Revolver Review

One game that I've been really excited to try out (and finally received a copy of!) is Revolver.  (Sorry, no Amazon link yet - I may go back and add it later.) I love Bang!, and so the theme of Revolver really appealed to me.

In Revolver, one player takes on the role of the Colty gang - who, led by Jack "The Crow" Colty, has just robbed a bank. Along with his 15 other gang members, Jack is now trying to catch the 3:15 train to escape. The other player takes on the role of Colonel McReady, who is trying to help bring the gang to justice - Wild West Justice (so, you're trying to kill them all). The game progresses through a series of battlefields, and to start each turn, the Colty player will advance the turn marker to indicate how close he is to escaping to the next battlefield (and ultimately to escape on the train). Next, on either player's turn, the active player draws two cards and then plays as many cards as they want from their hand. Some of these cards will go to a battlefield, where the McReady player is trying to shoot the members of the gang, and the Colty player is trying to shoot back and take cover in order to stay alive. At the end of the McReady player's turn, the Colonel will attack the Colty gang. Players will compare their fighting total, and if the Colonel wins, he kills one of the gang members. And, if the Colonel does not successfully kill any gang members on his turn, then they get a bit closer to escaping to Mexico (you remove a token from the "Mexico Border") card. Play continues like this until either Jack "The Crow" Colty has been killed, he has escaped on the 3:15 train (he survives until the end of the train battlefield), or his gang has escaped to Mexico (all of the tokens were removed from the Mexico Border card).

The "bad" guy

So, the first pro for Revolver has to be the theme.  The Wild West theme is incredibly fun, and is integrated well into every part of the game.  Between having all of your gang members out, fighting through different battlefields, and occasionally having a Buffalo Stampede charge at you, I think that anybody looking for a Wild West game will really enjoy the lore that this game creates - the back two pages of the rulebook even go into details about all of the members of the gang, and give you a back story about them all.  A nice little touch that I really enjoyed (because I've done a minor amount of coin collecting) is that the Colty player's cards show a pile of Morgan Dollars on the back of them (silver dollars that were in use at the end of the 1800's).

The next pro, and truly the main strategic choice in the game, lies in balancing when to play various cards.  Because the pursuit changes locations, setting up an ambush for the Colty gang cannot happen all at once.  If you put all of your deputies in a single location, then you'll definitely kill some Colty gang members there - but once they escape that location, you won't be able to continue your pursuit!  Essentially, each battleground has a certain number of turns that you will be there (which can go up or down based on cards).  Especially around the last turn of each battleground, both players have to weigh the value of playing a lot of extra cards at a location - it will help them win the next fight, but then those cards will be stranded at that location and unable to move!

With those pros listed, there were also a few cons with Revolver.  The first one is simply that certain things aren't especially clear.  For example, the cards have small icons in the bottom left corner that say things like "Action," "Character," and "Firepower".  Yet, some Action cards appear to work the same as the Character and Firepower cards - by being played and staying at the location.  Yet, one of the rules is that "The Colty Gang has a three card limit.  This means he can only play a maximum of three firepower cards at each battlefield.  Once three cards have been placed by the Colty Gang player, he may not place any more cards at that battlefield..."  (I added the italics.)  So, how do Action cards fit into this?  One specific action card is the "Gatling Gun."  This Action is very powerful.  Does it being an Action imply that it goes away after a time?  This doesn't fit well with the rest of the rules, however.  I have looked through the rules repeatedly and also looked through the official FAQ, and I haven't found the answer to what these symbols mean.

If he's good, why's he killing 16 people?

The next con to Revolver is that the winner truly seems to be determined by the luck of the draw.  Both players have some pretty useful cards, and whoever draws more of these powerful cards will probably win.  The McReady player has several cards that let him instantly kill bandits - if he draws several of these early in the game, then there is very little that the Colty player can do.  Yet, the Colty player has three cards that let him move through a battlefield more quickly.  If he is able to get all of these (along with some of his other more valuable cards), he might be able to rush through the game and get the victory.  But, though there is some strategy in determining what to play, and where to play it, there is a lot of luck involved in who can draw better cards.

