Reviews

Fate of the Elder Gods Board Game Review

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Fate of The Elder Gods
Designed by Christopher Kirkman, Richard Launius and Darrell Louder
Published by Greater Than Games
1 – 4 Players
30 – 90 minutes playing time

Fate of the Elder Gods on Amazon.

In Fate of the Elder Gods, players take on the roles of the High Priests of cults trying to summon Elder Gods. Doing so requires the sacrifice of a great many cultists, and your nefarious plans are always threatened by investigators trying to seal your gate with Elder Signs. The winner of the game is the first to successfully summon their Elder God.

Fate of the Elder Gods was a big hit in our group. It has relatively simple rules, but deep strategy. Fate has a nice collection of mechanics, such as action selection, hand management, asymmetrical powers, a bit of area control and some randomness with a few die rolls to resolve actions. It is also an attractive game, with a great looking board and serviceable miniatures. This is a game that I think will appeal to both Euro and Ameri-Treasure gamers.

The core of Fate of The Elder Gods is an “action selection” mechanic. On their turn, players use Spell Cards from their hand to move the Fate Piece (a large Cthulhu model) to the various locations on the circular board. Each of the six locations (the Museum, the Library,  The Gathering, The Ceremony, the Streets of Arkham and the Other Worlds) allows the player to perform a specific set of actions to help the Cult advance. The Ceremony, for example, lets a cult activate its’ Elder God power. The Void allows a player to sacrifice cultists to the Void (the center of the board) to advance the Summoning. The Gathering, on the other hand, attracts new Cultists to your lodge. The Library adds Spells to your hand. The Museum is the source of powerful artifacts. The Streets of Arkham initiates a “raid” on another Cultist’s lodge.

Visiting a location has two other effects. First, it lets you add a cultist to the board to try to “control” that area and gain bonus actions.  But beware, for each time an area is visited, a new investigator is drawn to the area. If three or more investigators are present when you visit an area, they head to your cult’s lodge, where they may well initiate a raid. That’s bad, because in the course of a raid, the investigators are likely to try to close your gate with one or more Elder Signs. If your gate is completely shut down, the game is over, and you lose. At that point, the player with the fewest Elder Signs wins.

Managing the meddling investigators adds another layer to the game, and opens an avenue for players who are hopelessly behind in the race to open a gate. If the lagging players can pile up Elder Signs on the leader, they have a path to victory if they have the fewest Elder Signs themselves.

The Spell Cards have multiple purposes. The backs have different astral symbols which are used to travel to locations to take actions. Cards used for movement are left on the board at the Fate Piece’s current location (to be used later to prepare spells). We thought of it as expending a particular kind of astral energy at Location A to move to Location B.

The fronts of the cards have spells, which for the most part thwart other players’ plans. This often sets up interesting dilemmas. Do you use the card for its movement, or save it because you’d like to cast that spell later?

Preparing a spell for casting has a “cost” in astral symbols which is indicated on the spell side of the card. A player can prepare a spell for casting (immediately or at a later time) if the pile of astral symbol cards left behind at that location by player movement matches the cost on the card.

It is really very clever. The spell cards can be used for movement, which in turn powers the spell cards.

Each of the Cults in the game is devoted to one of eight Elder Gods, each of which has its own powers. The Beasts From Beyond expansion adds more Gods, as well as monsters which can be summoned with spell cards. The different Elder Gods adds quite a bit of replayability.  You could play a very large number of games, indeed, before ever coming back to the same combination of Gods ( I *think* that’s 1, 680 combinations for four players).

Curses are another part of the game. At various points in the game, circumstances may dictate that a particular cult becomes “cursed.” In this case a card is drawn by the player to the right of the cursed cult and silently read. That player then is responsible for monitoring the cursed cult’s actions to see if the curse is triggered. The fun part is that the cursed cult has no idea what will trigger the curse, nor what its effects will be. For the player monitoring the curse, it is not only fun to hit an opponent with a “gotcha,” but it also provides some valuable information. The player monitoring the curse may know that the cursed cult will be unable to perform a certain action, and can perhaps make a plan to take advantage of that. Of course, he may also be under a curse …

Another point in Fate’s favor is its solo player mode. I played two games solo and had quite a bit of fun.

Fate of the Elder Gods has a lot going on in the context of some pretty simple rules. It’s fun.

Recommended.

 

15mm Ancients Figure Reviews

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The good folks at Vis Bellica Online have this review of 15mm ancients wargames figure lines, including Essex Assyrians and Egyptians, Chariot Egyptians, Tin Soldier Greeks, Thracians and Persians, Xyston Greeks, Pass O’ The North, and Pendraken 10mm late Romans.

