Muller Corner

Before you read any further you should be aware that if you’re looking for a game with even the slightest hint of strategy, do not look here.

That being said, TotAN is a lot of fun. The Book of Tales is exquisitely written and clearly a lot of time went into it’s design. The sheer volume of possible outcomes to your decisions means you’re certain to have a different experience each time you play.

It’s a very accessible game, though for non-gamers it can seem daunting at first, with no real clue as to how to achieve the game-winning objective. A sequence of bad outcomes can easily cause a swift loss of interest for a new player believing they are losing through their own means, so it’s very important to stress that this game revolves around the developing stories of the characters you play. Once everyone is on board with this, the game is much more enjoyable.

Overall it’s a nice change to the norm, with TotAN unlikely to be similar to anything else you already own. The steep asking price if easily off-putting though, so before you commit make absolutely sure this one will be a hit with your gaming group!

… you don’t need any sort of understanding of the sport, or indeed Blood Bowl itself, to be able to enjoy this game.

As a British based gamer, this was a concern of mine, with American Football being something of a minority sport on these shores. However, having read nothing but glowing reports about Blood Bowl: Team Manager, I took the plunge and absolutely did not regret it!

The game involves playing through a season of Blood Bowl; a standard season generally involving two tournaments and two regular weeks, before a final showdown for the Blood Bowl trophy itself. From my experience with 4 players, allow around 2 hours for play.

Each player receives a team from one of the available fantasy races and a starting squad of generally quite poor players. The six available teams are varied enough to make playing with each feel like a fresh challenge but without massively changing gameplay or giving any player an advantage; players will no doubt have their favourites after a few plays but there’s no team that will always be left in the box.

The idea is to commit your players to different matchups to attempt to win the rewards available there. These rewards range from signing better players, to upgrading your team, to gaining fans (the main aim of the game). Again, there are plenty of star players available, each with different skills and abilities to crush your opponents.

As I’ve said, you really don’t need to be a leading NFL expert to lead your team to glory. Every player in the game has varying amounts of the four available skills: Cheating, Passing, Sprinting and Tackling. The Cheating skill is the only mandatory one, requiring you to add a Cheating Token to your player that is revealed at the end of the round, and could see him grasp victory from the jaws of defeat for your team or be sent off and ****** defeat when you looked certain to win. This is an excellent feature that adds unpredictability and a whole lot of tension!

After the Blood Bowl tournament, the player with the most fans is the winner.

For me, the best thing about the game is simply that it’s great fun. There’s a nice mind game element too; you know the guy to your left has just signed Griff Oberwald, but when is he going to play him? Where is he going to play him? Should you save your best player to try and stop him, or do you need him right now?

An excellent game, highly recommended.

I’m a big fan of the Legendary Asia map. To put it bluntly, it is absolutely brutal. As in Ticket to Ride: Europe, you receive 1 long route and 3 short routes to choose from. From my interpretation, the rulebook doesn’t specify that you must keep the long route (I may have overlooked it) but we decided as a house rule that this was a must. It just adds so much tension and makes every decision important.

The usual double route rules apply, but on this map you should expect to be blocked somewhere and have to work a way around. Particularly around Northern India, the cluster of small routes will be snapped up very quickly as everyone panics, but tries not to blink first and give themselves away (encouraging other players to block them). Being forced to use the mountain routes will drain your train supplies and force you to question whether you can really afford to gamble on extra tickets. The mountain routes do provide a points bonus though, to prevent them being too much of a handicap.

I’d recommend the box for this map alone, it’s great fun as you pray you won’t be the one with his head in his hands, wondering where all those blue cards you wanted had gone.

On the other side of the board, make sure to give the team game a try. I was sceptical at first but it’s grown on me and is a nice variant, and of course makes the game accessible to six players.

“Anyone fancy a game toni-”
“Dominion!”

Two months after introducing Dominion to a bunch of non-gamer friends at university, this is the usual reaction. It’s theme is easy to understand and it plays quickly, meaning a player with a poorly chosen strategy doesn’t have to sit for hours willing the game to end.

I think this game is at it’s best when played regularly with a group, and certainly get hold of a couple of expansions if you can. Different playing styles emerge that enhance the experience. One of our guys swears by one strategy and was very successful until the rest of us figured it out. Now, it’s fun to see whether or not we can beat him; sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t. Analysing the available cards and trying to find the best combination is always a nice challenge and the solution is often not the one you expected. Never mind, on to the next round with 10 totally different cards! The game has almost infinite re-playability if you simply enjoy playing it.