Projects – Page 74

Quarriors! Quarmageddon

Designer: Mike Elliott and Eric M. Lang
Publisher: WizKids Games
Date Released: 2012

Number of Players: 2-4
Age Range: 14 and up
Setup Time: less than 10 minutes
Play Time: 15-25 minutes

Game Mechanics:
Deck/Pool Building
Dice Rolling
Variable Player Powers

Game flow:
The first expansion to the popular dice pool building game Quarriors!. I won’t go into too much detail with the game flow, but if you want to read more about Quarriors!, here’s our review.

In short, players start off with a small pool of basic dice which begin the game in their dice bag. On your turn, you blindly pull six dice from your dice bag and roll the dice you pulled. Some die faces give you quiddity (currency), while others allow you to play creatures or cast spells. You score a certain amount of glory (indicated on the creature’s card) at the beginning of your turn. The first person to the glory requirement (different for how many players are playing in a game) wins.

Review:
Quarriors! Quarmageddon adds to the list of overpowered creatures from the base game, and that’s a good thing. There were far too many creatures that dominated the base game and the spells were standard issue that the game needed some fresh blood.

The two spells are lovely. Oblation earns you glory fast, but it usually does it at a price, while the Discriminating line of spells has some wild and wonderful effects. You can control your dice pool or even capture a new die for free. Free is always good.

As for the creatures, you have a lot of dragon and wizard killers. The Troll can target upper level creatures and can reduce the effectiveness of your opponents’ creatures. But the Lord dice can counter the troll and other heavy hitting creatures and spells—like the death spell. The Gnome’s a nice mid-level creature, but his abilities are usually difficult to execute, while the Imp mid-level that uses the seldom used cull ability. I can see players using this to get rid of the chaff in their dice pool. However, I like the Seraph almost as much as the Troll. She feeds into the Oblation and Discriminating group of spells to double their effect.

The only problem I see is that there’s a focus on upper level creatures in this set. Sure, the base game had a shortage of upper level creatures, but I would’ve liked to have seen at least one nice addition to the low-level creature pool. You can win by collecting a lot of little guys, but it looks like the creative team forgot that when adding creatures to Quarmageddon.

Verdict: Quarmageddon is a nice addition to the Quarriors! line overall (especially, with the new spells, the Seraph, and the Troll), but the game needs a little more variety with its low-level creatures.

Quiz Answers: Timeline Holiday Movies 1

Do you like Jack Frost nipping at your nose or chestnuts roasting on an open fire? Let’s see how well you know your holiday movies.

All 6 correct) You’re living a charmed life, and you’re wonderful.

4-5 correct) You may have scarlet fever, but it’s a better look for the holidays.

2-3 correct) Yes. There is a Santa Claus, but he’s going to jail.

0-1 correct) You got kidnapped and now you’re trapped by gigantic toy soldiers. Their guns can’t hurt. Can they?

Timeline: Holiday Movies 1

Marvel Dice Masters: Avengers vs X-Men

Designer: Mike Elliott and Eric M. Lang
Publisher: WizKids Games
Date Released: 2014

Number of Players: 2
Age Range: 14 and up
Setup Time: less than 5 minutes
Play Time: about 15 minutes

Game Mechanics:
Deck/Pool Building
Dice Rolling
Variable Player Powers

Game flow:
Take the popular dice pool building mechanic of Quarriors! and marry it with a collectible game. I won’t go into too much detail with the game flow as Marvel Dice Masters reimplements the game mechanics of Quarriors!. If you want to read more about Quarriors!, here’s our review.

In short, players start off with a small pool of basic dice which begin the game in their dice bag. On your turn, you blindly pull six dice from your dice bag and roll the dice you pulled. Some die faces give you energy (currency), while others allow you to play heroes or perform heroic actions. Your heroes deal damage to your opponent’s heroes on your turn (there are variable attack and health numbers for each hero), and then you can purchase a new hero from a group of heroes at your disposal (in the case of Marvel Dice Masters, these unique heroes are ones you pull from expansion packs).

But Marvel Dice Masters differs from Quarriors! because each player has a health of ten. You can block attacks with your in-play heroes (hero dice), but if you don’t have in-play heroes, you accept any damage your opponent throws at you. You win if you get your opponent to zero health.

