Astrolingus

A great expansion to an already fun game!

1)The panda is a fun new character to play

2) The addition of Evolution is AWESOME!
a)It ups the fun factor a bunch: everyone wants to evolve and discover new powers and cool effects.
b) It adds more depth to your character. Earlier, it was all basically cosmetic as to which monster you took. Now you see that one character is all about fighting, another likes getting energy etc.
c) It makes the gameplay more interesting: you can combo your powers and you need to watch out for your enemies’ powers
d)It adds more choice for the player: in one suggested rule variant, you get to partially pick which evolutions to get: this addsa another strategic layer to the game, and makes it feel less random.

Highly recommend it!

If you like chaotic dice-rolling and destroying cities as a giant monster (and who wouldn’t?) this is a great game! If you prefer deep, strategic games, I’d give this one a miss…

1) It’s great thematically: you get to pick a giant monster and stomp around Tokyo. You can purchase extra power-ups (heat vision, or a tentacle, or even a “Plot Twist” which are fun and sometimes hilarious in terms of artwork and title.

2) Gameplay is pretty random, since it’s based mainly on dice-rolling, but you get to think a little in terms of which dice you want to reroll and which you want to keep

3) I only have two issues:
a) You don’t know how long the game will take. It may be short and sweet or drag for an hour.
b) A player can be eliminated really quickly, and then they get bored sitting around as the others drag out the game.

Otherwise, a fun, casual game!

I was excited to play my first Superhero-themed game and was sorely disappointed by DC Comics. I might check out the Marvel game and see if that’s any better…

1) Theme: the designers did a poor job integrating the theme to the mechanics. Why are the heroes spending punches and kicks to buy new gear and powers? Are we beating up other heroes and taking their stuff? Why are villains being recruited into our party after we beat them?

2) The mechanics are unoriginal: it’s a bad copy of other, better deck-building games (Dominion, Ascension etc.). Sure the super-villain and the super-hero powers are kinda novel, but not interesting enough to keep me engaged…

I wouldn’t replay this game and I tend to be generous in terms of ratings…

This expansion to Chaos in the Old World (COW) is great! It adds loads of new content and is super fun!

1) The addition of a fifth player. The Horned Rat is pretty unique! His scoring mechanic is different from all the others in that his cultists don’t place any corruption; instead, they sort-of steal it from the other gods. Nicely flavoured for a race of rat-men. (I love it when mechanics and flavour work well together!)

2) New spells and upgrades for each god. Apart from being fresh and exciting, this balances out the game a bit more, making it more strategic and giving players more to think about in terms of what their opponents are doing. Khorne might take ou by surprise and win with Victory points, for example… Also, while the first game’s upgrade cards had some clear winners, you’ll be scratching your head during upgrade selection with the expansion, because they’re ALL so useful…
NOTE: you cannot “mix and match” old and new upgrades and spells. Either you ALL play with the new set, or you ALL stick to the old one.

So a great expansion and my friends and I actually rarely play without using it!

One of of my current favourite boardgames! I gave it an 8/10, for a couple of problems that I’ve detailed below, and that it’s hard to find 4 players to play with (the game is NOT as much fun with fewer players).

First off: Theme. Honestly, playing a god of chaos powered by human emotion is, to quote a player, “friggin cool!”. Chaos in the Old World (COW) makes you feel like you’re slowly seeping the life out of the Warhammer world, unleashing hordes of demons and corrupting the people towards you. Kinda fun…

Components: Very nice components. Each Chaos God has some unique components which are gruesomely attractive. One thing: the cultists’ banners break off a lot, so you need to be careful with that. Also, COW would do well to emulate Mage Knight or Lords of Waterdeep, which have nice compartments for each type of piece. And some small, fiddly bits are a little annoying… However, the board and artwork is top-notch! Woo!

Gameplay:
1) While the first few rounds might be slow because of the rules complexity, the gameplay soon becomes pretty intuitive. Each player has the same core gameplay but vastly different styles, goals, units and spells (“Chaos Cards”). So if you get bored of playing one God, just change over the next time! to be fair though, I’m a narrative nut, and I tend to pick Gods based on flavour…
Also related to this: some people complain that some gods are overpowered. I disagree: while the expansion DOES make things more balanced (See my review), I have played many games of the original where different Gods have won…

2) You have to be DEEPLY aware of what other players are doing. Every move you make WILL hep someone and hinder someone else. This is also thematically cool, because it seems like the evil gods are always trying to out-evil each other. The game is a constant struggle between “Will this move help player X too much?”, “If I mess up player Y right now, will he be able to retaliate?” and “Who is least threatening right now and stands to gain the least from my move?”. I LOVE it; some games (even awesome ones like Dominion) have very little inter-player interaction, making it feel like a single-player game. COW is definitely an INTERACTION-HEAVY game.

3) Some games have a clear winner very early game. While this COULD happen in COW, it’s unlikely. At certain points, people will shoot forward, and the endgame is always very tense. On the other hand, I have often felt that the last round can be a kingmaker round, where two players are battling for supremacy and the other two just have to let someone win.

4) The random events (“Old World Cards”) are fun, but can sometimes cripple a single player. When that happens, it’s SUPER unsatisfying to be that player.

On the whole, an awesomely fun game! I’ve actually converted a few non-gamer people with it (Proves the old saying: “The Dark Side clouds everything…”).

Lords of Waterdeep (LOW) is a mechanically simple, but otherwise rich and satisfying game that takes 10 minutes to learn but gives an hour of enjoyment with each play-through.

I was initially surprised that a D&& themed Wizards of the Coast game could be so… UNLIKE D&D… Wrath of Ashardalon, for example, bored be after a few plays; LOW, however, keeps me coming back for more.

Thematically the game if pretty nifty. Who wouldn’t want to be a scheming politician in a fantasy city, wrangling to gain influence and control? You build and control important locations in the city of waterdeep, plot and scheme against your opponents, and recruit adventurers to go complete quest for you. You also don’t know EXAcTLY who the opposition is: each player has a secret scoring condition that only they know; you have to be observant to figure out what it is…

the game mechanics themselves are fun and intuitive. Basically it’s about two things:

1) Resource management: should you use up your three difficult-to-get wizards to complete a quest that gives you an ongoing, passive benefit, or should you save up for a quest that gets you a large victory point payoff? Players have to make decisions about how and when to spend what they have

2) Differential turns: players have to be on their toes and adapt their gameplay quickly, as turn order affects what subsequent players can do. Should you try and become the first player, giving up the chance to hire warriors now for a possible increased payoff later, or is it more important to try and hire adventurers as fast as possible right now?

Replayability is high: you’ll be a different Lord in each game with different secret goals and different quests and buildings will come up (which can substantially change the game, actually) leading to new tactics and strategies

Components are simple and nice. Nice wooden pieces reminiscent of Carcassone, a few elaborate cardboard pieces, nice art.

An easy-to-learn game that’s a big bang for your buck!

Ramenhotep seems to have given a nice summary of the game in his review, so I’ll stick to other impressions.

1)It’s a great game to play if you have a diverse group of people. I once played with two parents, their young (middle-school-age) children as well as some college friends, and everyone still had a blast.

2)It’s an awesome game to get people to join in the middle of play, especially if you’re playing non-competitively. I once started the game with 4-5 people, and ended with half my fraternity playing.

3)You feel a cool sense of accomplishment when you name obscure people with interesting characteristics.

4) It’s educational. I played it with a group of freshmen over orientation, and one of them said: “Wow, it’s actually hard to think of an Asian Scientist off the top of my head: shows what I know!”