Tarrant
<Prior Amod>
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Mine was supposed to come on a Tuesday and I got it the Friday before it so I’d say that’s a reasonable hope.
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Kickstarters
- Thread starter faille
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Mine was supposed to come on a Tuesday and I got it the Friday before it so I’d say that’s a reasonable hope.
Hateyou
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Yeah no way I’d be playing it with a big group or hyper kids. I’ve watched tutorial play throughs and it looks like it would be a solo or duo game with someone who is very familiar with gaming and into story/slower games.
Mizake
Trakanon Raider
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Ok I've played through Chapter 1, here is my initial take on Tainted Grail (no spoilers).
First and foremost, it's a very engrossing game. I really like the story elements, and I can't wait to play more to see how the game unfolds. People have said it's like a mix between Gloomhaven and 7th Continent, but it's much closer to the latter. In fact, I don't see very much similarity at all to Gloomhaven, other than combat is done with ability cards. Even then, it's not that similar because in GH you have all your cards in front of you to strategize, while in TG you start with 3 random cards out of a starting deck of 15, and then you draw one card per turn thereafter, so it's much more random.
Things I like about TG:
1. The story is very well developed, which is something that's always been a weak spot in GH. Not so here. I think the story is it's strongest point.
2. The contents of the game are all very good quality, gorgeous production values throughout. If I had to say anything negative I would say I wish the cards were on heavier stock, but that's a minor quibble.
3. I haven't tried all the characters, but we are playing with 3 so far (Maggot, Ailei, and Arev). I am also doing a solo game with Beor (more on that later). I did get Niamh as part of my package, but none of us have tried her yet. All the characters are appealing to play, and they all play a part in the overarching story as you will see. I like how each of them has positive and negative attributes, it makes decision making more challenging.
Things I don't like about TG:
1. Downtime. There is a lot of it. This is not a fast-paced game in any sense. First, it suffers from the same fiddliness as 7C, which is you constantly need to get away from the game board to do something else. In 7C, you had to go back to the box to get new cards. In TG, you need to read from the exploration manual. Obviously on future playthroughs things will go quicker because you won't have to read everything again in such detail, but the pace is slow. Not necessarily a negative, but be aware of it. Frankly, it lends to a more roleplaying element as you become more invested in the story.
2. Analysis Paralysis. A real thing in this game, especially when it comes to combat and diplomacy. Let's start with the basics. Since you start with 3 cards, you can lay them down in 6 unique permutations. This only gets worse if you draw more cards. The issue is, there is optimal plays, and you have to find it. Which means you will spend a considerable amount of time laying the cards down in the different orders in order to try and find the best combination. That's only if you are the only active player. For every party member, they will bring their cards as well, so now you are looking at an exponentially larger amount of possible combinations to go through. This should get better over time as everyone learns their cards, but you have 4 unique archetypes that have different cards....so yeah.
3. Alpha-gaming. I am most guilty of this in TG, which I never do usually, but let me explain. The only people involved in combat or diplomacy are the active characters, i.e. one or more people on the same tile. So what do you do if you are not involved? Good question. This goes back to downtime. If you aren't involved, then either watch your teammates muddle through the encounter, or break out your mobile phone, or I dunno. Since my partner isn't that experienced in gaming, she's having a harder time understanding how best to play her cards, so she asks for my help even when I'm not involved. I'm trying not to be intrusive, but sometimes she takes so long I will point out the optimal combo so we can move along.
As I mentioned earlier, I am also playing a solo game so I can go through the content faster, since my usual group only meets once a week and we still playing GH, so I'm not sure how much time we can devote to TG. That being said, I have a feeling that this game has the same pros/cons as 7C, which means it will play better at lower player counts. This game definitely plays faster as solo, since there is no need to read out loud, and there is no downtime between player turns. As of now I would rate this game something like 7/10, and probably 8.5/10 for solo.
First and foremost, it's a very engrossing game. I really like the story elements, and I can't wait to play more to see how the game unfolds. People have said it's like a mix between Gloomhaven and 7th Continent, but it's much closer to the latter. In fact, I don't see very much similarity at all to Gloomhaven, other than combat is done with ability cards. Even then, it's not that similar because in GH you have all your cards in front of you to strategize, while in TG you start with 3 random cards out of a starting deck of 15, and then you draw one card per turn thereafter, so it's much more random.
Things I like about TG:
1. The story is very well developed, which is something that's always been a weak spot in GH. Not so here. I think the story is it's strongest point.
2. The contents of the game are all very good quality, gorgeous production values throughout. If I had to say anything negative I would say I wish the cards were on heavier stock, but that's a minor quibble.
3. I haven't tried all the characters, but we are playing with 3 so far (Maggot, Ailei, and Arev). I am also doing a solo game with Beor (more on that later). I did get Niamh as part of my package, but none of us have tried her yet. All the characters are appealing to play, and they all play a part in the overarching story as you will see. I like how each of them has positive and negative attributes, it makes decision making more challenging.