Review:
I’m on the fence with Marvel Dice Masters: Avengers vs X-Men. It uses the game mechanics of Quarriors! well. In fact, I enjoy the small tweaks they made so the game would work as a collectible game, but I’m not sure if I’m up for a collectible dice experience when Quarriors! delivers the same game for a set cost. Quarriors! costs you twenty to thirty dollars once or twice a year. Collectible games cost a lot more than that if you want to be competitive.

You also use the same dice for each version of a hero, so if you picked up one rare Wolverine and four common Wolverines, you can use the one rare card that came with the rare Wolverine for all five dice regardless of dice’s rarity. While I see the practicality in having all the dice of a character look alike, it defeats the purpose of a collectible game. With a collectible card game, you’d have to pull five copies of the rare Wolverine.

Then there’s a small issue of some heroes having abilities that don’t match their comic book counterparts. Mr. Fantastic has mad defensive skills, but it’s Invisible Woman who can project force fields. I can see Stretcho as a defensive hero, but he’d work better as a tactician who gets you more dice draw, mimicking his high intelligence.

And it’s the Fantastic Four who prove the most problematic team. There are four teams that dice belong to: Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Villains. Currently, there’s no bonus for playing with members of the same team, but I could see that as an upcoming feature. Why would you assign heroes and villains to groups if you didn’t have bonuses for having teammate heroes and villains in your dice pool? The first release focuses on the Avengers and X-Men, so there aren’t a lot of Fantastic Four dice. Fair enough. But the next release is called “X-Men” and the one after that is “Age of Ultron.” At this pace, there won’t be any significant Fantastic Four dice until November or December of 2015.

I know I’ve had a lot of negatives about this game, but it is fun and shows promise.

Verdict: A shaky start to a fun game that’s a happy marriage of Magic and Quarriors!.

Strange Games 4

Are ready for our fourth week of strange games? We thought so. Can you tell which of these games with their premise are real and which ones are phony?

Vasectomy
Don’t cut the wrong tube.

Dynamite Shack
Kids shove sticks of dynamite into a shed before the shed explodes.

Globbo!
Explode children in an alien playpen at the behest of a cheerful homicidal baby-sitter.

Leaping Lemmings
You play as scientists trying to see whose genetically engineered lemmings will jump off a cliff with the most style. You get bonus points if your lemming sticks the landing.

Vanilla Ice Electronic RAP Game
Word to your mother.

Hammer Time
You see how many plastic dolls you can hammer into a single pair of parachute pants.

Quiz Answers: Strange Games 4

Dynamite Shack

Kids shove sticks of dynamite into a shed before the shed explodes.

Globbo!

Explode children in an alien playpen at the behest of a cheerful homicidal baby-sitter.

Leaping Lemmings

You play as scientists trying to see whose genetically engineered lemmings will jump off a cliff with the most style. You get bonus points if your lemming sticks the landing.

Vanilla Ice Electronic RAP Game

Word to your mother.

Spotlight: GloomWeaver

First Appearance: Sentinels of the Multiverse: Infernal Relics
Who he is: The living nightmare of the Multiverse
Initial Side: Nightmare Walker
Innate Power (Initial Side): At the start of the villain turn, if there are 3 villain relics in the villain trash, the heroes win. Whenever a cultist is destroyed, search the villain trash for a zombie card and put it into play.
Advanced Power (Initial Side): GloomWeaver is immune to melee and projectile damage.
Villain Cards that Begin Game in Play: (H)—where H is equal to the number of heroes—zombie cards.
How he flips to his other side: When there are three villain relics in play.
Nemesis: NightMist
Second Side: Demon-God Incarnate

Innate Power (Second Side): When flipped to this side, GloomWeaver regains (H) times 10 HP. Whenever a cultist is destroyed, search the villain trash for a zombie card and put it into play. At the end of the villain turn, GloomWeaver deals X toxic damage to the (H) minus 1 hero targets with the highest HP, where X = the number of voodoo pins in play plus 2.
Advanced Power (Second Side): At the end of the villain turn, GloomWeaver deals (H) infernal damage to the hero target with the lowest HP.

