Reviews

This game is one of the must haves for every board game fan.
To start off – the box is a really compact one, the same size as Space Hulk: Angel Of Death if you’ve seen it. The card artwork is beautiful and the markings are clear. Maybe blue might be more clear, but generally it’s awesome.
As for gameplay – as that’s the whole point to buy the game – I love it. It’s a lot of player interaction, a lot of planning, guessing and bluffing. I’ve only tested two player mode as for now, but I’m sure it can only get better.
I haven’t played with any cards from the expansion, so my review is just for the base game.
All in all – a great game everyone must at least play if not own.

I really love this game, it’s exciting from start to finish. The game is well balanced no player gets too far behind to give up hope.

It’ lots of fun to block your opponents by breaking up their spell runs, giving them the pox, using curses against them, using your guild ability against them or placing a dragon in an area on the board where you don’t have to be anymore.

But you always need to keep in mind to bring the spells back, don’t build your complete strategy on bullying other players, build your team and bring the spells back, otherwise you won’t win.

I really love this game, it’s exciting from start to finish. The game is well balanced no player gets too far behind to give up hope.

It’ lots of fun to block your opponents by breaking up their spell runs, giving them the pox, using curses against them, using your guild ability against them or placing a dragon in an area on the board where you don’t have to be anymore.

But you always need to keep in mind to bring the spells back, don’t build your complete strategy on bullying other players, build your team and bring the spells back, otherwise you won’t win.

The new edition of this classic game from the 1980s is simply too beautiful, too massive: Thick, colourful counters, plastic castles and villages, wooden baronymarkers (!).

You conquer different terrains by funny armies, a little bit of wargame with the ratings on the counters, the modular board is every time mixed anew. And yes, the battles are fought by dice-rolling to excess. And there is some more dice-rolling on top of that(Stealing, hiring, saving throws, etc).

The rules are badly laid out but it doesn’t really matter as the fun in the game stems mostly from the funny things/armies and a game-flow, spiced up by intriguing interruptions played on the active player.

Encounters and Races are at the heart of this brilliant sci-fi game that first came out in the 1980s.

Encounters are your battles. In an encounter, the attacker sends out up to 4 ships into the Warp Gate to colonise the defender’s planet. The defender uses his ships to defend. Both sides call for allies and their allies send up to 4 ships as aid. Then both sides play an Encounter card face down and resolve them. Losing side loses all their ships into the warp. So you have to be careful who you side with. Attacker wins, all attackers get to place any number of ships they sent onto the planet and DO NOT retreat the rest. He may then draw a new Destiny card, draw a tech card or stop. Defender wins, all allies draw cards equal to number of ships sent to help and defender keeps his planet (draws no cards). It’s quite bad for the defender but I think this help to speed up the game more.

Races and their Abilities:

There are many races so there is no worry about replayability. Players can learn the abilities of each race quite easily and they are easy to understand. However, I feel that some races are overpowered, but I feel that players can sort of gang up against the stronger ones so there isn’t a steam roll or instant win.

Each race is unique and has its own special ability. These special abilities can be augmented with a special Flair card. Flair cards have a Wild and Race side. The Wild side allows any player to use a similar (not same) racial ability as one of the races, the Race side is only for the player who is currently using that race. It makes their racial ability even MORE powerful than it currently is. Some are really overpowered here, such as the Dictator, which allows the player to control the Destiny deck, in essence controlling who gets attacked i.e. never himself. The good thing is that Flair cards are shuffled into the draw pile so you only have a chance of getting it. If someone else gets it, you can try to get it from their hand by negotiating or making him dump his hand.

Overall, this game was really fun and although there were glaring overpowered cards, no one cared as the game was ridiculous. I would say it’s not that aggressive a game as the Destiny deck chooses who you attack, rather than making it your choice (unless you have the Dictator in the game). This game is really fun for all ages and has all the elements of poker, with bluffing, simple strategy, mind reading and no need to kingmake as players can win together.