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Review: Quartermaster General: 1914

Quinns: It can be lonely reviewing games by yourself. Matt and Paul might be at the Game Developer’s Conference, but I have a solution!

Matt’s head made from papier-mâché: that’s because you’re great quinns

Quinns: Ha ha, you flatter me! Let’s get down to business, Matt.

Matt’s head made from papier-mâché: i love business

Quinns: Today we’re reviewing Quartermaster General 1914, the third (and most highly-rated) entry in the Quartermaster General series. Like Memoir ‘44, these games might look like stodgy wargames, but don’t be fooled! 1914 is a tricky, playful card game that lets you get stuck into the drama and anxiety of WAR without having to measure any distances or frown at charts.

Now, our site has said over and over again that there aren’t enough team-based board games –

Matt’s head made from papier-mâché: oh goodness no, nowhere near enough

Quinns: Don’t speak, you’re getting flakes of glue on the table. So team play is exactly what the Quartermaster General series is all about. In our case, 1914 is a five player game where three frail players take on two wealthy ones. It’s a tremendously exciting hook, and we’re just getting started.

Quartermaster General: 1914 is the next title in the critically acclaimed Quartermaster General series by Ian Brody and creates a narrative of the First World War in Europe, reflecting the military, technological, and social changes that occurred over the following four years.

In Quartermaster General: 1914, each card has two different uses: one when played, and another when prepared. On your turn, you have the opportunity to both play and prepare a card. You can also spend cards to draft more troops, or use cards to attrition your opponents. However, your deck represents your overall resources, so moving too quickly through your deck early might result in your unsupported armies being swept away in the final rounds of the game. This is worth it if you can capture Berlin or Paris in 1915, but if your gambit fails, you may have a tough road ahead.

The game ends after 17 rounds of play, or earlier if one side has a commanding lead.

Pip: When living with a fellow board game enthusiast you have the benefit of a ready-made companion for cardboard adventures – HOORAY! – but you also start to realise that, for a lot of games that say they’re for 2-to-however-many-players on the side, there’s this disproportionately large leap in enjoyment between the two-player version and the three-or-more-player outings.

Robo Rally might be the ultimate illustration of this. With three people it’s a rambunctious clusterpickle of robots and conflicting agendas where your neatly programmed sequence of moves gets nudged hilariously and disastrously off course. With two we ended up trying to house-rule it so we could ginger up the experience and keep our momentum. Quinns informs me that SU&SD is all about reviewing board games in their favoured conditions, though, so consider this a review of Robo Rally the beloved 3-6 player omnishambles, and not Robo Rally the 2 player compromise-simulator.

Quinns: Good morning sweet shut-upsters! Today is the start of a very solitary couple of weeks on the site. Paul and Matt have gone overseas to run our board game lounge at the yearly Game Developer’s Conference, and then they’re making a top-secret visit to a board game publisher. Like a lighthouse keeper I will be maintaining a lonely vigil. And maybe talking to myself and going a bit mad. We’ll see.

Speaking of maddening things, our top story this week is the above header image that was tweeted by BoardGameGeek. Looks boring, eh? WELL, you’re actually looking at a prototype of Monolith’s next project, Batman: The Board Game, and judging from the dice and stamina crystals it’ll be an evolution of Conan, a miniatures game that this site loved to pieces.

This adaptation makes perfect sense! Conan’s brutal choreography and breathless heroism would be perfect for Batman. But there’s a problem that has me finding this announcement to be bittersweet.

Monolith’s Kickstarters for Conan ($3.3 million) and then Mythic Battles ($2.6 million) have shown that they know how to run an exciting Kickstarter. Clearly, the page for Batman is going to make millions of dollars. But in addition to the sexism that’s run across their games like an oil spill, in this pundit’s opinion Monolith’s been botching the post-release support that I’ve come to expect from expensive games.

February 25, 2017 Reviews Scythe, kickstarter Things turn very bad indeed when Paul goes outdoors in an attempt to review the Kickstarter megahit Scythe. What does he make of this tremendously successful title, with its giant mechs, slaving peasants and very helpful bear? Can it live up to its tremendous reputation? And what happens to us when … Read more

Quinns: Everybody, we’ve got a Kickstarter we’d like to point you towards! Do you all remember Monikers, the effortlessly funny and accessible party game? How would you like an expansion for it created ENTIRELY by the cast of Shut Up & Sit Down?

Ooh, yes! The Shut Up & Sit Down Nonsense Box (this is the link you click on) (click it!) is no less than 112 cards that were dreamed up and playtested by… us! We didn’t get the memo that the card descriptions were only supposed to be informative, so we made those really funny too. Oops.

