Hello readers,
A lot has occurred since I last posted here. First of all, I should mention that I have graduated. I now have a Masters degree. What that means for this blog, hopefully, is regular entries. School was what really ate any free time I had left over after work and family. So, I now should have at least enough time to make some regular entries on this blog.
Another thing that has occurred is that I got a new job. I have found some colleagues at my new job that also like euro-style and other strategy board games. We have been playing games over lunch almost every day for the past month. Consequently, I have been able to play a lot of board/card games recently; way more than in the past. I have so many board game experiences to discuss now that it is hard to decide where to start.
So, I'll go in chronological order. Since I last posted here, I have acquired a few new games. In that list of new games, the one I got first was Space Hulk: Death Angel (the card game).
Space Hulk: Death Angel is a cooperative card game in which marines proceed through a abandoned spaceship. They are trying to get to a final room and complete an objective there before they are all killed by the aliens (called "genestealers") that infest the ship. It sounds bleak, and that is the point; it is supposed to be bleak.
Space Hulk: Death Angel was a game I had been anxious to get for quite a while at that point. The theme of fighting aliens as the team travels through a derelict space ship was very intriguing to my geek sensibilities, and I have always liked the idea of cooperative games (even though Pandemic, Scotland Yard, & Shadows Over Camelot were the only ones I'd played at that point, and I'd only cared for Pandemic). This game was even a 1-6 player cooperative game, and the ability to play it with so many different numbers of players sounded great; that flexibility is nice. Moreover, the game had a interesting mechanic of lining the marine cards up along with location cards to determine who can shoot what, where the genestealers will be popping up, how the genestealers move, and who they will attack. (If you want more info about the game --beside my opinions to follow-- you can find plenty at boardgamegeek.) Finally, the game is cheap at about $20. Despite all those points going for it, sadly, it has not lived up to expectations.
The reason it has disappointed might be because my high hopes set the bar too high. I want to say that first. The game is not bad. I certainly will be keeping it in my collection and will not be looking to sell it. Especially given the small size of the box, it is worth the room it takes up in my board game cupboard. So, what are the good points? Well, ironically, they really are 4 of the 5 things I was excited for in the first place. It was inexpensive. It is cooperative. The theme is well implemented. The mechanics of the game are good.
It is worth spending a paragraph or 2 on those mechanics. The players place location cards, and those cards determine where the genestealers are placed. The event cards move the genestealers around. The genestealers are placed next to marines who are all in a single line; the explanation for that is that the marines suits are too huge to enter any other way. This system works really well. Based upon where the location cards are and the genestealers are, one can strategize as to where he/she wants what marines, given their special abilities.
My favorite mechanic comes in how travel works. There are blip piles (piles of genestealer cards) on either side of the formation (the formation is the line of marines). Whenever one of those blip piles is exhausted, the players finish their current phase and then travel to the next room. The reason I like this so much is because I think it works very well with the theme. If a group of these marines is continually moving through the ship it would make sense that more and more genestealers would come out at them as they move. Also, it is logical that the other genestealers already engaged with the marines would either be killed, or they would follow and continue fighting. So, the idea in my mind is that once you have encountered a certain number of genestealers you must have walked far enough to get to the next room. The genestealers then become a method to track the marines' progress as they constantly trudge through the ship.
I said that the games strengths were 4 of the 5 things I was excited about before I bought the game. That 1 left over is the fact that the box says it is a 1-6 player game. The publishers do not lie. There are rules and even different setups for 1-6 player games. However, this is not a good 1-6 player game. This is a good 4-6 player game. When you play with 1-3 players, each player has to command at least 2 sets of marines. This is crippling. Some uber board game geeks might be able to handle this just fine, but for a average set of players it is too much. The problem comes when you have to decide if your marines will
1) move & activate
2) support
or
3) attack
You want to coordinate the marines attacks, which means you want to cooperate with the other players' marines. Now add a 2nd set of marines and you have to do that for both sets. So, for example, you think "should I have my yellow marines support or attack, and how would that work with my purple marines that can support or move & activate?" You think you have that figured out and then the other players tell you what they will do. Now that may cause you to change what one set of marines will do, which in turn makes you question whether your other marines are performing the best action. It's too much; it's too cumbersome; and it slows down the action rapidly.
When you only have 1 set of marines, it is easy to choose between 2 actions and coordinate it with your fellow players' marines. The game moves fast this way, and that is important. When the game moves fast a story builds in one's mind. One knows where the marines are in the ship, remembering what happened before, what the formation looks like in relation to the genestealers, and what could happen next. Managing 2 sets of marines causes such a slow down that one forgets that context. That is where the management of 1-3 marines becomes Space Hulk: Death Angel's most glaring flaw. The context and the tension is what makes the game fun (in the 4-6 player version). With that suspense stripped away, this game crumbles fast into something that would never reach my table.
If you like the theme and you buy this game as a 4 - 6 player game, I think you'll love it. If you buy it as a cheap game to play with 1 or 2 buddies, save your money because that one short coming (of it not playing well with 1-3) is what caused Death Angel be a disappointment for me despite it meeting 4 other enticing expectations.
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