The next couple of things I will mention aren't pros or cons, but are things to be aware of.  First, I am not sure if the game is balanced.  Now, I have played it a few times, but not nearly enough to say with any certainty whether it is balanced or not.  In addition, I have seen both sides win, so I know that it is possible.  Yet, it still seems like the game is skewed in favor of the Colonel McReady player.  He has so many cards that let him instantly kill bandits, that it is very hard to stop him from killing the gang.  In addition, he also has significantly more cards that let him draw an extra card (which is really a bonus in itself), and also has a couple that let him keep the Colty player at a battlefield longer.  Again, I don't know this for certain, but it at least gives me the feel that the McReady player has an advantage - if you've played the game a few times, I'd love to hear in the comments whether you have the same thoughts on the balance of the game.

Finally, the cards have black borders, and they show wear incredibly quickly.  I actually noticed that my copy was showing wear during the first game.  If you are a person that likes to put sleeves on your games in order to keep them pristine, you will want to have your sleeves ready before you start playing.  I don't think that any of the cards are showing wear to the point that either of my decks is marked, but I was still a bit disappointed that before I finished my first game, it looked like I had played the game dozens of times.

Overall, I give Revolver a 7.5/10.  I enjoyed the theme, and I think that the game is fun to play, yet I think that the game is luck driven enough that I probably will not play it too often - just occasionally as a nice, light, change of pace.

If you like Revolver, you might also check out my reviews of Bang! (of course), Wyatt Earp, and Gubs (if you have kids).

I would like to thank Stronghold Games for providing me with a review copy of Revolver.

Frenzy Review

Here's a game that I played almost ten years ago, and then ran into again recently: Frenzy.

In Frenzy, there are three different rounds, and in each round three different Battlefields. The goal of the game is to score the most points by winning Battlefields. Frenzy is real-time, which means that you don't have to wait for your turn. There are seven total piles of cards on each side of the table - one under each Battlefield (this is your Front Line - you and your opponent compare these to see who wins that Battlefield), and one under each of your Front Line cards (these are your Supply Line, and the top card of each pile goes to whoever wins the Front Line). Finally, each player has a Headquarters where he can only place Heroes. Each round ends when one player has placed three Heroes in his Headquarters, or when one player has run out of cards. At that point, each player scores the top Supply Line card for each Battlefield he has won. Repeat two more times and whoever has the most points wins.

The best thing that I see about Frenzy are the Heroes. They usurp the normal order of power in the game. Each player has Warriors with strength from 1-4 and some Heroes in their deck. If there were no Heroes, then almost every game would end in a tie with both players playing a strength 4 Warrior at the front of their Battlefield. Fortunately, there is an Assassin (Hero) that defeats strength 4 Warriors but loses to every other unit. Without these Heroes, this game would not function.

In addition, Frenzy came with four different "Factions" that could be purchased. These included the Undead, Orcs, Humans, and Dwarves. Each of these have the same basic deck, but include a different additional Hero (such as the Lich for the Undead). This adds slightly more variety to the game, but each of these Factions had to be bought separately, and it they did not really add enough extra variety to justify the extra $10 or so that it cost to purchase them.

Now for the biggest con with Frenzy - the game is too trivial. Unfortunately, even with the Heroes, I don't think that Frenzy managed to strike that elusive balance between having enough things to concentrate on to make the game challenging while having little enough that players can play it quickly. Striking that balance is the crux of a good real time game.  Specifically, I think that Frenzy does not have enough that a player must pay attention to. Basically, if you only pay attention to the front lines and ensure that you are winning them, you will wind up winning the game. Yes, there are cards that could actually cost you points by winning a Battlefield (specifically, if you wind up scoring a Wizard, they remove themselves and one of your other Score cards from your Score pile), but it doesn't hurt enough to force you to actually watch for them. Whereas Jab: Real-Time Boxing forces players to pay attention to everything that is going on to prevent themselves from losing in whatever way they are neglecting (knockout versus judge decision), Frenzy only has the one path to victory, and thus becomes too simple.