Don’t have the Monikers base game? Not a problem. The Nonsense Box is a standalone game, or you can chuck the base game onto your pledge as an add-on.

A micro-FAQ follows, after the jump!

Paul: My goodness! We start the news this week with the continuing success story of Vlaada Chvátil and Czech Games. Two new, licensed versions of Codenames have been announced, themed around Marvel and Disney. Surprised?

I can’t say I’m ever likely to buy or play either of them, nor that I’m at all invested in the worlds of either of these entertainment giants, but I do see this as a wonderful way to bring different kinds of licensed games to more players, particularly families, beyond another bloody Monopoly, as well as for Czech Games to earn more well-deserved cash. If someone tells me, in twenty years, that they got into board games through trying to interpret obscure clues about Frozen characters, I’m going to be okay with that.

Okay, hold on, there is also comic potential here. I’m sure there’s all sorts of hilarious clues you can give if you want people to guess both a talking candlestick and a singing elephant, or something slightly sassy you can say about Spider-Man, Victoria Hand and Captain America. Maybe? I don’t actually know anything about comics. Is Garfield DC or Marvel?

Based on the award-winning Mouse Guard comic book and graphic novel series by David Petersen, this pen-and-paper traditional RPG designed by Luke Crane contains everything players need to know about the world of the Guard including rules for forming patrols and heading up missions into the Territories. Features artwork and extensive background material from series creator David Petersen.

The boxed set includes: Softcover Rulebook, 4 decks of player cards, Mouse Guard dice, GM screen, Character sheet & GM sheet pads, a Suplement booklet with new rules & new missions, and a map of the Mouse Guard territories.

Santorini is a non-abstract re-imagining of the 2004 edition. Since its original inception over 30 years ago, Santorini has been endlessly developed, enhanced and refined by mathematician and educator, Dr. Gordon Hamilton.

Santorini is a highly accessible pure strategy game that is simple enough for an elementary school classroom. But with enough gameplay depth and content for even hardcore gamers to explore, Santorini is truly a game for everyone. The rules are deceptively simple. Each turn consists of 2 steps:

1. Move – move one of your builders into a neighboring space. You may move your Builder Pawn on the same level, step-up one level, or step down any number of levels.

2. Build – Then construct a building level adjacent to the builder you moved. When building on top of the third level, place a dome instead, removing that space from play.

Winning the game – If either of your builders reaches the third level, you win.

Variable player powers – What makes Santorini truly special is its seamless integration of variable player powers into a pure-strategy game. Dr Hamilton has designed over 40 thematic god and hero powers, each fundamentally changing the way the game is played.

It is a time of unrest in 1920s Europa. The ashes from the first great war still darken the snow. The capitalistic city-state known simply as “The Factory”, which fueled the war with heavily armored mechs, has closed its doors, drawing the attention of several nearby countries.

Scythe is a Worker Placement/Economic Engine board game set in an alternate-history 1920s period. It is a time of farming and war, broken hearts and rusted gears, innovation and valor. In Scythe, each player represents a character from one of five factions of Eastern Europa who are attempting to earn their fortune and claim their faction’s stake in the land around the mysterious Factory. Players conquer territory, enlist new recruits, reap resources, gain villagers, build structures, and activate monstrous mechs.

Each player begins the game with different resources (power, coins, combat acumen, and popularity), a different starting location, and a hidden goal. Starting positions are specially calibrated to contribute to each faction’s uniqueness and the asymmetrical nature of the game (each faction always starts in the same place).

Scythe gives players almost complete control over their fate. Other than each player’s individual hidden objective card, the only elements of luck or variability are “encounter” cards that players will draw as they interact with the citizens of newly explored lands. Each encounter card provides the player with several options, allowing them to mitigate the luck of the draw through their selection. Combat is also driven by choices, not luck or randomness.

Scythe uses a streamlined action-selection mechanism (no rounds or phases) to keep gameplay moving at a brisk pace and reduce downtime between turns. While there is plenty of direct conflict for players who seek it, there is no player elimination.

Every part of Scythe has an aspect of engine-building to it. Players can upgrade actions to become more efficient, build structures that improve their position on the map, enlist new recruits to enhance character abilities, activate mechs to deter opponents from invading, and expand their borders to reap greater types and quantities of resources. These engine-building aspects create a sense of momentum and progress throughout the game. The order in which players improve their engine adds to the unique feel of each game, even when playing one faction multiple times.

Review: Quartermaster General: 1914

Quartermaster General: 1914

Review: Robo Rally (2016 edition)

GAMES NEWS! 27/02/17

Review: Scythe

Announcing the SU&SD Expansion for Monikers!

GAMES NEWS! 20/02/17

Mouse Guard

Santorini

Scythe

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