I hadn’t planned on doing another one of these right away, but then I sat down and read all of the starter deck fictions. Nine fictions + one random thought I had while trying to put the deck boxes away = another silly column!

1)      Yoritomo Hiromi is definitely #1 in the attitude problem category.  The Mantis apparently now make it three Clans where the expected heir gave up a claim on the Clan Championship (along with Lion and Unicorn), and Hiromi seems to have something of a complex about his older sibling hanging around.  Ironically, Hiromi’s tyrannical insecurity issues (when combined with a belligerence to other Clans) seem like the like the sort of thing that could cause the very split loyalty issues that he wants to avoid.

2)      Speaking of issues – check out the Napoleon complex on the Little Bear.  Additionally, I’m still not clear on why exactly the Crab are best buddies with the Scorpion.  I get why the Scorpion like the Crab – they desperately needed the Crab’s help, and the Crab gave it.  But why do the Crab now so staunchly favor the Scorpion who murdered the Crab Clan Champion’s namesake and who now depend so heavily on the Crab for support?

3)      The Scorpion fiction reinforces the flavor on the Scorpion deck box – they’re just doing all those bad things to help the Empire.   They swear.

4)      Kanpeki, surprisingly, does not come across as the worst-sounding champ of the lot (although one presumes that may change).  He has a chip on his shoulder, but it may be a reasonable one.

5)      Tsukimi has her senses honed to a razor’s edge, but doesn’t feel cold.  Isn’t that some sort of contradiction?

6)      Doji Makoto is capable of besting a minor Unicorn courtier in both politics and swordplay.  Big ups?

7)      Dragon Clan Champions – doing things their own way since Year Zero.

8 )     The Unicorn story mentions Naleesh’s siblings stepping aside so that she can be Clan Champion.  But her siblings weren’t going to be Clan Champions anyway, right?  Or does she just view Chagatai’s kids as her siblings?

9)      Dairuko is still all pensive, and is a teacher rather than a general.  She doesn’t seem the usual excessively aggressive Lion stereotype, so I wonder if hardline factions in the Clan are going to force her into more direct confrontation with the Unicorn than seems her style.

10)   The starter deck boxes (and the overall starter deck box) aren’t quite square.  This means that you have to put the deck boxes back in the box with a particular orientation.  I cannot for the life of me manage to get it right on the first try, and it is driving me crazy.

1) Have you noticed how few of the top spells are ones that come in free off of Library of Rebirth (and are meaningful in that way)? Bo of Water and Katana of Fire are great, but their abilities are Limited. Strength of the Tsunami still costs cash (although the box itself is enough to pay for the rest). Scouring Flood is great, but after that you’re looking at kind of limited stuff like Conflagration, Pearl of Rage, and Tempest of Flame. Not that Phoenix spell military needs more help.

2) Mirumoto Katagi just gets worse every time I look at him. A lot of Dragon players thought he was awful when he came out, but I thought he deserved more of a look. But, after more of a look, I’m more down on him. His bare stats are worth about 6.5 Gold (you have to pay 7G for a 4F/4C, but it’s a weak Personality) – but he effectively costs 11G. So the first time you play a Weapon on him and get the 4G discount, you still haven’t really made back the extra you paid for him up front (and you’re spending extra Gold before you get the benefit, which is worse). So, if you aren’t buying the guy and immediately dropping two Weapons on him, he’s basically doing nothing.

3) If you assume that Border Keep basic and Border Keep Experienced are supposed to be vaguely even in power level, then you should be disappointed. The ability to look at a third set of Dynasty cards on turn one is a huge, huge factor in how many Holdings you need to put in a deck. Border Keep has to give up its once-per-game ability to get that third look. Border Keep Experienced doesn’t. It’s a bigger deal than you might think.

4) I remember there being some real griping about how lousy and/or ill-suited the Mantis Personalities in Forgotten Legacy were. Not griping anymore, eh?

5) You can cut your Holding count down to 8-9 by just running 6-for-5 Holdings. Is it the lost flexibility of the bigger Holdings worth getting 5 Dynasty slots back? I do not know.

6) Don’t forget Tsuruchi Daikyu in all the excitement about the 8G Weapons. It’s still a beast.

7) I’m not usually much of one for Kickstarter games, but I do like deckbuilding and combining that mechanic for other things, which has made me wonder about this Briefcase game from some Greek designers that is supposed to come out later this year.

8 ) Non-Samurai really, really wish they could play Know No Fear.

9) I’m one of those folks who doesn’t want to send in anything for the Emperor Edition “Experience a Personality” mailing because I don’t want to give up my one copy of any of the bio cards.

10) After listening to Eric Summerer on The Dice Tower talk about Merchant of Venus so often, I really want to see what comes of the upcoming remake (which, from the information available, will be the Fantasy Flight Games version).

Strange Assembly – Episode 043 – Advance Scout

The full rules for Emperor Edition sealed deck are available here. Deck construction rules (40/40, Unique, Loyal, 3-of, and so forth) are in full effect. You can swap cards out from the preconstructed deck for the random rares you get, anything from those three booster packs and, potentially significantly, any of the four Strongholds.

Note that, for “key cards,” I’m excluding the fixed, starter-deck only cards that most of you already know about – Clan Champ, Clan virtue, Clan Celestial, House Guard, etc.

Crab
Win Condition: Military
Themes Represented: Bersekers, Kaiu
“Default” Stronghold: Halls of the Forgotten (Bersekers)
Stronghold You Should Be Playing: Halls of the Forgotten (your opponent will have few battle actions to deal with your Berserkers to begin with) or Carpenter Castle (you have 7 Siege Personalities and 3 Siege Followers)
Attachments: Followers + Spiked Tetsubo
Key Cards: Kaiu Esumi, Hida Yamadara, Genji’s Students
Strengths: Everyone has blank Personalities. Your blank Personalities are huge.
Weaknesses: You will cry a little at the Kaiu Nakano being include in a deck that’s mostly Berserkers.