Most Fiendish Ongoing Card: Strength of the Grave: Increase damage dealt by zombies by X, where X = the number of zombies in play. Reduce damage dealt to zombies by 1.
Most Fiendish One-Shot Card: Vast Following: Shuffle the villain trash and reveal the top (H) cards. Put any revealed cultists and relics into play. Put the other revealed cards back in the trash. Play the top card of the villain deck.
Most Fiendish Villain Target Card: Pouch of Bones (25 HP): Reduce damage dealt to zombies by 1. Whenever a zombie enters play, each villain target regains (H) HP.

How to Defeat GloomWeaver: You may have read the alternate way for the heroes to win—have all three relics in the villain trash—and think that you may want to try and win that way. It’s not that easy. First, all relics have 25HP apiece, so they don’t go down easily. Second, they have nasty abilities that force your attention elsewhere. Finally, Vast Following can get relics out of the villain trash which dashes your hopes of winning. Even with all those obstacles I’ve still won this way, but I held my breath when Vast Following came into play the turn before I was going for the final blow.

You’ll probably want to win the traditional way: take out GloomWeaver himself. To do this, you won’t want any zombies in play. They don’t have too much HP, so it’s not difficult to take them out, but a lot of the other cards play off of how many zombies are in play. Voodoo pins aren’t any fun either. They can cramp a hero’s style, but a lot of these aren’t so bad and some heroes can soak up damage from the ones that deal damage. I’d get rid of Indigo Pin though. This nasty pin discards a card from your hand at random.

The cultists are more annoying than anything else. Perhaps Chosen Disciple is the most problematic. She deals damage based on how many zombies are in play and she feeds her ability by flooding the field with zombies. Pouch of Bones gets the nod for most fiendish villain target because of its high HP, ability to make zombies even more annoying (and cultists because you may not want to destroy them and bring a zombie back into play), and the fact that its ability is the only one heroes can’t negate by discarding.

Ultimately, you’ll have to prioritize which cards to take out first. Not all of these will be out in play at once, but I’d start with Indigo Pin, Chosen Disciple, Zombies, Pouch of Bones, and then any other target that’s dealing you damage you can’t or don’t want to soak before taking on the big man himself. And if you have an opening for winning by taking out all three relics, go for it.

Spotlight: The Ennead

First Appearance: Sentinels of the Multiverse: Infernal Relics
Who they are: The Multiverse’s version of ancient Egypt’s gods with the exception of The Mighty Ra—he’s a hero
Note: This is Sentinels of the Multiverse’s first attempt at a super villain team. There are nine members in the team overall and they start face-up beneath The Shrine of Ennead. When play begins you put villain cards in play equal to the number of heroes in play. Then, there are cards that put more villains in play. We’ll cover each villain separately.
Villain Cards that Begin Game in Play: The Shrine of Ennead: Whenever a villain target would be destroyed, flip it over instead. This card and all cards beneath this card are indestructible and cannot be removed from the play area by any means.
How they flip to their other side: When they get reduced to 0 or fewer HP.
Nemesis: The Mighty Ra

Meet the Ennead
Atum (30 HP): (Active Side) The first time an (ankh symbol) card is put into the villain trash each turn, reveal cards from the top of the villain deck until a (bullseye symbol) card is revealed. Play that card. Shuffle the other revealed cards back into the villain deck.
(Incapacited Side) At the start of the villain turn, shuffle the villain trash into the villain deck.

Tefnut (29 HP): (Active Side) The first time a (hand symbol) card is put into the villain trash each turn, this card deals the hero target with the lowest HP 2 melee damage.
(Incapacited Side) At the start of the villain turn, each player discards 1 card.

Shu (24 HP): (Active Side) This card is immune to melee and projectile damage. The first time a (bullseye symbol) or (hand symbol) card is put into the villain trash each turn, each non-hero target regains 1 HP.
(Incapacited Side) At the start of the villain turn, play the top card of the environment deck.

Isis (26 HP): (Active Side) The first time a (hand symbol) or (ankh symbol) card is put into the villain trash each turn, this card deals the hero with the most cards in play 2 infernal damage.
(Incapacited Side) At the start of the villain turn, discard the top (H)—where H = the number of heroes—cards of each hero deck.

Geb (32 HP): (Active Side) The first time a (hand symbol) card is put into the villain trash each turn, this card deals the 2 non-villain targets with the highest HP 2 melee damage each.
(Incapacited Side) At the start of the villain turn, each player puts the top card of their hero deck on the bottom of their hero deck.

