Angelo Porazzi's unique Warangel boardgame is one of the most richly realized fantasy worlds I've ever encountered in any medium. While giant fantasy tomes by Tolkien and GRR Martin give vast histories and big box fantasy games like Gloomhaven and Kingdom Death: Monster have tons of cards, tokens, and chits for your ever evolving party of adventurers (and also large rule books), the breadth of Porazzi's great fantasy wargame is realized by his creation of dozens and dozens of races and their respective homelands, each with wholly unique attributes that are lovingly detailed by creator's stylish artwork and quirky rules.
This game can be played with two people or three or more---each player moving pieces from his/her map/homeland through magical blue portals onto an opponent's homeland in an effort to claim resources. Each map is the ruined and often radioactive post apocalyptic analog of cities in our world and quite beautifully drawn in color by the creator.
The races--of which there are more than 100--are hugely varied in terms of their visuals as well as their personalities and abilities. A Tentaculate can emit ink from the bag on her head to hide herself. A Lion can roar to panic enemies. A Pirhanha Cyborg Warmachine can launch a harpoon and drag its enemy to drown in water. If fed by a Dwarf Cook, a Bomburper Dwarf can emit an improved "bomburp" to repel enemies with a nauseating stench. These are not generic fantasy archetypes, but wild, clever, and original creations. Additionally, each race has five species, all of which are unique, which means that there are more than 500 different creatures who can build your armies.
In Warangel, Porazzi has not assembled a trite group of fantasy warriors, he has wrought a highly variegated warring civilization.
Because of these many racial discrepancies, every game will play differently (and have need of occasional house rules). Odd match ups will occur: Porks may ride their Warthogs through swamps, fleeing from flying Dragonwomen who use their air screams to attempt to paralyze their porcine foes...
The combat that ensues (via flipping tokens for successes/hits) and the story that this conflict generates stimulate my imagination like Cave Evil and Cave Evil: Warcults, which feel like the complex, necro kult cousins of Warangel. (All are great games and recommended.)
Thank you Angelo Porazzi for this fertile, radioactive and gorgeously weird fantasy world. I intend to visit this realm and battle for peace quite often...
Dungeoneer: Tomb of the Lich Lord
Dungeoneer is smartly done and really enjoyable, though an undervalued boardgame on many sites, possibly because it does not come with heaps of pretty toys (read: minis) like so many fantastical fightfests (eg. Zombicide, which I didn't like at all, and Gloomhaven, which I think is pretty good (6.5) but irritating to set up/take down and has a very unfortunate "kill everything" mandate--if I just wanna battle, I'd rather play a strategically deep war game like Advanced Squad Leader or Panzergruppe Guderian). And mechanically, Dungeoneer is quite confrontational between players--there are many clutch "take that!" moments, which may alienate some players who are co-op/solo oriented.
For me Dungeoneer > Gloomhaven, 7th Continent, Gloom of Kilforth, Hand of Doom, Zombicide, Dungeonquest, Talisman, Space Hulk, Lord of the Rings Card Game, One Deck Dungeon, and many others.
Dungeoneer players alternate turns as the dungeonlord/monster hurler so the monster intelligence IS intelligent. For me, this is a BIG part of it's success--the vacillating role of each player as hero and GM and the certain knowledge that the monsters will take advantage of the reckless adventurer.
Generally speaking this is a clever dungeon crawler that focuses on quests, adventuring/exploration, character modification, resource management, and battle. Leveling up occurs quickly, altering playing styles, and during the course of a game (approx. 40-60 minutes for 2 players), characters will explore rooms, escorts prisoners, take skill tests, alter the shape of the dungeon, challenge other players, fight monsters, deal with traps, boost skills, build a pack of monsters, and do many other things.
Like a miniaturized and confrontational variable-map version of the great Runebound (3rd), Dungeoneer gives players more goals and variety and choices than the "kill everything!" hack 'n slash-style fantasy games, and the ultimate experience is a rich adventure, a memorable story, and very exciting (aprrox.) one hour experience, especially when a player embarks upon his/her 3rd quest or runs low on life...