Crane
Win Condition: Honor
Themes Represented: Courtiers, Scouts, Shugenja
“Default” Stronghold: Kyuden Otomo XP
Stronghold You Should Be Playing: Kyuden Otomo XP
Attachments: Spells and Followers/Items that gain honor
Key Cards: Daidoji Eibzo, The Shadow Court, Encircled Terrain, Cleansing the Path, Rocky Terrain, Doji Dainogon
Strengths: You get to be the only honor deck; opponents are confused.
Weaknesses: You’re trying to support three themes. Good luck with that.

Dragon
Win Condition: Military
Themes Represented: Monks, Tamori
“Default” Stronghold: Pillars of Virtue
Stronghold You Should Be Playing: Dragon’s Breath Castle (not all that many actions to chain together anyway) or Pillars of Virtue (Falling Leaf Strike + anything is still handy)
Attachments: Followers + Spells
Key Cards: Volcano Tattoo, Breath of the Heavens, Engulfing Flames, Tamori Muzu
Strengths: If you get your Fire monks together with the good Fire-themed Kiho, you can actually kill some stuff.
Weaknesses: Your secondary theme is an honor theme, but your deck is military.

Lion
Win Condition: Military
Themes Represented: Scouts, Paragons
“Default” Stronghold: The Golden Plains
Stronghold You Should Be Playing: Golden Plains (so you can use Shinju and Well Prepared) or Shamate Keep (reusable actions are money, even if you’ve only got a limited number of 4PH guys)
Attachments: things that cost 2 Gold
Key Cards: Matsu Arata, Ikoma Shinju, Guiden By Honor, Satoshi’s Dual Warfans, Brothers in Battle, Well Prepared
Strengths: Aggressive weenies instead of just lame weenies.
Weaknesses: Not as many kill actions as Mantis, Scorpion, and Unicorn.

Mantis
Win Condition: Military
Themes Represented: Scouts
“Default” Stronghold: Koshin Keep
Stronghold You Should Be Playing: Koshin Keep
Key Cards: Tsuruchi Tomaru, Tsuruchi Kosoko, Tsuruchi Yashiro,
Attachments: Followers + Flesh Cutter Arrows.
Strengths: You only have one theme! You have tons of battle actions, including several guys with kill actions! You have a smidge of Naval.
Weaknesses: None.

Phoenix
Win Condition: Military
Themes Represented: Elemental Desctruction, Order of Chikai
“Default” Stronghold: Library of Rebirth
Stronghold You Should Be Playing: Library of Rebirth (only 7 Samurai for Shiro Shiba)
Attachments: Spells
Key Cards: Shiba Sansesuke, Shiba Kataken, Isawa Tamaki, Cleansing the Path, A Dragon’s Favor,
Strengths: There’s enough Cavalry Shugenja to sometimes sleaze provinces.
Weaknesses: Only one guy with a real Battle action. No Force.

Scorpion
Win Condition: Military
Themes Represented: Ninja, Paragons of Loyalty
“Default” Stronghold: The Otoro Estates
Stronghold You Should Be Playing: The Otoro Estates or Shiro Chugo (both are Ranged 4 Attacks, but Shiro Chugo works with your Paragons too).
Attachments: things that say “Ninja”
Key Cards: Shosuro Konishi, Shosuro Tsuji, Never Safe, Bayushi Waru (5 Courtiers in the deck),
Strengths: Your Stronghold has a kill action and another ability. You have two different 5F guys with a good printed Battle action.
Weaknesses: Other players will dislike you for being a Scorpion.

Spider
Win Condition: Military
Themes Represented: Dark Paragons, Commanders
“Default” Stronghold: Steel Soul Dojo
Stronghold You Should Be Playing: none (only six Dark Virtues, only 7 Commanders – maybe you roll the dice with Goju box?)
Attachments: Followers + Maga-yari
Key Cards: Strength in Terror, Vigilant Eyes, Revenge
Strengths: Lots of solid bow Strategies.
Weaknesses: Little support for any box. Lack of impressive battle actions on Personalities.

Unicorn
Win Condition: Military
Themes Represented: Commanders, Tacticians
“Default” Stronghold: Journey’s End Keep
Stronghold You Should Be Playing: Journey’s End Keep
Attachments: Followers
Key Cards: Shinjo Horibe, Moto Tetsuo, Shinjo Eun-Sahng, Silk Works, Khol Regulars,
Strengths: CAVALRY. The default box doesn’t care about whether you have applicable keyword or attachment. Decent array of Battle actions. Cavalry.
Weaknesses: Have to pay 10G for 5F Guy with Ranged Attack, instead of 8 like Scorpion. You are jealous of gold cost. They are jealous of Cavalry. Bitter rivalry ensues. Mantis kill you both and steal your stuff.

Towers of Ruin

What’s In The Box?

The contents of any deck-building game start with, of course, a stack of cards, and Towers of Ruin comes with a large one.  There are enough cards for five 12-card starting decks, plus another 15 of most of them (just in case you actually want to buy one during the game).  There are 11 different Heroes (12 cards each), 19 different village cards (8 of each), nine different Monster groups (10 cards each, plus an extra 10 for a Horde), three Thunderstone Bearers, 28 Curses, 7 Familiars, and randomizers for the hero, village, and monster cards.  In total, you get somewhere north of 550 cards.  There are dividers for everything, including dividers specifically for the starting decks (there’s even a divider for Avatars, a card type that does not exist yet – they will represent “you” in card form).

Thunderstone Advance also adds a full board for the first time (although one could still play without it, if one so chose).  The board has spots for every type of card that has to be put out during the game, including the Dungeon Hall.  The board is thick, sturdy, and sharply printed – unlike the Dragonspire Dungeon Hall board, you can actually read the Darkness level and penalties from back in your seat.  Oh, and the board has two sides – one for the Dungeon, and one for the Wilderness (more on that later).

In addition to the cards, you get a large-page, very well done full-color rulebook.  Thunderstone Advance has definitely raised its game on writing rules with clarity.  It includes a word glossary and a card glossary.  There’s also a four-page Learn to Play insert, for players who are new to Thunderstone.  The box easily holds all of the contents, with room for at least several expansions, plus the XP tokens that come with the game.