Overall, I give Frenzy a 5.5/10. It is honestly better than I remember it being the first time I played it, but it is still not good enough to warrant me recommending that you try it out, unless you really just love real-time games.

If you like little card games, then you might also want to check out Lunch Money, Poo: The Card Game, and Skallywaggs.

Nightfall: Blood Country Mini Review

Since I love Nightfall, I am glad that I was able to try out Nightfall: Blood Country. In this review, I will assume that you are familiar with Nightfall - if not, I recommend checking out my review of it.

Here is the extent of the changes in Blood Country - when drafting, all of the extra cards that will be shared by the players are revealed before players select the cards for their private archives.  That's it.  This is a nice change, as you can actually draft knowing whether or not your cards will work with some of the center cards.  However, it's obviously not a huge change.

The first thing that I will talk about with Blood Country is that the packaging is very small.  Because of this, some people might balk at the MSRP being $35.  However, the box comes with 24 new archive cards.  Considering that the "promo" archives that they offer wind up being $5 per archive, $35 for 24 archives really isn't very expensive.  Secondly, if you decide to combine all of your cards into a single box (for ease of carrying), then why would you want a large empty box?  All of the cards from Nightfall, Martial Law, and Blood Country easily fit into the original or Martial Law box.  Plus, if you want to carry around just Blood Country (or a different subset of cards), the box is large enough to hold all of the new cards as well as the starter decks and wounds from the other sets (as well as a few favorite archives), and takes up much less space.  So, overall, I think that the packaging (though initially causing the expansion to look way overpriced) is ideal for what you receive, and the product itself seems priced appropriately.

Those are really the only additions and controversial issues with Blood Country.  So, now I'll just mention a few of my favorite cards.

The first one is called "Pipe Bomb."  Pipe Bomb lets you shuffle the bottom two wounds from the wound stack (the extra wounds), and shuffles them into one of the archive piles.  This card really seems very unique, and can also be very powerful at slowing down (or at least punishing) a player that is buying lots of cards from single archives - especially if they are coming from his private archive.

Another one of my favorite cards is "Harley Doberman."  Harley forces all players to discard a card from their hand each time they put a minion in play - and if they can't discard a card (or choose not to), then they receive a wound.  I love playing a couple copies of this card at the end of a really long chain. Because of how the chain resolves, Harley will be in play before the other minions, and so your opponents will either have to discard all of their cards, or (more likely) will wind up receiving a lot of wounds for the minions that they have in the chain.

Overall, I give Nightfall: Blood Country an 8.0/10.  If you are a Nightfall fan, I think that this is a great option for adding a lot of extra minions in a fairly inexpensive way.  Plus, several of the minions add new strategies to the game aside from just gaining minions and dealing direct damage.

If you like the darker theme of the Nightfall games, you might also check out Mob Ties, Gloom, and Betrayal at House on the Hill.

I would like to thank AEG for providing me with a review copy of Nightfall: Blood Country.

Lord of the Rings: The Card Game - Khazad Dum Expansion

So, because of my obsession with Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, I was very excited when I was able to purchase the Khazad Dum Expansion. In this review, I'm going to focus on what the Khazad Dum expansion adds, and so I will assume that you are already familiar with Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. If you're not, then I would recommend reading my review of it.

