An Osprey Blue Book from the writer of Zona Alfa and other Indie wargames. The premise is simple enough. This is a cooperative or solo-game about monster hunting and investigation. I was intrigued by this one for two reasons. First, I had been slowly working on a similar concept. Secondly, it seemed to straddle the line between a Role-Playing Game and a Wargame which is an area of great interest to me. Therefore, I put it on order at my FLGS.
Interestingly enough two things struck me about this book before I got into the review proper:
1. It is 80 pages long. This looks to be a new thing for the Blue Book Series of 80 pages where they used to by 64 pages. I am curious if they will ever go back to the smaller size now?
2. The book only has artwork, no pictures of minis or tabletops. The lack of "in-action" shots of games was really disappointing to me. I was left unsure what a typical table looked like for the game. The art was all urban or inside buildings but at a glance I was unsure how "tabletop friendly" the premise of the game was going to be.
That said, I was still eager to delve in and see how the game was laid-out. The lack of versus rules was interesting to me, but Solo and Coop play seem to be the Authors strongpoints. Plus, the pandemic made these types of rules very popular for a while. I myself have tried my hand at them a few times.
So, grab a flashlight and your copy of the Malleus Maleficarum and let's dig in!
Things I Liked
The game is focused on a "dice pool" style of mechanic but with some twists. You use d6, d8, and d10. 4+ is always a success. There are modifiers and wounds remove dice from your pool. The game has a simple unified mechanic at its core which is always a good thing.
The game is divided into two parts, a Narrative and an Engagement. In the Narrative section, it is a light role-play scene where a characters three dice of d6,d8, and d10 are also linked up to three attributes of Body, Mind, and Spirit. This is a Theatre of the Mind experience, and what you do in the narration part of a game sets up key parts of the Engagement part of the scene. The Engagement part of the scene is the Tactical wargaming part of the game, and here those three dice are an Action Pool that you can roll to accomplish tasks. The Stats are then used to derive some stats for the Engagement Turn as well. There is a clear divide between the RP and the wargame, but both have a place in the game.
To add some suspense, each dice type can only be used once in the Narrative turn, or once per turn in the Engagement Phase. Therefore, as you use the dice pool in a turn it depletes. I am a big fan of depleting dice pools in games! It forces you to make some choices and acts as a natural limit on what a model can do.
The most innovative piece of the game is the Narrative scene. This is a piece of scene setting and lite RP before you get down and dirty on the table top. There is a simple method to create an interesting Narrative scene by asking 4 simple questions: What? Where? Who? When? There are a few basic tables to get you started, but the game encourages you to make up your own answers to these questions. These have their own "Challenges" that the players deal with using their Attribute dice and basic RPG. The Narrative allows advantages or disadvantages when deploying.
Each section had a short summary of the Key rules. Plus, the game had a Quick Reference Guide. Both of these re made possible by the longer length of 80 pages. At 64 pages, those would have had to be cut, and the rules for various Baddies trimmed out.
Things I Did Not Like
In a game like this, I-GO-U-GO can make a lot of sense. The heroes all go first and then the baddies. That means the player is always setting the pace/tone of the action.
The game uses the venerable "Locked in combat" for melee. You can not just leave it without taking penalties to do so. Basically, a free attack with a reduce saving throw.
A solo/co-op game requires a lot from the players, as they also control the monsters. This game avoids a lot of AI rules and keeps things pretty basic. There are not a lot of charts and graphs. Most different monsters are assigned a different d6, d8, or d10 with a Free Move of 6, and up to two actions. They can also have special rules to differentiate them a bit. The big boss is more like a Hunter themselves. There is a good variety of monsters, but they seem more "swarmy" than I would like due to the basic AI rules.
In general, the rules for the engagement phase are pretty straight forward with the bare bones of what you would expect. However, the tactical elements come from choosing which dice in the Pool to roll when. Beyond that, there is not a lot of tactical depth in the Engagement Phase. The game will need good terrain placement, scenarios, and fun Narrative phases to keep it fresh and engaging for a longer series of encounters.
I think this game would act a lot better with a Game Master controlling the baddies, setting the scenario, and introducing challenges/complications during the game. I have a pretty good idea why they didn't do that, but the game would be 100x more horrifying with one.
Meh and Other Uncertainties
The game uses 36 miniatures to play. 5 Heroes, 1 boss monster, and the rest are minions and the like. This is a "modern, horror" game. I think terrain might be harder than the miniatures you need to play if you want urban terrain. Thankfully, the play area is only 2 x2 so this is a kitchen table game for sure.
To tie into the "investigation" theme, the game uses Clues as a resource you can discover and then use in the campaign phase of the game for various goodies.
To help differentiate each model a bit, there are three classes. This allows them to basically be fighters, wizards, or gadgeteers. Each class has some class specific abilities and such to make them unique, and where you put your D6, D8, and d10 impacts these abilities as well. When you are done, each model is somewhat unique.
There is a decent list of equipment, spells, occult items and gear. This game is played on a 24in x 24in table so it is close and dangerous. Most firearms can fire across the board.
The book has a very basic "Setting" in Deacon Falls. This includes some high-level district locations and NPC groups you may have to interact with/have favors with during the Narrative Phase of the game. The lightest of sketches, as this is supposed to be any town, any place. This reminded me a bit of the Hard City RPG from Osprey, but this one is even more basic.
Every Engagement Phase has two Victory conditions. The first is to search the Points of Interest randomly placed on the board to find two Clues, and the second is to shutdown the Nexus where the bad guys are coming from. You can not locate or identify the Nexus until 3 out of 4 Points of Interest are searched. A Nexus is different from a Portal where the bad guys actually spawn from. These can be shutdown too.
Finally, there is a simple campaign system to link 6 games together into a Case. It has the usual stuff like advancements, the bad things that happen when your minis go out-of-action, equipment upgrades, etc. Very simplified to make it fit the book.
I do not recall the rules talking about pre-measuring at all?
Final Thoughts
I'm kind of torn on this game. It has interesting ideas BUT I feel like the 80 page length has left it a bit under-served. The Tactical Combat is Underwhelming, as is the RPG elements. However, if feels like great bones that you could build a really interesting set of house rules and details out of as a group. As the basic chassis, this has what you need..... but it left me a bit wanting. I think it mechanically needed more HORROR but the space ended up being a limitation. It fit in everything it could into the space, kept it generic for maximum model/scale agnostic, but ultimately couldn't make it horror enough.
I can't put my finger on it, but something similar happened in my forays into this space as well. The attempts to make it generic, also ended up making it feel much more hollow. In addition, the replayability seemed to come all from the Narrative aspect, but the Engagement section felt like it would become repetitive very quickly.
I am a bit bummed, as I wanted to gush and love on this game! Ultimately, it had some great ideas and some great ways to simplify ideas.... but I was left wanting more.
Or purchase all out games at the Blood and Spectacles Publishing Wargames Vault Page!
Suena muy diferente a casi cualquier cosa que hubiera visto antes, aunque no llega a atraerme.
ReplyDeleteMe quedo con incertidumbre....