Post by masterdecoy on May 27, 2010 0:03:00 GMT 10
Opening thoughts:
The second I saw this game on the FFG website, I knew it was one I was going to have to own, good bad or indifferent, My collection simply would be lacking without it.
Months of anticipation, reading the updates on the website, and generally just looking forward too it. Eventually however, my interest was spent, with still no indication of how long off the game was, it had already been six months, then I forgot about it.
Shortly thereafter, good news, the rules where up, I downloaded them quickly, and read through them. The game seemed strait forward enough, defiantly a solid rules set, and the release of the rules could only mean one thing. The game was right around the corner.
My interest was peaked again.
Game Overview:
In the Horus heresy, two players will take the roles of the emperor and the forces loyal to him, as well as the war master Horus, and those who turned their backs on the Imprium. Ill get this out of the way early too, this is a diceless game, no dice are used at all, it is completely card driven.
There are six scenarios included in the box, It recommends that new players start with the basic scenario “brother against brother”, I definitely echo this sentiment. This scenario is supposed to most accurately represent the story behind the siege of terra. This however, I have to disagree with.
Included at the back of the scenario guide is the story for the battle of terra, not one of my games has even come close to mirroring the events outlined here.
The other scenarios basically are just variations of the first one, with different event cards and more freedom of starting force disposition, but ultimately it’s the same game, re-skinned.
I’ll be quick to note that this game is fairly heavily stacked in the Emporium’s favor, but so does the rule book, so you shouldn’t be too surprised. The reasons for this are many.
First off, the imperial side has 3 victory conditions (one of which is basically just stalling), the traitor side only has two. Next, A decent proportion of the imperial units can be re-cycled (albeit not the easiest thing to do, but defiantly possible) where as if any of the traitors units are destroyed, they are out of the game, never to be seen again. Then the loyalist player also has static orbital defense guns that can shoot down the traitor players units before they even get a chance to deploy, forcing the traitor player to neutralize them or risk losing some really important units, Lastly, the imperial side has far more starting units on the board than the traitor who respectively only holds 4 locations on the entire map.
These advantages however are offset by the traitor player’s “dirty tricks” the traitor player can convert loyalist guard and tank regiments into traitor units, thus not only removing units from the imperial players force, but also bolstering his own with nice and easy fodder. The traitor player can also call down orbital bombardments, which the loyalist player has little to no access too. Finally the traitor players units are far more maneuverable, he has access to thunder hawks that can move faster than any other unit in the game, and even transport other units to boot, as well as engage in fights to bolster the traitor player’s numbers considerably.
Players take turns by spending “initiative” points and playing orders on regions they control, Initiative is tallied on a track at the bottom of the board, and whoever has used less initiative always takes the next turn. This means that both players need to plan each move carefully, as carelessly chewing through your initiative can cause the opponent to be able to take “several” turns in a row, leaving you helpless to do anything but watch.
Moving your units around the board isn’t just as simple as saying, I move this here, I attack there, you instead play order cards, each of which has an initiative cost, that will tell you how you can move your units, and if/how you can attack. Your orders can be played 2 ways, directly from your hand, or placed on a special mini map to be activated later. There are benefits and drawbacks to each.
Playing cards from your hand generally cost more initiative, and won’t be quite as powerful as when you play them from the mini map, but are resolved faster and can’t be blocked. Playing cards from the mini map will always cost 2 initiative (1 to put it down there, 1 to use it) and will often have secondary effects, but are slower as you can’t activate them until after your opponent has had a turn, and can also be blocked by other orders getting stacked on top of them.
In either case, assaulting a well prepared area (say the palace for example) will require a lot of preparation, several turns worth in fact, as just moving your forces will often render them unusable for another 6 initiative steps. And maneuvering is often more about surrounding your enemy so they can’t retreat, rather than just getting in a position where they can attack.
Combat works through a mini card game that will last for a predetermined amount of turns (often 4, but sometimes as many as 8), the quality of your troops will determine how many cards you may draw and the defender chooses who gets to go first. This is a big deal and going first or second is actually a very hard decision to make most of the time.
Going first means you can get some early damage in, but the counter attack will generally be worse. The reasoning behind this is because each turn only one player gets to attack and each player may only play as many cards as whatever the turn is (I.E 1 card on turn 1, 2 cards on turn 2, 3 cards on turn 3 ect), on top of that each combat card has a secondary ability, some of which can stack with other cards played that turn, that if the conditions are met, will have devastating effects on the opponent, these can range from outright just destroying an enemy unit, to simply making your own units harder to kill.
Managing your combat hand is also a tense affair, as your combat cards also have a defense rating on them, which can be played to prevent certain amounts of damage (ranging from 0 to 3 per card), and decisions have to be made whether to man up and take the damage so you can lay down a heavy offensive in your turn, or soak some of the damage, meaning your attack will typically be much weaker, as well as losing those powerful secondary abilities.
Hero’s add extra special ability’s, and special combat cards that are generally more powerful than the regular one’s, and will defiantly give a player an edge if his opponent doesn’t have a hero present.
The way the combat is structured means that with each passing turn, the tension rises quite considerably.
Component Overview:
As with almost every Fantasy Flight game I have played, the components are exceptional. The 3.D fortifications, factory’s and the palace are truly wonderful to behold, if not almost certainly unnecessary and defiantly too small by a good few CM, fitting 3 units plus an orbital gun, as well as the hero marker in one of them is almost impossible, and requires you to basically just stack them in a pile and hope they don’t fall out.
I also have some quibbles with the fact that the traitor cultists look almost identical to the chaos war bands, and I also don’t understand why they couldn’t have just included another 6 or so tank and guard regiments for the traitor player to have permanently, instead of having to pull them off their bases and swap them over to traitor bases.
Other than that, the FFG usual durable tokens, cards and fairly detailed miniatures.
Setup is something that will take time to begin with, but after only 4 plays, I was almost able set up the entire board without referring to the instruction guide 90%. The real kicker is the 3d forts and such, which will often take the longest to set up, however even this shouldn’t take long to master.
Closing thoughts:
So if all the scenarios are basically the same, I guess your asking where the replay ability factor is? Well I can assure you, just playing the “brother against brother” scenario has enough variation and tactics to make it both an engaging game all the way to the end, as well as keep you saying, “but if I do this differently next time…..”
I have likened it to chess. Your opening moves might not change much, but with each passing turn, you will be forced to react and alter your plans. No two of my games have looked similar after the first quarter is over, despite using the same opening moves each time.
Luck is also a huge factor in this game, however the nature of the destiny deck means that the luck is always evenly spread, you cant shuffle the deck until it is exhausted, and there is a 50-50 spread of traitor vs. loyalist centered cards, meaning that if the traitor gets bad luck with his opening conversions, his orbital bombardments are probably going to really hurt.
While your prohibited from looking through any discard pile without specific cause, counting the cards of each deck as they come up is defiantly a viable tactic, if not a little bit too easy to do.
I heartily recommend this game for anyone who is interested in war games, however warnings ahead to anyone who will have to teach others the rules. After 3 full games, and though I thought I had covered everything competently, one of my opponents was still telling me that “I didn’t tell them that they could/couldn’t do that”, Misunderstandings are a definite.
Components: 3/5
Game play: 4/5
Replay Potential: 4/5
Theme: 5/5
Price: 3/5
Overall: 4/5
PM me if you would like a demo game