, wrestling with the last of the Bugbears until it was put down by a bolt from Reagan's crossbow.

Exploring further, the party found various small bits of treasure including a nice table with a map of the Calling Horns area upon it as well as some small amounts of loot found on the individual foes.

Pushing on, the party discovered a cloak room with a few odds and ends and another passage, leading to a room with a Hill Giant!

Hagis talked his way past the Hill Giant, convincing him to let Hagis pass through to the secret door. When Dhallon went to follow, the Giant started to wind up for a swing and Jastra leapt upon him, blades flashing and slashing. The Giant howled and the fight was on.

A brutal battle was joined in the small space, with Reagan sinking multiple bolts into the angry Giant, and Hagis, Dhallon, and Jastra all swinging and dodging, trying to avoid the wrath of the lumbering creature. Soon, the giant was bloodied, but he would not go down quietly!

With one big swing, he connected solidly with Dhallon. Moments later, the backswing smashed Dhallon's ribs, cracking obsidian armour plate and knocking the warrior into the far wall of the room, lifeless - slain by the massive blunt trauma!

Hagis, in a fit of rage, hacked down the badly wounded Giant to avenge his comrade.

The party looked to aid their comrade, but quickly realized Dhallon was beyond any aid, slain outright. The party endured a period of shock and grief, then sought out a way to transport Dhallon's body for a twilight burial outside under the auspices of Lathander as soon as this was feasible. A wheelbarrow was fetched to help bear the body.

A somber group contemplated their next step - leave the current locale with the intent of burying Dhallon and returning or press on and finish cleaning out this den of brigands and monsters. The feeling was that Dhallon would have wanted the group to press on, to carry the fight to the foe, and to win a victory in his name.

Pushing on one room further, a huge store of high-quality spoils were found, although little of the collection easily portable - statues, saddles, armoires, carpets, and such like. A suit of magical full plate was discovered, complete with a skeleton. Magical everburning torches were discovered, handy if they don't start fires! And another door to a side passage was discovered...

Down the side passage, two more doors were found, one replete with sound of Bugbears chatting animatedly, the other as silent as death. The Hagis, Jastra and Murlane, healed by Sturv, prepare to take the Bugbears unaware, with Regan in support and Sturv holding the rear.

Jastra spent the moments following the tragedy by beginning working on an epic poem about the life and death of Dhallon Thores. Dhallon had been a good and true companion, if with a somewhat flexible idea of equitable division of spoils. Jastra had enjoyed Dhallon's pragmatic sensibilities and lovely knitted goods as well. Dhallon would be missed....

Session Report: [Olostin's Hold] The Leafy Strangler

 

Jastra's Journal (Supplemental, Hagis recording)

The elf-chick G-string likes to keep a journal, so I'm reading it and helping her out. I like to doodle on the pages, flightless bids are my favorite, but I like drawing trolls too. The elf-chick won't mind; She's unconcious.


We let the tree-chick go. She merged with her evil tree. We didn't get any loot. It was boring. We went to find our Dry Cleaner and the Knitter. They were digging a whole together - I assumed they were pre-planning a grave.

The hole was boring too. We headed back to the little shack and I kicked the door in. We poked around the place and the next thing I know, the elf-chick is busy getting eaten by some sort of plant-thing. We beat it off her, but it messed her up pretty bad - I can see her ribs poking out. The Ranger might be able to do something, the rest of us slept through first-aid training in the militia.

We're trying to figure out what to do now. The elf chick is kinda cute and her singing helps us in fights, so maybe we shouldn't let her croak. I'm watching Dhallon to make sure if there's any move to divy up her stuff, I'm in on it.

Dry Cleaner tells us the new dagger is magical, which is handy. Have to make sure Dhallon doesn't scoff it.

Where's our Cleric? Oh right, they left him behind. I'm surrounded by idjits.

Session Report: [Olostin's Hold] Around The Cavern and into The Grove

 

Jastra's Journal:


We helped Hagis down and Murklane climbed down himself. After getting Hagis down to the cavern floor, we noticed that the root system we climbed down had been rigged with various forms of noisemaking devices. One supposes a form of primitive alarm, but with no one seemingly paying attention to the noise.


