Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor

I guess I'll take a swing at doing a game specific thread even though it thins the audience by a million, I talk enough about this in the other thread to make it worthwhile.

I finished a pretty intriguing game of Uprising today. Ended in a loss. I play a near the top difficulty level I'd say I'm 40/60 win/loss, maybe a touch lower win percentage. I really thought I had this one in the bag, I had a stong first turn and good second turn. But I made a mistake by thinking the Plague chaos horde was stronger than it was. I managed to get it somewhere where it could make beeline to the capital without coming for my havens, and I figured it could battle a legion and either it or the legion would be weakened. Instead, it ran up against the Crimson Shield legion, which is just incredible strong and difficult to kill. They roll silver dice and have a ton of shields, which is punishing, and their special move while not super likely to proc since they don't roll purple dice generally also makes all shields into skulls which means they can wipe out an army in a single round without taking any damage. And that's exaclty what happened, killing the Plague chaos horde in one round and then using 2 x2 activations to go way into the ice wastes dropping garrisons. That and some other setbacks for me meant that even though I polished off every legion and wiped the floor with most of the hordes by the end of T3, the Legion had 10 garrisons on the board and you just can't compete with the scoring speed unless you're really above the curve.

Anyway, great game. It's a 10 in my book. I think this is the greatest AT game of all time, despite being co-op. I know that's anathema for some but for me AT is defined by good design combined with dramatic moments and swings of fortune based in skill. And this game has more of that than any game I've played.

I've never even heard of it. Is it like a tower defense kind of thing?

It's a co-op 4x. You're each rebel factions in a distant outpost of a evil fantasy empire that has consumed itself with chaos magic and left most of the earth dead ice roamed by evil chaos sorcerers and zombies. So the enemy are chaos hordes shambling in from the ice wastes and the remnants of the Legion who have moved their capital to the island as it's all that's left.

It's a pretty small print run AT game from Germany. Has had two good expansions. Extremely flavorful and put together pretty tightly.

boardgamegeek.com/thread/3462396/uprisin...eror-is-thematic-gam

Here was my review of it on BGG, it has grown on me more since then and/or I've become more accepting of its foibles.

Also, that review was before I shelled out cash for a used copy. It also is really carefully made physically, it has excellent choices for playability and looks great. Top tier standees: boardgamegeek.com/image/9103664/garysax

gamefound.com/en/projects/nemesisgames/u...-true-solo/updates/4

New crowdfund on this with pledge levels and prices. We are definitely living in a post-US tariffs world. Full gameplay all in is very expensive, this is the fourth kickstarter for this game so you're talking about a lot of content to buy at once (two full big box expansions, the solo one comes with a new board, tons of dinky little expansions). That said, that 129 base fund is a LOT of game so that's probably the best thing to do. Also, this game doesn't go retail (I paid a huge amount for it used this year), it's just a couple German guys doing outsider art, so you're kinda stuck.

I think you can safely skip the insanely expensive big box if you aren't a superfan.

Looks good.

Sornars and I had a brutal turn 3 loss of this game yesterday on Apocalypse level. We were rolling pretty well, I had some touch and go dramatic fighting in turn 1 against a garrison, and even on the flip of turn 3's event things looked manageable but difficult. Then we flipped two tiles that added new hordes to the board and I lost my mind and way overestimated how strong my biggest stack was against threat 7 opposition which immediately died. Sornars similarly died against a very difficult threat 7 stack which ultimately took two of his havens. We lost by ~4 points to chaos.

Sometimes in this game you have to look at the board, look at the point total of yourself and your opponent, and limit your goals to outscoring your opponent and only planning to hunt down your opponent hordes/legions that threaten your havens/scoring. I felt like I went on tilt T3, it was definitely a winnable game even by the time we flipped the first tile that added a horde and should have changed my plans.

gamefound.com/en/projects/nemesisgames/u...ng-big-box-true-solo

Reprint is up.

I basically decided I'm insane and bought everything I didn't have. The big wooden big box, small box expansions and little items are VERY steep, I don't recommend them unless you know you're absolutely ride or die for this game. I know 129 doesn't sound like a screaming deal in any world, but it is a really good deal---they are collapsing the new solo mode into the core game and, most importantly, the crucial randomness attenuation mechanism in aether. The boxed expansions are not a bad deal either at all.

Sometimes this game really deals you some shit.

I was playing probably the shittiest faction that has my favorite theme, the Tua Than (sea creatures), and I drew no tiles nearby that yield food. That meant that I couldn't really buy their best unit, the Reef King (giant lobster with archers on it) nor their rider units nor would I have an easy time moving around because they cost extra food to move. THEN I drew the horde that cuts your on standby food by half rounding up (King of Plagues)... this before I took my first turn. It has been challenging but fun trying to puzzle my way out of this jam. The hero I'm playing has a skill where she can gain food by rolling boosts in fights and generates boosts automatically but I just don't think that can yield enough food to make the cost to command units around worth it... Uprising definitely can generate some of that Spirit Island energy where you try to figure out how to accomplish things in unconventional ways rather than a single "thing" your faction does.