Gameplay (for those new to Thunderstone)

Each player in Thunderstone starts with a static deck of sixteen cards.  On each turn, each player must choose whether to go to the Village to build his forces, or venture into the Dungeon in order to defeat one of the Monsters found within.  Players must pick the right balance of attack power (to kill monsters now) and buying power (to be able to afford the cards to kill tougher monsters later).  Defeated monsters go into the deck and are worth Victory Points.  The game ends when a specific monster – the Thunderstone Bearer – appears in the Dungeon and is either defeated or escapes.

Setup/The Cards

Each player’s starting deck has six Regulars (a very basic Hero), two Torches (a basic light source), two Longspears (a basic Weapon), and two Thunderstone Shards (a special card that increases a Hero’s strength and hands out bonus Experience Points).

This basic deck will improve during the game with cards added from the Village.  I’d divide those cards into three types – Heroes, Weapons, and Everything Else (Items, Spells, and Villagers – there’s basically no rules difference between the last three, but different cards in the game will affect specific categories of other cards).  In addition to more copies of Regular, Torch, and Longspear, the Village always has four Heroes, and then eight other cards (which may be any of Weapons, Items, Spells, or Villagers, but never more than a few of any one kind).  By default these are randomly determined, although the rules contain numerous variants on how to pick the village cards.

Cards in the Village are purchased with Gold.  If a player chooses to go to the Village on his turn, then he may buy one card.  Many, but not all, cards produce some amount of Gold.  When going to the Village, all cards in hand are revealed, and the Gold added up to determine what can be purchased.  In addition, some cards have Village abilities (literally – abilities that say “Village” can be played when in the Village; abilities that say “Dungeon” can be played when in the Dungeon).  Items, Spells, and Villagers are basically just a Gold value and some number of Dungeon or Village abilities.

Innkeeper, a Villager

Summon Storm, a Spell

Moonstone, an Item

Heroes and Weapons are distinguished by (almost always) having Attack (Physical or Magic), which is used to defeat monsters.  Heroes have at least one class (Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Thief, Ranger) and a race (Human, Elf, Dwarf).  They also have a level.  Unlike the other stacks in the Village, the Hero stacks are not all the same card – there are Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 versions of each Hero.  Players can only buy the top one, so the higher levels are only available later in the game, or if XP (earned from defeating monsters) is used to level them up.  Heroes and Weapons also have a unique interaction represented by the strength of the Hero and the weight of the Weapon.  Unlike other cards, which just do their thing, Weapons must be equipped to a hero – each Hero can only carry one Weapon, and he has to be strong enough.  Fighters, for example, tend to have a higher strength to use better Weapons, while other classes have other upsides – Clerics might remove negative Curse cards from hand, and Thieves might produce Gold (Heroes are generally not worth Gold).

Drua Sacrist, a Level 1 Hero

Longsword, a Weapon

Of course, the Monsters have to be set up.  Each group of 10 monsters has a level (1-3).  One monster group of each level is selected, as is one Thunderstone Bearer.  The normal monsters are all shuffled together, and then the Thunderstone Bearer is shuffled into the bottom third of the deck.  The top few cards of the monster deck are placed face-up in the Dungeon Hall.  The deeper a monster is into the hall, the more Darkness must be overcome to defeat it.  How many spots are in the Dungeon Hall, and how big the penalty from the Darkness is depends on which side of the board is being used.  In the Wilderness board (recommended for first plays), the Hall has four spots and there is a penalty of -1 Attack for each rank into Dungeon Hall (it is always called “the dungeon” or “the dungeon hall,” even on the Wilderness board).  In the Dungeon board, the Hall only has three spots, but the Darkness penalty is -2 Attack per rank.

Monsters have a health value that must be equaled or overcome by a player’s Attack in order to defeat the Monster.  Most Monsters don’t do anything except when you attack them, but a few have global effects on the board or have an effect trigger when they are first revealed.  When beaten, a Monster gives XP (in the lower left of the monster card; this lines up with the number in the lower left of a Hero card, which shows how much XP is needed to level up) and goes into a player’s deck, where it will be worth Victory Points and will typically also provide some Gold.  Some Monsters also have Trophy abilities, which are basically Village/Dungeon abilities that you must take at some point during either phase when the Monster is in your hand.

Finally, there is a deck of Curses and a few Familiars.  Curses are negative cards (-1 Attack) that are handed out by some Monsters.  Like other acquired cards, they go into the discard pile, to later circulate back and clog the deck up.  There are several flavors of curse, and each has a built-in way to get rid of it, such as spending XP or gold.  There are other cards that can be used to destroy Curses.

Familiars are quirky things.  The first time each game a player defeats a monster, he gets a familiar, which goes into play.  The familiar has three abilities, which can only be used if the player is holding a certain amount of unused XP (0, 3, and 6).  Using the abilities doesn’t spend the XP, but at the end of a turn on which one or more of the abilities is used, the Familiar is discarded and must be re-drawn and re-played.  The rules recommend not using the Familiars when learning to play.

The Turn

Each player starts with six cards, and at the end of each of his turns his hand is discarded and a new hand of six is drawn.  A player has four options on each turn: go to the Village, go to the Dungeon, Resting, and Preparing.  The Dungeon and Village are the meat of the game – Rest and Prepare are essentially side things to do when you don’t like your other options.

-          Go to the Village: Flop your hand on the table, play any Village abilities you so choose (destroy bad cards from your hand, draw cards, get another purchase, etc.), count up your Gold and buy one card, and if you have the XP, level up any Heroes in your hand.

-          Go to the Dungeon: Flop your hand on the table, then play any Dungeon abilities you so choose and/or equip any Weapons you can until your party is as good as it’s going to get.  Then pick one of the 3 or 4 Monsters to fight.   If the Monster has Battle abilities (such as destroying cards in the attacking party or handing out a curse), it uses these to attack.  The Total Attack Value is compared to the monster’s Health – if the TAV is equal or higher, the party wins, and the Monster is defeated.  The Monster may then have an Aftermath effect (again, often destroying something in the attacking party).  If the monster was not defeated, it goes back into the Dungeon deck.  If the Monster was defeated, it goes in the player’s discard pile and XP is awarded.  Any “Spoils” abilities on cards involved in the attack trigger (these include the Thunderstone Shard’s award of bonus XP).  Then the monsters shift towards the surface to fill any gaps, and the monster on top of the Dungeon deck takes its place in the deepest rank.