Nephthys (28HP): (Active Side) The first time a (hand symbol) card is put into the villain trash each turn, this card deals each hero target 1 fire damage. The first time an (ankh symbol) card is put into the villain trash each turn, each villain target regains 1 HP.
(Incapacited Side) At the start of the villain turn, each villain target regains 1 HP.

Osiris (27 HP): (Active Side) The first time an (ankh symbol) card is put into the villain trash each turn, each player discards 1 card and each hero deals themselves 1 psychic damage.
(Incapacited Side) At the start of the villain turn, destroy the target with the lowest HP, other than a character card.

Nuit (28 HP): (Active Side) Reduce damage dealt to villain targets other than Nuit by 1. The first time a (bullseye symbol) card is put into the villain trash each turn, Nuit regains 2 HP.
(Incapacited Side) At the start of the villain turn, shuffle the environment trash into the environment deck.

Set (26 HP): (Active Side) The first time a (bullseye symbol) card is put into the villain trash each turn, play the top card of the villain deck. The first time a (hand symbol) card is put into the villain trash each turn, this card deals each hero target 1 lightning damage.
(Incapacited Side) At the start of the villain turn, play the top card of each deck in turn order, starting with the villain deck.

Most Fiendish Ongoing Card: The Shrine of the Ennead: Whenever a villain target would be destroyed, flip it over instead. This card and all cards beneath this card are indestructible and cannot be removed from the play area by any means.
Most Fiendish One-Shot Card: Rise to Power: Move the top card from beneath the Shrine of the Ennead into the villain play area. Play the top card of the villain deck.

How to Defeat The Ennead:
You will have to fight all nine members of The Ennead unless you have Visionary and a few others like NightMist and Argent Adept who can manipulate the villain deck so it won’t draw into Rise to Power or Taste of Immortality. Both of those cards put a new member of The Ennead into play. Of course if you’re playing advanced mode, you won’t even have this option because a new villain enters the play area at the start of every villain turn, so let’s just say you’ll have to beat all of The Ennead. The key to defeating The Ennead is knowing which villain to take out first.

Their active sides can give you a pounding, but don’t fixate too much on that side of their cards. Check out their incapacited abilities, since these abilities will be around longer. Nephthys, Tefnut, Isis, and Set have some of the most disruptive abilities on their incapacited sides. Tefnut has each player discard. That’s not good. Nephthys heals all non-hero targets. You don’t want that either. Isis discards a lot of cards off the top of players’ decks. This can disrupt your flow especially if you know what your next cards are. But Set could go either way. He plays the top card of every deck. This isn’t necessarily bad, but you may want to hold off on him. At any rate, consider taking out Tefnut, Nephthys, Isis, and Set last.

Then, there are the villains whose incapacited abilities don’t hurt you that much: Nuit, Geb, and Shu. Shu plays the top card of the environment deck—unless you’re playing a particularly nasty environment, no problem. Geb messes with your hero deck and that can be tricky, but unless you know what’s on the top of your deck, his ability doesn’t hurt you that much. Nuit’s ability doesn’t hurt much either unless you’re playing an environment deck with a lot of targets in it. You’ll want to take out these guys early on, but there’s one villain you should start with if you can.

Atum’s incapacited ability can actually help the heroes. He shuffles the villain trash into the villain deck. If you don’t already have all The Ennead in play, he makes it less likely that more villain cards will get played. Of course, this is a moot point if you’re playing advanced mode. Still, his ability doesn’t hinder the team.

Finally, we come to the last villain Osiris. He would be included in the villains whose incapacited abilities don’t hurt you that much except that he can screw up Unity’s mojo. So long as you don’t have a hero—like Unity—who depends on smaller hero targets staying in play, Osiris isn’t that difficult either and should be taken down early too.

This is just a guideline. Every game plays differently, so you may want to study the incapacited abilities of each villain and consider which heroes are in play before targeting.

Jim’s Week in Comics: December 17, 2014

Hey, folks. This week has been all about Batman for me. Batman/Superman has been introducing a new enemy for Superman. The interesting thing is that it’s a Joker-style villain, someone who is psychologically imbalanced beyond diagnosis, and going after Superman through his connections. This really allows Batman to come through and shine a light on a type of evil that Supes hasn’t traditionally needed to confront. It’s entertaining to read, and a creative way to explore the relationship between Batman and Superman.