Things I don't like about TG:
1. Downtime. There is a lot of it. This is not a fast-paced game in any sense. First, it suffers from the same fiddliness as 7C, which is you constantly need to get away from the game board to do something else. In 7C, you had to go back to the box to get new cards. In TG, you need to read from the exploration manual. Obviously on future playthroughs things will go quicker because you won't have to read everything again in such detail, but the pace is slow. Not necessarily a negative, but be aware of it. Frankly, it lends to a more roleplaying element as you become more invested in the story.
2. Analysis Paralysis. A real thing in this game, especially when it comes to combat and diplomacy. Let's start with the basics. Since you start with 3 cards, you can lay them down in 6 unique permutations. This only gets worse if you draw more cards. The issue is, there is optimal plays, and you have to find it. Which means you will spend a considerable amount of time laying the cards down in the different orders in order to try and find the best combination. That's only if you are the only active player. For every party member, they will bring their cards as well, so now you are looking at an exponentially larger amount of possible combinations to go through. This should get better over time as everyone learns their cards, but you have 4 unique archetypes that have different cards....so yeah.
3. Alpha-gaming. I am most guilty of this in TG, which I never do usually, but let me explain. The only people involved in combat or diplomacy are the active characters, i.e. one or more people on the same tile. So what do you do if you are not involved? Good question. This goes back to downtime. If you aren't involved, then either watch your teammates muddle through the encounter, or break out your mobile phone, or I dunno. Since my partner isn't that experienced in gaming, she's having a harder time understanding how best to play her cards, so she asks for my help even when I'm not involved. I'm trying not to be intrusive, but sometimes she takes so long I will point out the optimal combo so we can move along.
As I mentioned earlier, I am also playing a solo game so I can go through the content faster, since my usual group only meets once a week and we still playing GH, so I'm not sure how much time we can devote to TG. That being said, I have a feeling that this game has the same pros/cons as 7C, which means it will play better at lower player counts. This game definitely plays faster as solo, since there is no need to read out loud, and there is no downtime between player turns. As of now I would rate this game something like 7/10, and probably 8.5/10 for solo.
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Hateyou
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Confirms my feeling that I’ll be playing this solo or duo with my dad. My regular gaming buddy gets analysis paralysis really bad if there’s too many choices, so no way will I be playing with him.
When you do combat with multiple people are you all in the combat at once and playing the fight with everyone’s cards? I’ve only seen the solo tutorial.
Mizake
Trakanon Raider
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Yes. The way it works is when you start an encounter, everyone that is on the same tile as you can participate. Everyone who decides to join the fight becomes part of the Party. Then you take turns being the Active Player. You will each start with a certain number of cards, this number goes down the more people that are in the party. Then the combat starts. You each draw cards, and then you can play them in any order you want. You could use all your cards first. You could lay the first card and last card. You and your partner(s) can alternate cards.
This makes combat easier since you have more cards to choose from and therefore more options. The downside is that loot is not shared, so if the loot is 1 Food, then you need to decide who gets it. Damage is also not shared, so for example if the monster does 1 damage, everyone takes 1 damage each. It's a good balance. Having multiple party members in combat also increases the amount of time combat takes because everyone is reading everyone else's cards to decide what the best order to do things is.
Hateyou
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Well it was supposed to be here with a deadline of 30 minutes ago, but my tracking details said it just arrived in Germany and I live in the states. Guess their fast delivery methods for worn out
Hopefully I have it before Thanksgiving I guess, I wanted to have it painted before then so we could play it but that probably won’t happen now.
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Hateyou
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Haha. I’m not a worker placement fan but I do love Awaken Realms. I like that setting too. Hopefully I can catch it at a local game store some day.
Hateyou
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Jesus that looks amazing! That final boss is fuckin sick. All the minis are pretty badass. I’d be all over that if I didn’t just get tainted grail!
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Hateyou
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Those would be a lot of fun to paint! I’m getting ready to paint a car I 3D printed just to try it.
Hateyou
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Steve Jackson have the same practices as CMON, churning out same reskinned shit? Haven’t ever really followed anything by them.
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He does have a million variations of Munchkin at this point but beyond that Ogre, GURPS and Zombie Dice I'm not familiar with his games. I do know he's been around since the 70s and Fallout was originally supposed to use a variation of GURPS but he felt it was too violent to be associated with and pulled the rights away mid development that lead to the creation of the SPECIAL system. Something must of changed in the mid 90s to now with the company's mindset because I saw a WH40k Munchkin edition the other day.
Fyff
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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In the early world of board gaming, Steve Jackson was one of a handful of dedicated publishers. There was no Kickstarter so you either needed to raise money and self publish or go to a publisher. Jackson was well known for listening to people's pitches, telling them no and then publishing the game without giving credit or royalties.
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