-          Rest: Destroy one card in your hand (for example, a Curse).

-          Prepare: Place any number of cards in your hand on top of your deck (the rest are discarded as normal at the end of the turn), thus hopefully setting up a good following turn.

Winning the Game

As the end of the Dungeon deck nears, the Thunderstone Bearer will eventually appear in the Dungeon Hall.  The Thunderstone Bearer is generally going to be a tough nut to crack.  If the Thunderstone Bearer is defeated or reaches the first rank of the dungeon (through players defeating or chasing away the monsters in the brighter ranks), then the game ends.  Whoever has the most Victory Points wins.  Almost all VP comes from Monsters, but Level 3 Heroes are also worth VP, as are the Thunderstone Shards.

What’s New In Thunderstone Advance

                If you’ve played Thunderstone before and you pick up Thunderstone Advance, you’ll probably want to start with page 28 of the rulebook, which contains the highlights of the rules changes.  Although it isn’t about one specific place, it’s worth noting that the rules have, as a whole, been greatly clarified – they are more precise about timing and about what the flavorful defense of the monsters mean, for example (no more “half damage” traits in a game that doesn’t have damage).

-          The starting decks have been revamped.  Militia are gone (they were “prone to taking long rest breaks”), replaced with the improved Regulars.  Regulars are 3 strength instead of 2 (they are now stronger than some of the non-physical Heroes).  They draw a card when equipped with a polearm.  And, perhaps most importantly, they level up for only 2 XP now, instead of 3.  The Dagger has been replaced with the Longspear, which is a polearm to work with the Regular, and produces 2 Gold instead of 1.  Iron Rations (and food in general) are gone, replaced with Thunderstone Shards.  Thunderstone shards give a +2 strength boost, and also have a Spoils ability to give out an extra XP.  They are only worth 1 gold (so the total starting deck still has the same gold spread), but so you don’t just trash them ASAP, they are also worth 1VP (although you may still want to trash them at some point).  The Torch remains unchanged.

-          There are two sides to the included board, with the “classic” Dungeon on one side, and the Wilderness on the other.  The Wilderness has a bigger hall, and the light penalties track the rank evenly (rank 2 = -2 Attack, and so on).  The Wilderness side is recommended for new players, although the reduced penalties skew the value of Light.

-          Setup has been tweaked.  Monster groups now have a level (1, 2, or 3).  You start with one group of each level, to try and avoid super-hard dungeons.  There are now limits on how many of any category of village card (Weapons, Items, Spells, Villagers) can show up, although that wouldn’t stop something like a random Weapon-less village.

-
There is a fourth thing to do with your turn, called Prepare.  It lets you drop part of your hand on top of your deck, setting up your next turn (the rest of your hand gets pitched).

-          A new type of card called a Familiar has been introduced.  You get a familiar when you first defeat a monster.  The familiar has powers that only work when you’re sitting on extra XP.  It stays in play, but gets discarded at the end of a turn during which you used one of the powers (it goes back into play as soon as it gets drawn again).

-          The game ends when you defeat a special kind of Guardian, a Thunderstone Bearer.  Or, as the rules say, “The game is not won when you pick up a rock.”

-          Diseases are now Curses, and each has a built in Dungeon and/or Village ability to get rid of it, such as by paying 2 gold or drawing fewer cards at the end of the turn.

-          Destruction is no longer delayed.  If a monster’s battle ability destroys something, it gets destroyed.  There are now Aftermath effects that only kick in after the fight is over.

-          No Rank 0: There is no Rank 0.  Breach effects now happen when the Monster reaches Rank 1.

-          Terminology Changes: Light Penalties are now Darkness.  There’s a “React” ability word.  Anything that happens when a monster is first placed in the hall is a “Raid” effect.  Archers are Rangers.

In addition to the rules changes, there are also story changes and graphic design changes.  On the story side of things, there’s actually a particular story to Thunderstone now, including fictions on AEG’s website.  There’s flavor text on cards.  There are variant setups in the rulebook to vaguely represent story events (attacking the three towers in the title of the game, such as the undead-heavy Tower of Corruption of the fiery Tower of Contempt).

The big graphic difference is that the relatively busy and wide card borders are gone, making more room for text and art.  The class/race info is under the card title instead of in the middle, and is joined by the character’s level, so there’s one less icon cluttering the left side of the card (potentially three now, instead of four).  The Weapons and Items have a uniform design focused on the object in question (more on this later).

Variants

Thunderstone has gotten a lot of extra play with variant rules, and some are included in the rulebook.  These include a solo variant and the Richard Launius/Tom Vasel “Epic Thunderstone” variant.  There are also several smaller variants, some of which are portions of the Epic Thunderstone ruleset – for example, sorting the monster deck by level.

Individual Cards

For those who are going to be using Towers of Ruin to enhance an existing Thunderstone collection, here are some cards that might be of note:

-          Bandia’s Wisdom/Whetmages: The spell lets you temporarily gain XP as a Dungeon ability.  The Hero lets you blow XP to level up in the Dungeon.  Sounds like a combo to me.

-          Dwarven Bear Hammer: Race matters already, as seen in this 6-weight Weapon that allows Dwarves to ignore the weight.

-          Falcon Arbalest: This crossbow replaces the wielders attack entirely (with a +5), rather than just augmenting it – and it can be carried by a Regular.

-          The fragile Filagree Amulet, which breaks when you use it.  Great flavor.

-          King Caelan’s Writ: Blow your entire turn to trade the Writ for the top card of a Hero stack – great for picking up one of those expensive Level 3 Heroes.

-          Glamercast bards: At Level 1, this Hero has no attack at all, only enhances other Heroes.

-          Bhoidwood and Deepstrider: These Ranger Heroes are worth negative Gold.

-          Kobolds: These little buggers are mostly so terrible that you wouldn’t want them in your deck – luckily, you can beat them and then shove the negative VP in someone else’s discard pile!

-          There are Undead Treefolk.  So sad.

