Heap
2-4
10+
30
Heap is a 2-4-player game of fast and furious action with a dash of hilarious fun and goblin mayhem. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where warring gangs of goblin bodgers fight over the wreckage of great battles to find new parts for their motley fleets of deadly motor vehicles.
Sites of the largest and most extended battles draw the biggest and baddest gangs to the heaps of burned vehicle husks and discarded ordnance with their hearts set on hauling away enough useful salvage to fortify their power. The bodgers who can assemble the most impressive collection of maniacal machines and drive off the rival gangs in their area will claim the rest of the scrap for themselves.
images © Privateer Press
User Reviews (3)
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At its core, Heap does not require a whole lot of brainpower, nor does it allow for too terribly much strategy. That said, the game is a great way to pass half an hour.
The game requires players to build up their four vehicles in the hopes of being the first player to attach three items to all of their vehicles. This is done through a “bodge” round in which each player can attach up to two parts and affect other players or themselves in various ways.
Next comes the rush stage where players choose a vehicle to head to the heap, duke it out with other players, while trying to defend against other players’ attacks. The vehicle players choose will have certain effects in this round based on what the player attached.
After the rush round, players may take parts they hauled and attach them to their vehicles. Once a player has attached three parts to all of his or her vehicles, the players enter the Pileup round. This is basically a re-hash of the rush round with more cards. The only difference is that the only time a vehicle can use an ability is if it is in Turbo (which means it had three parts before the pileup).
The victor in the pileup wins the game. Not too much to it, but it is a nice quick game for all ages.
I played a demo game at GENCON, and felt it was a fun, casual game that relied too much on luck. But then we got to the “last turn” mechanics, where the winner was decided…and frustration took away the fun.
You build up 4 vehicles with parts from the Heap (the deck) and you compete (race) to get those parts by attacking and defending one of three colors, with a few exceptions. For example, I play a card that Defends against Green, Yellow or Red and then attacks against one of those colors. The next person either has the right color Defense, or he is out of the race.
That isn’t really the part that bothers me though. The vehicles have a normal side to them, and a Turbo side that might be able to flip to on the last turn. The last turn starts when the first player gets 3 parts on all 4 of his vehicles. You get to flip to the Turbo side if you have been able to attach 3 parts to that vehicle.
Then, you discard all parts on all vehicles and discard your hand! Yep, the whole game up to that point was just practice, apparently. You draw a new starting hand and have one more race, hopefully with 4 Turbo vehicles. But then again, the Turbo side isn’t much better than the normal side. And since you no longer have any gear on your vehicles, it’s much weaker. So not only do you have to start over on the last race, it’s possible that everything you did the whole game is totally wasted.
If you like the theme and the look of the cards, you can play without the last turn, or even without the Turbo cards. But as it was taught to us, it’s an exercise in futility and disappointment.
I played a Demo at Gencon and really enjoyed the game. It is almost a combination of the old Car Wars Card Game and War. The game is relatively fast and plays well with 4 players. There were a few odd rules, but the person running the demo was running 3 different groups at the same time, so I am sure we got a few things wrong and I would love to try it again.
Players play cards from their hand each round to add some items to their vehicles [Each card dictates what vehicle can have the item on it]. These cards can boost your ability to draw more cards, get freebies at the end of each round and also to battle the other players for teh choice selections from the Heap!
I can see this game may get redundant after several plays, but I can not imagine it ever losing its appeal altogether.