Also building on the relationship between Bats and Supes was this month’s Justice League. With the rest of the league out of commission, Clark and Bruce are left to track down patient zero for the Amazo virus. This is another issue that doesn’t do very much to move the plot forward, but the characterization keeps it as an interesting read, and as has been the case with Justice League, we get some interesting looks at Lex Luthor. Pacing has always been a stumbling point for me in Geoff Johns’ writing, and that may become a problem for an otherwise solid story arc, but I think he’s done well to narrow his focus down to a few members of the League.

Finally, on the Batman front, Snyder and Capullo’s Batman built on the Endgame arc in some really satisfying ways. Snyder’s background in horror is really coming through in the way he writes The Joker, and Capullo’s art manages to say as much as the text on the page. Snyder takes some risk by getting as deep into Batman’s head as he does, and opinions may vary on how successful he is with it, but there can be no doubt that the Batman team is executing their vision, and if nothing else, it’s rewarding to read.

Breaking away from DC, I did pick up this month’s All New Captain America. I’ve always really liked Sam Wilson/Falcon as a character, and I think he’s being made to fit the role of Cap in a nice and believable way, but this issue is a little heavy on unneeded exposition and origin. I’d go so far as to say the depiction of Sam’s father’s murder was uncomfortably close to DC’s depiction of the Wayne murders. In fact, Sam’s dad’s dying words, “It’s not what you do in life that matters. It’s the evil we don’t confront that defines us,” was a borderline steal of the Bruce/Rachel exchange from Batman Begins: “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.” Maybe it’s all just a question of wording and syntax, but I think Marvel needs to be much more careful than this, especially when they’re inserting an established character into a different, established role. They’re already in the red there where originality is concerned. With all that said, Sam is a great character, and this is an entertaining book so far.

Spotlight: Akash’Bhuta

First Appearance: Sentinels of the Multiverse: Infernal Relics
Who she is: A mountain of a nature based antagonist
Initial Side: Chaos-Bound Creator
Innate Power (Initial Side): Whenever an environment target enters play, play the top card of the villain deck. Whenever a villain target enters play, discard the top card of the environment deck.
Advanced Power (Initial Side): Reduce damage dealt to villain targets by 1.

Villain Cards that Begin Game in Play: None
How she flips to her other side: When the environment trash is shuffled into the environment deck. This can happen more than once in a game.
Nemesis: The Argent Adept
Second Side: Avatar of Destruction

Innate Power (Second Side): Whenever an environment target is destroyed, play the top card of the villain deck. Whenever a villain target is destroyed, discard the top card of the environment deck.
Advanced Power (Second Side): At the end of the villain turn, Akash’Bhuta deals the (H) where H is equal to the number of heroes minus 1 non-villain targets with the highest HP 3 melee damage each.

Most Fiendish Ongoing Card: Entomb: At the start of the villain turn, Akash’Bhuta deals all non-villain targets (H) psychic damage. If all active heroes take damage this way, destroy this card.
Most Fiendish One-Shot Card: Rejuvenating Entropy: Destroy (H) equipment cards. Restore all environment targets and primeval limbs to their max HP.
Most Fiendish Villain Target Card: Living Rockslide (10 HP): At the end of the villain turn, this card deals each non-villain target (H) minus 2 projectile damage. When this card is destroyed, Akash’Bhuta deals herself 10 energy damage.

How to Defeat Akash’Bhuta: Even though Akash’Bhuta has a lot of hit points—the most in the game with 200—you’ll want to concentrate most, if not all your attacks, on other villain targets. Whenever Living Rockslide, Ensnaring Brambles, Arboreal Phalanges, and Mountainous Carapace leave play, they deal damage to Akash’Bhuta, so you get a two for one scenario with this lot. Entomb isn’t too bad of an ongoing card, but you can’t have any hero (like NightMist or Visionary) avoiding or redirecting damage or else it’s a death sentence for any other hero. Akash’Bhuta’s one-shots all have global effects that are pretty good, but you can’t avoid these. Outside of canceling discard effects, you have no other recourse. You should avoid heroes that rely on equipment and ongoing cards.