Judgment Calls/Opinion

To me, Thunderstone (Advance or not) is just flat-out a fun game.  It’s super-thematic.   It’s at a nice lowish to medium-depth level, where the complexity of the rules and card matches well with the amount of randomness involved, and the ability to play many games relatively quickly matches well with the variability of the setups.  And the card selection is appropriate for a base game – this isn’t just an expansion set of cards that happens to be packaged with new starter decks.

Comparing Thunderstone Advance to Thunderstone, there really isn’t any downside to Advance.  To me, it’s just a flat-out improvement (except maybe familiars, which are clunky, easy to forget once they’re in play, and didn’t add much to our experience – but you can just not play with them).  The rules are cleaner.  The rewording of Light and the option of the “Rank = Penalty” board are great for teaching new players, since Light always seemed to be the most confusing thing about the basic game.  The board, generally, is a nice-looking component.

I think the designers were shooting to get players to go into the Dungeon without guarantees a bit more, and we definitely did that (partially because the Regular/Longspear combo starts the deck with an added padding of Dungeon card draw).  In addition to adding more tension to things, to me, this helps out even out card values a bit, as cards with weak effects that tacked on “Dungeon: Draw a card” never seem to get much use for us, since we are relatively averse to riding a trip to the Dungeon on whether the top card of the deck was a +2 Attack card.

The games we played of Thunderstone Advance seemed to run a bit longer than usual, even with more XP running around (thanks to Thunderstone Shards and, I think, to increased XP awards from Monsters).  The monsters seem, on average, a bit tougher – there’s a substantial difference between the old “Battle: kill a Hero” (which would now be “Aftermath: Kill a Hero”) and the new “Battle: Kill a hero”).  These may be related.  Or we could just be imagining things – not like we kept a stopwatch running, after all.

It also felt a bit odd that the Thunderstone Bearers weren’t worth more XP.  I wouldn’t say that there’s any gameplay problem with them not being the most valuable monster in the dungeon, but it felt off from a flavor perspective.

The graphic design is overall, an improvement.  The cards are cleaner looking.  The icons look fine to good (I recall some complaints about them when the cards were first posted online, but there are no problems with them to me).  The one thing I disliked about the new graphic design (and, I think, the one thing I actively disliked about the entirety of the Thunderstone Advance package) is the sameness of all the Weapons and Items.  The object itself is the focus of the picture, but doesn’t take up all that much of the frame (if all your showing is a long, pointy thing, it’s hard to take up a whole rectangle), and the rest is a blank pink backdrop.  This means that, when there are Weapons and Items in your hand, you can’t really tell them apart at a glance.  Visual cues are important when you play a card game a lot – you glance down, see the picture, and know what the card is.  At a minimum, the Weapons and Items needs a more distinguishable background and, if it was my call, I’d switch up the presentation of those cards considerably, with a bit more oomph to the pictures, instead of just the static shots.

So, if you like the fantasy adventure theme and are looking for a not-too-heavy game with great replayability, I’d heartily recommend Thunderstone Advance.  If you already know you like Thunderstone, then Towers of Ruin should be the #1 choice for the next Thunderstone product you pick up.  Overall, a great game and a definite upgrade.

First Founding

The Basics

The Deathwatch RPG (along with Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, and Black Crusade) is set in Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40K universe (motto: “In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.”). Unlike the other product lines, there basically is only war in Deathwatch – the player characters take on the role of the Empire of Mankind’s elite, superhuman Space Marines. In particular, Space Marines who have been assigned to the elite Deathwatch organization, which includes marines from many different Chapters and concentrates on squad-level action against alien threats (thus setting up a party-sized group of marines, and letting players draw their characters from their favorite Chapters). The game, like these missions, are heavily combat focused.

First Founding bills itself as “a definitive guide to the Space Marines of the First Founding,” and advertises the ability to play as a member of the four not-previously-appearing First Founding Chapters (the Chapters that were originally the 20 Legions directly founded by the Emperor from a Primarch’s gene-stock; there are nine Loyalist Chapters, nine Heretic Legions that fell to Chaos, and two of which no record remains), wield Chapter-specific wargear, and acquire followers. All are present, although the followers section is a bit weak, and doesn’t feel worthy of including on the back cover copy. Also, although not mentioned on the back cover, First Founding includes write-ups for new Specialties and other mechanics for the First Founding Chapters that were previously available for play.

Layout/Graphics/Editing

Like the Deathwatch core book, First Founding has a beautiful layout, and I did not observe any layout errors. The graphics were plentiful (without overly limiting the text), and include both full-page spreads and well-placed insets. The art is consistent with the style and flavor of the graphic design. Editing overall was good. There were several instances of writing goofs (mostly seemingly-random wrong words) but they were not common and weren’t major.

Contents

Honour the Chapter (30 pages) – Provides full rules for playing the four previously-undescribed First Founding Chapters – the Iron Hands, Raven Guard (not to be confused with the Ravenwing), Salamanders, and White Scars:

- The Iron Hands are focused on technology, and over their careers slowly replace their bodies with bionic implants. The flavor write-up of the Iron Hands ends up slightly awkward, as the Iron Hands are presented as both “fuelled by 10,000 years of anger, hatred, and bitterness” and yet still displaying a “cold, mechanical resolve.”

- The Raven Guard are sneaky masters of subterfuge and infiltration – to the extent that 10-foot tall superhuman soldiers wrapped in several tons of metal can be stealthy, anyway. They avoid frontal assaults and like to use ambushes and assassinations.

- The Salamanders are characterized by heat, flame, and the forge. The favor melta and flame weapons, prefer to craft their own weaponry where possible, use relatively few anti-grav vehicles (preferring treaded war machines). The ebony-skinned Salamanders are slow to anger, but once they decide on a position, it will take some real convincing to get them to change their minds.

- The White Scars are basically a Mongol Horde of Space Marines, except that horses are replaced by bikes and troop transports. Devastator Squads and Dreadnaughts are disfavored. The White Scars have also been known to demand duels of honor when offended, which may be often.

Three of these Chapters (all but the White Scars) share the distinction of having been pretty well mauled on Istvaan V by the Traitor Legions when the full extent of the Horus Heresy was revealed. In addition to flavor discussions of its history and combat tactics, each Chapter gets the full mechanical treatment, including the base stat modifiers, Solo Mode Ability, two Squad Mode Abilities, Demeanour, Pasts table, Primarch’s Curse, Chapter Trappings, psychic powers, and Chapter Advances table (including a few new Talents).

