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Cthulhu Wars
- Jackwraith
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- Maim! Kill! Burn!
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- Disgustipater
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Seems like at least one person here is getting it, so hopefully we can get some kind of review of it.Shellhead wrote: This might actually be a pretty good game. Still not sure if it's a $175+ game.
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I'm still on the fence. But I know if I don't back it then I'll see it at dragoncon in all it's glory and feel regret. I just need a few of those expansions to get put in the CDG level for my trigger. But they seem to be going towards expansion expansions now so who mows. $50 for a map and 16 of the same (glacier) minis is ludicrous, so I can only think they are inflating the price expecting to add "free" stuff to it later.
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Disgustipater wrote:
Seems like at least one person here is getting it, so hopefully we can get some kind of review of it.Shellhead wrote: This might actually be a pretty good game. Still not sure if it's a $175+ game.
Reviews usually aren't helpful for a Kickstarter, unless it's a new edition of an existing game. By the time Cthulhu Wars is in stores, the Kickstarter will be over, and the chance to buy the Kickstarter exclusives will be gone.
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Actions go quickly, with each player doing one thing, generally paying some power to do that thing. They continue until everybody passes and then there is brief bookkeeping of who gets how much power for the start of the next turn. One guy summoned Shub-Niggurath right away and then had to pass every time. First player each turn seems to be based on who has the most power, and he gets to choose the direction of play that turn, clockwise or counter-clockwise.
Overall, it seemed like leisurely and enjoyable game of Chaos in the Old World, as though Khorne had been banned from the game. Game play was fairly dynamic, because each player is trying to gain more spellbooks (advanced abilities), and each player has a half-dozen different ways to get a spellbook. Each of those ways can only be used once, but then any one of the six spellbooks for that faction can be chosen. The net effect is that it's challenging to anticipate what other players will do, at least in the early game, because there are so many possibilities. At the end of the first video, Cthulhu arrives, and that is a really huge miniature.
Here is the first video, with links for the others in the recommended list off to the right side:
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By the end of the second (of six) videos, one player has all six of his spellbooks, which apparently lets him declare attacks without paying power for them. The game is not over yet, as apparently the winner needs to advance to the end of the Doom Track, which appears to work like a victory point tracker except that at one point, a player used a special ability to spend Doom Points for a more powerful effect.
Player pieces seem to have very thematic abilities. The cultists can't normally fight and can be captured if they don't flee. Ghouls can move into a space where a battle just happened. Cthulhu automatically devours an enemy unit right before a battle starts in his space.
By the end of the third video, two players now have all of their spellbooks, but nobody seems very far up the Doom Track. The players comment on this and move the Doom Track over near the camera man. Although the Doom Track ends at 20, the players emphasize that the pace of the game accelerates. So when players are at around 10 on the Doom Track, the game isn't half over, it's about 90% over.
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Except for a special ability of Cthulhu's, there doesn't seem to be any meaningful difference between land spaces and ocean spaces.
During the fourth video, designer Sandy Peterson is called in from the next room to give a ruling for a situation where two different special abilities seem to contradict each other. This is apparently more of a playtest game than a demo game, but Sandy knew the answer immediately even if his answer was a bit hard for me to follow.
There is also a ritual track next to the Doom Track. Apparently it forces the game to end if somebody doesn't get to 20 on the Doom Track first.
By the fifth video (each are a little less than 15 minutes long), the energy level of the players seemed to have dropped. I had the impression that they already played one game before this one, but still a bit worrisome, like the game wasn't as fun after everybody had all their spellbooks.
Kingmaker situation for the Cthulhu player towards the end of the fifth video. He even says "kingmaker" out loud. The overall game took less than 75 minutes. Aside from the official win, most of the sixth video is the normal post-game analysis by the more enthusiastic players. The quiet guy came in distant last but had some interesting things to say post-game.
During the first couple of videos, I was back to really wanting to Kickstart this game, but my enthusiasm dwindled as the game went on. Don't get me wrong, this looks to be a better game than Chaos in the Old World, but it definitely didn't impress me as a $150+ game. The problem is the miniatures. They look great, but they push the cost up too high. I really like the artwork on the cardboard desecration tokens used by the King in Yellow player, and I feel like this game could have been made at a reasonable cost with good artwork on cardboard tokens.
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- SuperflyPete
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- Cranberries
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SuperflyTNT wrote: 300$ is a lot of fucking scratch.
There are two types of gamers: those who can afford $300 games, and those who can't.
When I was living overseas and my wife was also working, $300 for a big game wouldn't have made that much of a dent. We had $300 expenses popping up all the time. Now that I'm back in the US, my wife is in grad school, and we are unsure how our expat taxes are going to play out, $300 is what we are living on for the rest of the month.
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- SuperflyPete
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LMAO
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Yeah, I love Sandy Petersen. But even I could not back the first Cthulhu Wars.
I had to wait until his second KS reprint.
And I told Sandy and his son both. I met them at Gencon after the first Kickstarter and said there were too many red flags. It may have been lip service, but they agreed with me, and said they had made corrections and were excited about the reprint and accompanying KS. Then they gave me two miniatures for my honesty, and signed some books.
So I backed it.
No regrets, other than it's big as hell. I know I will enjoy painting some of these nasties - but damn. There's a lot of independent creatures that will probably see more time with my paint brush than in a player's hand.
And no. To Mr. White's original post - the premise of Cthulhu Wars is pretty daft. Yes, there are illusions to faction warfare, but it's never front and center. Cthulhu Wars posits (Sandy P's preferred verb) that Cthulhu Wars is during end times. Why any Great Old One would give a shit about this crummy little planet is beyond me. I guess that's cosmic horror for ya.
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