The group moved off to investigate the strange grove, gardens, and building. First up was the building, being the most obvious sign of inhabitation. It proved to be an odd structure, with no windows and padlocked doors. Dhallon tried to force the lock and then Hagis and Dhallon tried the door, but to no avail. Lacking a locksmith, the group was stymied.


As we approached some of the gardens around the grove, we were challenged by an elemental of the earth. It obviously wanted some particular voice command to let us pass, but we had no idea what that might be. It quickly moved to engage Dhallon and battle was joined. Jastra's rapier did little to it, due to its lack of vulnerable points. Hagis and Dhallon did some damage, but both took a goodly pounding. Murklane fired some arrows and contributed some damage to the battle. Reagan, using his full barrage of Magic Missile spells which bypassed the things resistance to physical attacks ended up being the key to the destruction of this gaurdian.


Next up was the grove. It seemed to have a number of trees of huge proportion. From the largest hung several who appeared to be mercenaries. Jastra thought to climb up and let them down to examine them more closely, but this proved unwise. The evil tree sucked the life out of her, using a dessicating or enervating effect which drained her of vitality and life-sustaining water. She drank down her entire waterskin in an attempt to rehydrate. Selecting a different approach, using rope, she fetched down the two corpses.


After examining the corpses, the remaining investigtion seemed to be investigating the various odd gardens. Cacti, giant ruddy sunflowers, pines covered with a sick looking moss, a series of trees that looked like dead treants, and some plants which looked like ragweed. Unfortunately, our group is singularly unversed in the lore of plants and animals, so little was to be discovered, other than another corpse, this one with an interesting dagger with a jewelled scabbard and a belt full of money. Myrklane felt it necessary to point out that the money was community property, which seemed a strangely obvious thing to say.


Further investigation revealed a locked crate concealed in one of the gardens, padlocked. It contained a female creature, of perhaps elfin appearance, who seemed reticent to answer questions. Perhaps not the brightest of creatures, the suspicion was she was a wood spirit. She herself confirmed this and indicated the bugbears had locked her in this crate. This, however, was not the whole story as there is no way that bugbears turned everyone in Olostin's Hold into shrubberies and trees. Jastra pressed her further and discovered that she was, in fact, the victim of an Evil Treant. Treants are powerful creatures, so perhaps its magics could explain some of the corruption we are seeing.


The thing most perplexing is what could corrupt such a goodly forest-warden? Time? Human predation upon woodlands? Bitterness at not having an ent-wife? Perhaps our investigation would reveal the cause, assuming we can locate the Evil Treant.

We elected to free the forest-spirit, so that she could attempt to cleanse the grove of its evil and perhaps so she could provide us with further information if we must fight Bugbears and Treants.


We are low in magic, quite a few of us are injured. Something tells me recharging our magical batteries and perhaps retreating to our cleric to have him heal us may be the order of the day, before meeting a powerful creature like a Treant or a tribe of Bugbears....


 

Boardgame Review: The Halls of Montezuma

Well, tonight I got a chance to try out GMT's Halls of Montezuma.
BoardGameGeek Link

This is a 2-player, partially card-driven/partially dice driven game with a strategic map, a tactical process for resolving battles, and a variety of victory conditions that mix military and political outcomes. I'd guess a full game might take 4-6 hours to play once you knew what you were doing.

This is no Advanced Squad Leader with all supplements nor is it SFB with full rules from all sources and all options in play. Still, it is fairly meaty. The rules were a tough go. The quick start card helped, but was missing some really key lines. Figuring out what counters went where was a bit of a lag at the start, as was reading some of the stuff on the map.

Neither Lorry nor I knew much about the 1846-1848 period - I knew a bit about the context of the Alamo and why it was so pivotal (mostly by buying time), but that was about it. So, unlike Napoleonic Wars, 1960: Making of A President, or Twilight Struggle, my historical background was weaker on this one. But the other three games turned out to be good, so Lorry bought this one and we thought we should try it out.

There's a good game lurking in there. I'm sure of it. It's heavy, not the easiest to learn, the rules badly need a FAQ or living rules release, the index needs redone, and cross-references need added in quite a few places. Some actual rules fixes or clarifications are also needed. A lot of that stuff can now be pulled off board game geek or ConSimWorld.

But even the turn and a half we did were interesting (we chatted a lot about other stuff which distracted us).