Chapter’s Due (40 pages) – Four of the five previously-described First Founding Chapters is treated to some more history, a look at the presence of the Chapter (and/or its Successors) in the Jericho Reach, two new Advanced Specialties, a new Solo Mode ability, two new Squad Mode abilities, a new Pasts table, and a new Oath (the Imperial Fists don’t get the new Specialties). As the book expressly warns, many of the Advanced Specialities are generally not suited for player characters – PCs are unlikely to start as members of these highly-honored Chapter forces, and they are unlikely to be promoted to them while still serving in the Deathwatch. They are still workarounds, however – for example, the Furioso Dreadnaught emphasizes who it is almost unheard of for one of them to serve with the Deathwatch, but it also notes that a couple of Dreadnaught shells are kept in stasis at the Watch Tower. Regardless, however, each Chapter does get one Advanced Specialty that can be bought at Rank 1. The Advanced Specialties presented are:

- Blood Angels: Furioso Dreadnaught (assault-focused Dreadnaughts, including Librarian Dreadnaughts; the ) and Sanquinary Priests (as the Sanquinary Priests are essentially specialized Blood Angels Apothecaries, they are appropriate for starting characters, and the Specialty can be bought with a small amount of XP by any Rank 1 Blood Angels Apothecary);

- Dark Angels: Ravenwing Veteran (the Dark Angels bikers can also be taken by Rank 1 characters) and Deathwing Terminators

- Space Wolves: Wolf Scout (can be bought at Rank 1) and Rune Priests (kind of a combination of Apothecary and Chaplain);

- Ultramarines: Tyrannic War Veteran (these anti-Tyranid specialty can be bought at Rank 1) and Honour Guard.

Note that there is no new material here for the two Successor Chapters that appear in the Deathwatch core rulebook.

The Traitor Legions (20 pages) – The write-up that I was looking for in the Black Crusade core book to vary that tome up a bit! First Founding presents at least a page on each of the nine Traitor Legions (Alpha Legion, Emperor’s Children, Night Lords, World Eaters, Death Guard, Thousand Sons, Word Bearers, Black Legion, and Iron Warriors). The write-ups not only include history and tactics, but also what presence the Traitor Legion may have in the Jericho Reach. The non-aligned Legions as a group aren’t quite as flavorful as the Legions that are dedicated to a specific god of Chaos, but that’s to be expected since those four have gotten most of the development in the history of WH40K. It’s still nice to have all nice discussed. This chapter also presents four Master level Traitor Marine enemies to throw at the PCs.

Chapter Wargear (~30 pages) – This chapter presents ranged and melee weapons, armour, and other wargear. The lion’s share of it is Chapter-specific to one of the First Founding Chapters. The rest is Deathwatch-specific equipment. This Chapter also spends about 8 pages on Followers. Followers are bought with XP as an Elite Advance, and come in two varieties – background Followers, and frontline Followers. Frontline Followers are combatants who get stats, Skills, Talents, etc. of their own. How to build a frontline Follower is covered in some detail. Background Followers, on the other hand, exist to help the PC outside of combat and essentially function as Talents. Unfortunately, First Founding gives no explanation of how to determine an appropriate effect or cost for a background Follower, including only one sample background Follower with an XP cost and mechanical effect. Rather than presenting rules for background Followers, It felt like more of a “hey, it might be a neat idea if you could take Talents to represent a henchman helping you outside of combat; maybe you guys want to figure out how to make that work?”

The Chapter Is All (~10 pages) – This is a more conceptual chapter on how one might integrate Chapter identity into a Deathwatch campaign. This mostly amounts to iterations on two core themes. First, the character’s Chapter has some old animosity for another Chapter, and this causes problems. Or, second, the character is asked to do something to help his own Chapter, that may or may not contradict Deathwatch orders, and that he probably has to hide from his squadmates.

Traitor’s Dawn (~20 pages) – The final chapter is an adventure that involves the PCs having to deal with other Space Marines of three of the newly-introduced First Founding Chapters, the details of which I shall not spoil here.

Summary

Like the rest of the Deatwatch line, First Founding features good writing, lots of flavor, and excellent production values. It’s probably most valuable to (1) players/GMs who are fans of a particular Chapter (or the setting generally) and want more detail on it (or any detail at all, if the Chapter in question is one of the four new ones); (2) GMs who are looking to inject a little more variety and distinctiveness into the other Space Marines that the PCs interact with (or the Chaos Space Marines they fight against); or (3) you want more options for your character’s Oaths and Mode abilities. As with other Deathwatch books, if you’re into the WH40K setting generally, or Space Marines specifically, First Founding is also an interesting read, as even the crunchy bits contain a lot of flavor to them.

On the downside, although I usually don’t dip into the finance side of things beyond mentioning the asking price, I apparently feel compelled to note that $40 for a 144-page supplement is kind of starting to pinch. Maybe only WotC can afford to do $30 hardbacks of reasonable quality these days, but can’t a fellow get at least 192 pages for his $40? I much preferred the $50 for 256-page size and price for Rites of Battle to the slimmer format that most of the Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay books seem to have had lately.

But, unless you're Scorpion, they may not help you endure.

We don't have money and we keep dying of the plague, but you're still going to do what we tell you.

The Lion Clan goes to war . . . against change. Good luck with that.

But dont tell the IRS. Oh, wait, we are the IRS. Yes!

"You're a Kolat! You're a Kolat! You're a Kolat! Everyone's a Kolat!"

"I have an even better idea. I'm going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death."

“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.”

. . . that we lost our old jobs. No seriously, it's not just Unicorn players whining, it says right on the other side of this box.

"Check back with us in another 950 years. You're on your own until then."

"On second thought, let's spend the next 950 years telling you what to do. That sounds more fun."