 

Player Cards

The sweet new Axe

The Khazad Dum expansion is, essentially, the dwarf set. Both Heroes are Dwarves, and there is only one player card that is not a dwarf or directly related to dwarves. Along with all of the cards that were previously available, I think that this allows for a player to make a solid dwarf deck. However, there aren't any cards strong enough that I feel they should go in any deck, even of a certain color (cards like Gandalf or Steward of Gondor) - but, if too many of those cards are made, then the game would become unbalanced. Since I have a deck that I find incredibly powerful, I have not actually used any of the cards from this set (my deck is not built around dwarves). Yet, some of the cards added are definitely good enough to motivate me to consider building a dwarf deck next time I rebuild.  (My favorite new card is the Dwarrowdelf Axe - it can only be put on a dwarf, but it adds +1 to Attack, and it instantly deals one point of damage to whatever it attacks.)

 

Into the Pit

The first adventure included in Khazad Dum is entitled "Into the Pit." This adventure is a three-step quest that focuses on exploring locations. To start the game, you pull out three locations. After exploring each location, the next one becomes available, and you cannot proceed beyond the first stage of the quest until you have explored all three of those locations. This can cause the first quest step to be the longest one in the game, but what I like about this adventure is that it gives you time to expand your group of allies before you are attacked. The first location goes into play as the active location, and it prevents enemies from (even optionally) engaging you. This allows you to quest without worrying too much about enemies attacking you (one goblin can actually immediately engage an enemy when it's revealed), but also causes the enemies to pile up in the staging area until you have completed this step. Thematically, this really works well, especially since the second questing step causes more enemies (including a Patrol Leader) to be added to the staging area - and if you manage to kill them all, you automatically advance beyond that step. Overall, I really enjoyed this scenario - it was tense, but didn't feel too overwhelming.

The Seventh Level

Do NOT let this attack you

The next adventure is a very basic two-stage questing scenario. The only real twist in this scenario is that you are provided with a Book to start the scenario (it goes away in stage two), and this Book allows you to quest a hero without having to exhaust them. The consequence of this is that you are not allowed to attack with this Hero (so, I used my Hero that allows me to exhaust it to draw two cards). If you are able to generate a lot of quest points, then you can defeat this scenario pretty quickly. However, if you have an unfortunate draw, there is a Cave Troll that is specific to this scenario that I believe is the main challenge in the entire scenario (he has 4 Threat, 6 Attack, 4 Defense, and 7 Health - and his excess combat damage attacks another character). There are two Cave Trolls in the scenario. I recommend trying to defeat the scenario before the Troll comes out. Overall, I enjoyed this scenario, though not as much as the first one.

Flight from Moria

The most unique adventure of the three is the third adventure (the hard adventure). Essentially, this scenario is representing the Heroes attempting to escape, but getting lost in the process. There are only two stages to the quest, but there are seven different cards representing the second stage. Whenever you are going to the second quest, you flip over the top card, and two of the cards can lead you to an exit. However, one of the cards can only lead you to an exit if you have gained the "Abandoned Tools" objective card (fortunately, a different stage two quest card can let you search for this objective). The other possible escape card forces each player to discard the top card from the encounter deck, and if it is a Treachery card, then that player is eliminated. Unfortunately, I often play this game solo, so basically I get to decide if I want to risk instantly losing the game. I think that this adventure is really unique and innovative, but unfortunately, I find it to be very frustrating, as too much of the difficulty of the scenario is based on random elements, and I can lose regardless of how well I play. Though this is a neat, unique adventure, I probably won't play it very often.

Randomly decide if you lose

Summary

So, the one other thing that you need to know about the Khazad Dum expansion is that you will have to own it if you intend to play the adventures in the Dwarrowdelf set of expansions. In the same way that you use encounter cards from the base set in the Shadows of Mirkwood sets, you will use the encounter cards from Khazad Dum in the Dwarrowdelf series.

Overall, I give Khazad Dum an 8.5/10. I enjoyed two of the three adventures, and I think that the player cards add new deck building options, so overall I was pleased with the set.

If you love the Lord of the Rings card game as much as me, you might also want to check out the Game of Thrones Living Card Game, Yggdrasil, and Knizia's Lord of the Rings