Book Review: A Wargamers’ Guide To 1066 And the Norman Conquest

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Book Review: A Wargamers' Guide To 1066 And the Norman ConquestA Wargamers Guide To 1066 And The Norman Conquest
by Daniel Mersey
Publisher’s Website: Pen & Sword
On Amazon: A Wargamers Guide To 1066 And The Norman Conquest

A Wargamers Guide To 1066 And The Norman Conquest is one of a new series of books from Pen and Sword publishers that bring a wargamer’s perspective to critical periods in military history.

Book Review: A Wargamers' Guide To 1066 And the Norman Conquest
Book Review: A Wargamers’ Guide To 1066 And the Norman Conquest

Written by veteran gamer and author Daniel Mersey, A Wargamers Guide To 1066 And The Norman Conquest interprets primary and secondary sources on the Norman conquest in “wargamer speak.” After a broad description of the events of 1066, Mersey begins the second chapter with a discussion of the various troop and equipment types engaged in the campaigns, equating them in standard wargamer’s lingo, such as “Elite Heavy Cavalry,” and “Medium Infantry.”

The third chapter looks at the individual battles of Fulford, Stamford Bridge and Hastings. For these, Mersey offers brief descriptions from primary and secondary sources, and then extracts key points that a gamer should consider when developing a scenario.

Chapter Four looks at broad themes of the period and how they can be applied to existing rules sets. The fifth chapter takes a look at some existing rules sets — both commercial and free — and discusses their merits. Chapter Six is a discussion of available figures.

Finally, the last chapter offers five more general period scenarios for gamers to try after exhausting the fun of the historical battles.

Throughout the book, Mersey offers some nice recommendations for further reading, and follows it up with an appendix with additional titles.

My one wish for the book is that the battle descriptions and scenarios included some maps. While maps of Hastings, et. al. are readily available, it would have been nice to see them in the book with references to things mentioned in the text.

For the newcomer to the period, A Wargamers Guide To 1066 And The Norman Conquest is a nice starting point. It is not a comprehensive history, nor a rule set, but it does offer a road map for beginning to wargame the period.

Veteran gamers also may find something here. I have long been interested in the Norman Conquest, and have large collection of Normans, Vikings and Saxons. I consider myself fairly well-read on the topic, but still found a lot of points to ponder. For example, Mersey offers the question of what might have happened if William had landed much earlier. In that case, Harold might have faced the Normans with a much stronger army; the victor of that battle then would have needed to turn north to take on Harald. That simple twist offers two (or more) completely different historically plausible scenarios to play.

I like the book and look forward to seeing others.

Gamers Alliance Magazine Free Back Issues

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Gamers Alliance, which bills itself as the “longest running, continuously published English language game review publication” has a large selection of their previously published board game reviews available online. I’ve found it useful in looking for some older board games to purchase to add to my collection.

Fury of Dracula 3rd Edition Mini Review

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I recently punched a copy of Fury of Dracula third edition that had been sitting on my shelf for several years for a Horror Themed game night. This particular version is out of print, thanks to the Fantasy Flight – Games Workshop divorce, but the good news is that Game Workshop recently married Wiz Kids, and a new edition is on the agenda.

I actually have a copy of the original Fury of Dracula from 1987, along with the special miniatures that came with the game then. The third edition comes with some nice plastic miniatures, which look to be about 20mm, size-wise. I’m going to paint them in the near future.

Fury of Dracula third edition is easy to learn, with my group of two adults and three teens figuring it out in short order. Dracula’s movement is hidden, and tracked by location cards placed upside down on one end of the board. On their turn, the Vampire Hunters visit cities across Europe, travelling by road and rail to find clues as to Dracula’s whereabouts. When they happen across one of the locations that Dracula has previously visited, the card is revealed and actions resolved. Revealing these cards lets the Vampire Hunters begin to deduce Dracula’s path and converge on possible locations.

The Fantasy Flight third edition is a better game than the original, with a neat card track (shown in the photo above) that Dracula uses to play/record his movement. In the original, there was a separate board with a screen. I also like the card based combat. With day and night phases, the hunters can act twice per turn, while Dracula can activate only at night.

The game is tense, and oozes theme. Deep strategy it is not. A Euro it is not. It does, however, build a good story. In our first game, Dracula was cornered and eliminated in the nick of time. In the second, the Vampire Hunters knew where he had to be, but were unable to corner him before he spread his influence and horror all over Europe.

Assuming that Wiz Kids doesn’t mess this up, I recommend this game.