Of course, there’s stuff inside the starter decks too:

Dragon Clan Phat Pack

For those of you counting along, in addition to the 40/40/3 fully construted deck, each starter comes with the three other Strongholds, four random EE rares, three booster packs (one each of Emperor Edition, Second City, and Before the Dawn), a 150-page full-color rulebook (very small pages, so not as much text as it sounds like), a clan-specific fiction, six pages of tokens skewed towards the kind that might be useful for the Clan (+1F Fire tokens for Dragon, Favor tokens for Crane, -2GC tokens for Mantis, Poison tokens for Scorpion, etc.), and all of this random stuff:

In addition to the playable cards, each EE starter deck comes with “bio” cards for the Clan Champion, Clan Kami, the Clan, and the other 8 Personalities in the deck. There’s also the “Experience a Personality” card, that you can send in with one of the 8 normal bio cards in an effor to get that Personality an Experienced version. There are rules reminder cards, advertising/info cards (e.g., “Kotei 2012: Claim Lands For Your Clan” and a reminder about the charity card Stone of Remembrance), a clan Imperial Favor token, and 5 koku (replacing the 4 koku box tab you used to get in starter decks).

Emperor Edition starter decks are set to release later this month.

The booster box of Emperor Edition was just right . . .

. . . but who needs just right when you've got massive?

No toddlers’ legs were crushed in the making of this post.  But, seriously, the Emperor Edition starter deck boxes are pretty hefty, and are packaged like they were a board game:

The Empress wants you . . . to make sure not to hurt your back when lifting this box.

Because awesome blind Tsukimi is awesome!

The starter deck box even has those fancy icons with information on play time, number of players, and so forth:

They're putting that "get done in 45 minutes or it's a double loss" thing right onto the box.

Of course, you might want to actually open that pretty starter box when you get your hands on it.  And what might you find inside?

They aren't in alphabetical order. What is the world coming to?

And, should you happen to want to look at the individual starter decks, or what’s inside those . . .

. . . then you’ll have to wait until I bust things open and take more blurry pictures this weekend.

NERFED!

Gone, but not forgotten – just watch out for the next high-Force, 7G (or less) Oni:

Oni Summoner (as posted by Evan Paul):

Any Crane Stronghold
Border Keep xp
Bamboo Harvesters

#Events (7)

1X Harsh Choices
1X Signs and Portents
1X Times of Strife
1X Wisdom Gained
3X All That Will be Lost

# Celestials (1)
1 Jurojin’s Blessing

# Regions (1)
1 Plains of Otosan Uchi

# Holdings (1)
1 Temples of Gisei Toshi

# Personalities (30)
3 Asahina Keigo
3 Asahina Yasutora
3 Asako Moeru
3 Chuda Niiro
3 Doji Rengetsu
3 Kakita Seishi
3 Kakita Yasunori
3 Raido no Oni
2 Soshi Neiru
1 Suiteiru no Oni
3 Goju Oyoto

# Fate (40)

# Strategies (32)
1 A Game of Dice
3 A Yojimbo’s Duty
3 Amazing Feat
3 Brawl
3 Caught in the Act
1 Creating Order
3 Face of Ninube
3 Paid Off
3 One Koku
3 Siege Volley
3 The Courtesy of the Crane
3 Undetectable Enemy

# Spells (6)
3 I Give You My Name
3 Walking the Way

# Rings (2)
1 Ring of Air
1 Ring of the Void

Core Worlds

What’s In The Box?

Core Worlds comes with five starting decks of 16 cards each (plus five each of starting homeworlds, player boards, actions markers, and energy markers), and another 120 cards that might get added into your deck or tableau at some point. There are also 5 sector cards, a round marker to keep track of the turn, a destiny marker to keep track of who went first that turn, and 15 energy and energy surge tokens. Note that Core Worlds has no dividers to help keep your cards neat, although you need to divide the cards up into specific stacks for every game. You’ll have to bag them, or else just have everything mix together in the box.

Basic Gameplay

Each player in Core Worlds starts with a static deck and one planet in their tableau (called a Warzone). Each player must manage four resources – actions, energy, fleet strength, and ground strength. You have to use an action and some amount of energy to do pretty much anything – play a card, draft a card, or invade a planet. Fleet strength and ground strength is used to conquer planets and add them to your tableau. Drafted cards go in your deck to make it better; conquered worlds generate more energy so that you can actually play those better cards. Whoever has the most Empire Points, which are primarily generated by worlds, wins.

The Cards

Every card in Core Worlds has a sector number (or goes in your starting deck). The game spends two turns in each of the five sectors (ending after 10 turns), and cards tend to get more expensive and more powerful as the sector number increases.

Cards in your deck come in three flavors – units and tactics. Units are the bread and butter of the deck, generating fleet and ground strength to invade planets. Each unit as a draft cost (unless it starts in your deck), a deploy cost, a fleet strength (which may be zero), a ground strength (which may be zero), and probably some rules text (such as a cost reduction under certain circumstances, or the ability to spend energy to increase strength). Units are deployed face up into your Warzone, and can later be used to invade planets. Units tend to be focused on either ground strength (infantry, vehicles, robots) or fleet strength (starfighters, star cruisers, capital ships), although some are both. There are also a handful of specialized units called Heroes.
Tactic cards, unlike units, are simply played instead of deployed. They have an energy cost to draft, and an energy cost to play. Tactics are basically played in one of three ways, depending on the card. Some can be played during an invasion, in which case they just cost energy, and generally boost strength. Others are played as an action, in which case they cost energy and (duh) an action. Finally, there are the Energy Surge cards (which are starting deck only cards) that you can discard at the start of your turn to have more energy to spend that turn. They are not to be confused with Energy Surge tokens, which although they have the same name, are a completely different mechanic that is used to balance out the inherent advantage of going first.

Worlds, unlike units and tactics, are not drafted and are not placed in your deck. Instead, each world requires a certain amount of fleet and/or ground strength to conquer. You conquer the planet, and it goes into your tableau, where it generates energy every turn and is also worth victory points. Some planets also have additional benefits for controlling them (such as the ability to cycle cards at the start of your turn).

Each player starts with one world and a 16-card deck. The decks are identical, except for a Hero and a number from 1-5 on the homeworld, which defines who goes first on the first turn. More than half of the deck are Snub Fighters (1 deploy cost and 1 fleet strength) and Galactic Grunts (1 deploy cost and 1 ground strength). The rest are Energy Surges, a couple of combat tactics, and a Medbot (who can let you keep units in play after an invasion). There is also an optional pregame draft, in which players can replace one of their junk starting units with one of the 12 “Sector 0” cards (I’d recommend using this optional rule ASAP, probably starting with your second game).

