February Board Game Round-Up

So, since I last wrote I have played two games of Root (4 and 6 players respectively), and two games of Betrayal Legacy. Rather than do individual posts, I'm going to post some quick hits of my evolving thoughts on each game. 

Root

We still have yet to play a game of Root and get all the rules right. On our game last Wednesday night, we thought that you couldn't move into a sympathetic clearing if you had no cards in your hand. This proved to be downright wrong, although in fairness the rulebook was worded poorly. On our game Saturday, I failed to figure out that for the Riverfolk Company there was a difference between "Spend" and "Commit," to my detriment. Part of my problem that game was being underutilized by the Marquise, but a bigger part was handing back warriors that I should have kept to slowly grow my funds. I'm going to have to revise my original position on "ease of learning" vis-a-vis Root. The individual factions all seem fairly straightforward, and the boards explain exactly what you do on your turn. However, at the interplay of the factions lies the problem, and we have to look up FAQs online constantly to resolve certain interactions.

That being said, Root is quickly becoming one of my top 5 games. When it comes together, it's like a beautiful symphony, and we've finally taught enough people in our expanded group that we should start getting really good games where people actually understand what's going on.

The Vagabond won both games, although they benefited from a rules understanding error during our Wednesday night game. I do get the feeling that the Vagabond is very strong with novice players, as it's hard for newer players to understand when they are strong. I increasingly think the proper move is to start attacking the Vagabond once they hit 7-8 items if they have not gone hostile already. In our Saturday game I prompted an attack on the Vagabond, then attacked them myself and forced them into the forest to repair. It didn't make a difference. They still skated into a win, being too strong already to be reined in.

I really want to see the Ranger persona used and the Vagabond take a more combat heavy role, as so far all of our Vagabond players have been hardcore farmers. I love what the Vagabond adds to the game though, and the kind of trollish, free-spirited playstyle combined with the sheer action economy of a late game vagabond appeals to a lot of the players in the group. Playing the Vagabond is a little like leveling up an RPG character, and it's really rewarding to see how strong you've become by the end of the game. Final note on the Vagabond: the "Favor Of.." cards seem extremely strong, but you can only craft them in a two vagabond game or with the Tinker persona, so it seems balanced enough.

I never want to play a game without the Riverfolk Company again. I love the economic and diplomatic aspects of playing them, and the key seems to be shoving your warriors into trouble spots and effectively forcing the other players to utilize your mercenaries or lose their battles. They completely change the game for the Marquise and Eeyrie; the Cult/Alliance to a lesser extent. Having more cards available early is just huge, and I think is a massive buff to the Eeyrie in particular. With the knowledge that there is a difference between spending and committing, I think players will be a little more reluctant to buy from the Riverfolk, but still....cards early are so huge. I love that the Riverfolk can control the flow of the board and structure their prices and deployments to preserve the balance of power and prevent people from running away with the game. They are truly the ultimate diplomatic faction. I will say though, that the fact that they lose half of their funds with a single trading post being destroyed makes them feel very fragile (and easy to rein in). I know for my part I was reluctant to put too many down and tried to keep all of them protected at all times. Despite this, one was destroyed anyway by a vengeful Vagabond with a Crossbow.

The real stand-out of the game on Saturday was the Lizard Cult. Everyone wants to play the cult. Notably they didn't win, indeed they came in last. It's seemingly really hard for the lizards to produce guns and butter, and Dani leaned heavily on guns to terrorize the board with her legions of lizards. I will say though, they feel really oppressive to play against, exacerbated by people not understanding how they work. The first "Sanctify" came as a shock to an unfortunate Fish playing the Eeyrie. When I say oppressive, I don't mean unbalanced, merely that they require opposing players to be very cognizant of their potential and which clearings are likely to be outcast clearings. By the end of our game, people basically understood how the outcast was determined and were playing cards accordingly, a fascinating effect to see in action. Side bar, if Saturday is any indicator, of all the factions the Vagabond and the Cult seem to lend themselves the most to fun roleplay.

Dealing with the Alliance's Outrage (and the Alliance in general) continues to be a major source of frustration for players. That being said, I think we're slowly moving towards a better understanding of how to deal with them, and the need to basically always eliminate their sympathy right away if it's a clearing you remotely care about. For my part, I really want to try the cats at this point. We've been assigning them to new players as one of the easier factions, but I feel there is a lot of untapped potential to make them into powerhouse we have yet to see in action. I also feel compelled because outside the Otters they seem the most well positioned to counter-balance potential runaways.

We have another game planned for this Sunday, and I'm very excited to get to play again. The game doesn't recommend 7 players, but I would really like to try it out at some point.


Betrayal: Legacy

I am mostly still enjoying this game, I say mostly because I have now been the traitor two weeks in a row and having the board teamed up and rules-lawyering against you with a ruleset they more often than not don't understand completely gets really tedious. I also have not gotten a single item yet this campaign and its starting to really annoy me.

Through some combination of skill, timing, and luck, Roger Stone has remaining owner of the house and has now racked up three wins, all the while being a spry 100-something.

The haunts themselves have been pretty fun. For game two I got the Viking Berserker one, which was simplistic but one I appreciated for that. For the third game I got the Cult, and this one by comparison was annoyingly complex. Kader found the Bells shortly after the haunt began and it started a round of trying to figure out what monsters could and could not do - and if they were even movable by the item.

We got the helm! Dani and Amanda wasted no time buying into the cult of the helm and starting a chant of: "HELM, HELM, HELM HELM." It looks like it offers buffs based on placing your family crest of a certain track and filling it out.

I love having inhabitants in the house, it feels like a really appropriate addition to flesh out the game and I like seeing a haunt interact with them.

I will say though, I'm underwhelmed by the legacy aspects of this game thus far. Family heirloom items and ghosts seem to be the extent of it, but I haven't really gotten to interact with the former, nor have they played a major role, and the latter have yet to really interact with anything else in the game thus far. I'm withholding judgement for now, and I'm optimistic that with the addition of the Helm (cue Helm chanting), we'll get more Legacy elements introduced, but for now they seem rather sparse for a Legacy game.

Also, as fun as Roger Stone's run has been, we've all agreed it's time for him to die. We'll see if Kader can keep him alive through game 4. XD