I moved across the Rio Grande on my first action with a smaller force than the US defending Ft. Brown (and they had fieldworks). However, my Zapaderos (sappers) nullified his earthenworks and I managed to score better casualties despite weaker overall firepower (better luck with the dice) and evicted him from Ft. Brown. I then proceeded to try to reinforce, bringing attrited units up to full strength and adding one infantry regiment. I also started converting his fieldworks into a full fortress. That was my good luck this turn.

Lorry, on the other hand, came back at me by sending General Kearney and a small force over to Alte California to capture it for the USA, by way of the Disputed Territories (not currently disputed because my units had all been tied up in the attack at Ft. Brown).

He then got very lucky and rolled high enough to get the USA to declare war at the end of turn one. That's very bad for Mexico - before that, the US fights with one hand behind its back and hte Mexicans have initiative. I'd expect war to normally be declared by player choice or event card by turn 4 on average, but turn 1 was pretty unlucky for Mexico.

The war adds a huge pile of units to the American reinforcement pool and gives both sides bigger hands of strategic cards to work with. More crucially, in the pre-war period, only Mexico can generate reinforcements each turn. Once the war starts, there is an automatic reinforcement every turn plus the US can take a voluntary card based one they were ineligible for beforehand.

We didn't play much further. His reinforcements appeared near Ft. Brown so he had two moderately large forces facing my now-outnumbered single force. My fortification wasn't going as well as hoped - he'd probably get to attack first. Additionally, my baggage train had been left vulnerable in Matamoros and he could have swept around the end and taken it with ease, putting me out of supply before the critical battle for Ft. Brown.

It had the feeling of a very fun, meaty game. We didn't get to explore the taking of states very deeply or the US amphibious options for deep strikes nor what implications the unstable Mexican government had.

The game is interesting because basically it boils down to Mexican political will. If a game end condition arises (dice roll at turn end or perhaps with an event card or a sudden death condition differing for each side is achieved), you look at the political will track for Mexico. If their rating is high enough, they win. If it is a bit lower, a draw ensues. If it is lower than that, they lose. So the US goal is to inflict damage to the Mexican political will. The Mexican goal is to shore it up.

The polticial will is influenced by gaining or losing territories, winning or losing big battles, some events, and the number of Mexican provinces in revolt. Political changes like Santa Anna returning from (and possibly being sent to) exile and change of leaders in Mexico can impact the political will indirectly and influence how the game plays out. Revolts untended tend to spread over the turns but require actions and probably units to quash.

So essentially, the Mexican goal is to keep a stable government, not lose political will quickly, and quash revolts, occasionally kicking the US player for a victory in battle probably helps (and forestalls their adventurism). The US player wants to encourage bellicosity (helps declare war sooner), capture various disputed territories and Mexican holdings, keep the Mexicans out of Texas, not lose battles, and to wait for and/or encourage Mexican state revolts.

You get the feeling even from our short experience that the first game phase involves a few small forces, a few leaders, manouvering and trading back and forth provocations (Crisis phase). When actual war breaks out, the gloves are off on both sides. When the Mexican government collapses (and it may), Mexico is fighting with an extra 100 pound gorilla on its back (similarly a pile of revolts will do that).

The event cards teach you a bit about the conflict and the rulebook includes a deeper look at the events that underlie the cards. I drew Indian Raids twice which brought some annoyance to the US player (they can cut supply lines and increase Mexican political will because they weaken the US). There are certain turn-by-turn pre-ordained events and random ones that come up by card, giving the game an interesting feel.

If we can sort out the unresolved/broken/poorly worded parts of the rules, spend some more time playing this to be faster at it, I think there is a really great game lurking underneath.

Even in our short game, I felt like there were interesting event cards, good tactical possibilities for fights, strategic issues of supply and troop dispersion (for revolts and to counter flanking moves), and political considerations all to factor in. That first round attack was to try to generate some positive political gains, which it did (adding more than 10% to my political will total). So the game integrates a lot of interesting aspects.

I look forward to playing this one again.

Speed: 2 out of 5 (imperfect rules, meaty subject matter)
Strategy: 4 out of 5 (provisional, must play through full game, lots of seeming depth)
Fun: 4 out of 5 (fun might be higher if the rules hadn't been challenging)