The Turn

At the start of the turn, players draw up to a fixed hand size based on the sector the game is in (6 for most of the game, but it gets higher later), marks off a specified number of actions based on the sector you’re in, and generates energy. Energy is generated by the worlds in your tableau, with each player’s starting planet generating 3. Energy Surge tactics are also played now, generating an additional 1 energy by default, or 2 if anyone else is ahead of you in energy generation.
The cards available to be drafted are then dealt out to the Central Zone from the appropriate sector deck. The Central Zone will be filled up with at least 2X + 2 cards, where X is the number of players (the rulebook just tells you how many cards, of course). There must be at least X world cards and at least X non-world cards (you keep dealing until you get there, if you don’t hit the required number during the initial deal). If it is the first turn, then the starting Central Zone will have been empty. On later turns, there will be some number of cards hanging around. Before new cards are dealt, each returning card that has an energy token on it is discarded, and what’s left gets an energy token – so Central Zone cards will only be available for two turns, and there’s an added bonus for grabbing a card that didn’t get snatched on the prior turn.

The Action Phase is the heart of the game. The players take turns taking actions, until everyone has passed. Going first can be a big advantage, because it gives a player first crack at juicy targets (the fact that some players will go first more than others is why there are Energy Surge tokens to balance things out). In addition to playing select tactics cards, players can take one of three actions:

- Draft a Card: Pay 1 action and pay the draft cost of a unit or tactic. The drafted card goes into the discard pile.

- Deploy Units: Units cost 1 action to deploy per unit (multiple units can be deployed at once, they just chew up multiple allotted actions) and whatever the deploy cost listed on the card is.

- Invade: For 1 action and 1 energy, a player can attack one of the planets in the Central Zone. The player selects however many units as desired to invade the planet, and may play select tactics. If the total ground and fleet strength exceed the requirements on the planet, then it is conquered and added to the player’s tableau. The player may “colonize” the world by placing a Galactic Grunts or Snub Fighter under the world, thus thinning the deck. Other units that were used in the invasion go into the discard pile. They must be re-deployed before they can invade again.

After all players are done with the Action Phase, they discard their remaining energy and hand (each player may keep one card for the next turn). The first player marker passes to the left.

Ending the Game

The game ends after turn 10 (sector 5), and winning is based on victory points. They primary method of getting VP is the worlds in your tableau, and the biggest chunks are the Core Worlds, which only appear in sector 5. Most of the Core Worlds are worth variable VP, based on the composition of your deck, with most working out to around 8VP if you didn’t add cards of that sort. Sector 5 also features Prestige cards, which are cards that can be drafted and are worth 1-3 VP (they go straight into your tableau, unlike other cards that are drafted). Luxury Worlds from sector 4 can also be worth solid VP. In addition to worlds and prestige cards, some capital ships are worth VP – usually a small amount, but there’s one that can be worth 9VP!

Opinions/Judgment Calls

Core Worlds is, in my opinion, another strike against those who have written off the deck-building “genre,” and emphasizes again that deck-building (or dice-building, chip-building, etc.) is just a mechanic, not really a genre on its own. It sits somewhere in between Race for the Galaxy (a game that, itself, sometimes gets retroactively labeled a deck-building game, even though it doesn’t involve building a deck) and Thunderstone. Like Thunderstone, you have to choose between improving your deck or gaining VP. Like RFTG, you create a tableau, and also get to see a variety of new cards from a common deck as the game progresses.

Core Worlds has more inherent tactical depth than a “typical” deck-building game. Players must manage their resources carefully each turn, trying not to waste actions or energy, and relying on educated guesses about what they may need on the following turn to invade worlds. Players must also balance their development in the long-term. Primarily this means judging when to snag a planet versus when to draft a unit, but also whether and if to focus on certain kinds of drafted cards in order to aim for big VP from a particular Core World in sector 5 (or to take advantage of individual cards that synergize well together). Players also have to carefully consider the resources that other players have available – each card in the Central Zone is a unique resource, and players can and will cut each other off from those resources. Early game, this means judging whether to draft a great unit (which may mean not being able to invade), or deploying units first (to ensure first crack at invading the best available world). Late game, this can mean paying enough attention to opponents’ decks to known which Core Worlds they have the best shot at taking out or getting the most out of – and then snatching one of those Core Worlds first.

To toss in a little more “there is no such thing as a deck-building genre” rant (even though Core Worlds has already been frequently described as “more than a deck-building game”), let me note that these problems are classic resource management ones – how do you balance your resources now, how do you develop your resources in a way to maximize your chances in later turns, and how can you prevent your opponents from getting resources. Really, although the shuffling of cards means that there’s more randomness than a traditional eurogame permits, Core Worlds could be labeled as a thematic eurogame, if one so chose. But, back to the game . . .

To me, at least, the most defining aspect of Core Worlds is the 10-turn clock, around which everything in the game revolves – how many cards you get, how many actions, and how good the cards are. There is no slow build-up at your own pace – the game is going to advance whether you are caught up or not. This clock drives all of your plans, and drives the pace at which your resource access expands, taking the place of a more organic development that has most often been seen in other games that use the deck-building mechanic. If you’re used to the way that other deck-building games have really explosive endings, when your deck has finally built up to its combo-tastic peak, the pacing of Core Worlds may require a little adjustment – you may find yourself always feeling like you could have just justacouplemoreturns of build-up.
More ways to get rid of your junk cards might help but, alas, colonizing is really the only way to do it (and can’t get rid of the less-than-amazing starting Tactics). Since the game is relatively quick in number of turns, your deck doesn’t inflate the early filler away either.

In sum, Core Worlds demonstrates another way that the deck-building mechanic can be incorporated with other longstanding game mechanics to make an interesting final product. Although not a heavy strategy game by any stretch, Core Worlds may be much more interesting for the strategy-minded gamer than something like Dominion.The deck-building mechanic is still in its infancy, and most of the games that make use of it are pretty straightforward – I know what the right plays are after a game or two, if that. Core Worlds definitely did not fall into that category.