That so much memorable and creative adventure comes in two decks of cards rather than a 20 pound box of stuff is to be applauded.
Cave Evil: Warcults
Warcults is a brilliant standalone fantasy wargame that may be used as a companion to the masterful Cave Evil, and joins its exalted necro brother as my all-time favorite board game ever. Whereas Cave Evil is a resource management and dungeon crawling fantasy experience with war game conflicts, Warcults feels more like a thematically unique and strategically dense wargame with exploration, weird fantasy, and resource management mechanics. I feel Warcults is better balanced than Cave Evil, where sometimes the chance Necromancer and a fortunate early draw can result in an instant blow out or major disadvantage. I enjoy playing both the full campaign and also a single map with the preselected teams chosen by the designers.
Warcults immediately leaps into strategically deep playing on turn 1. Cave Evil is more atmospheric and focuses more on cards and team building, whereas Warcults is strategically gripping from the start and then uses the theme to result in combats that could never occur anywhere else and a near limitless variety of possible attacks and combinations. The paths to advance the Commanders and Warlord and the species attributes also add a great RPG flavor and substantially grow one's attachment to their chits. My Black Abyssal Bear wore an Evil Hat and my foe was saved (repeatedly) by a Cave Potato, and in another game, I killed my foe's Warlord very early, and he was unable to call for reinforcements.
Few games play this enjoyably while telling such rich, dark, funny, and weird stories, and the art--by Mat Brinkman and others--is incomparably moody and terrific.
Bravo, designers--I'm really looking forward to exploring the full depths of this eldritch creation!
2019-04-13
Psycho Raiders
Rating: 8.5
Pyscho Raiders is another great triumph from game designers Nate Hayden and artist extraordinaire Mat Brinkman, who also created the magnificent necro-brawl Cave Evil.
This time the self-styled Emperors of Eternal Evil have made a slasher movie experience in a chrome-laden wargame format, and the result is the most intensely thematic boardgame that I have ever played. The oppressive atmosphere is especially heavy when you are playing the victims...ahem, campers...who are very underpowered in their asymmetrical match against the inexorable pack of masked killers. The latter may be armed with a chain that has a spikes at the end or a primitive mace or a flamethrower. The campers (victims) might have a crowbar or a stick.
One many reasons Psycho Raiders is far, far better than its closest comparison Camp Grizzy is that Psycho Raiders is very open in terms of terrain and actions--this is a quite large hex grid like the kind found in wargames with varied terrains and applicable modifiers. The actions are also widely varied: Characters can run, (attempt to) hotwire vehicles, ram a van into a car, hold a person still so that a flanking character can lovingly apply a blow torch, blow up a gas pump, conceal themselves in the bathroom to regain their composure, scream for help, and hide, which is implemented in a very clever "fog of war"-style multiple chit mechanic. Other great ideas are the town events--like weather changes that alter visibility--and the townsfolk, whose alliances and helpfulness will be unclear to the fleeing victims. And the ubiquitous blackness of the components and primitive brilliance of Brinkman's art only heighten the grim mood.
The vast array of choices/actions present herein compare to those of a sandbox game--Grand Theft Auto turned into a slasher horror movie--but since the goals are so immediate, defined, and desperate, there's no time for dallying. Every action counts and death comes swiftly.
Terrific!
Target Iran
Rating: 7
An enjoyable and atypical solitaire game of modern/near future warfare and technological domination with lots of chrome and specificity for something that was made for a magazine. The question in this Joseph Miranda design is not so much if the U.S. and select cohorts will succeed in destroying targets, but at what cost and with what manner of efficiency such an operation can be undertaken.
In addition to success being defined by the price of oil at game end, the hyperwar details of crashing computer systems and sending self-guided missiles and uncovering targets is nifty. Most of the charts are on the map, which is appreciated, and the sequence shifting from a variable amount of resource building/recon to a long multiple stage tactical operation is also interesting.
Although there is less tension in this wargame than many--and a bit too much repetition in spots--Target:Iran is a memorable and different cardboard combat experience.