Happy Monday! Here are two community challenges for everyone!

1. Trick Shot

• What to do: Record video(s) of yourself landing trick shot(s) using board game components! Here's a video for inspiration: https://youtu.be/8BZXQMz90o4. Send your video(s) to phil@boardgameatlas.com and we'll compile all submissions into one video
• You will gain 1 entry per trick shot to win a $60 gift card from a store of your choice. No limit to number of entries
• Deadline: Wednesday, September 30, 2020 at 11:59 PM PST. We'll randomnly select 1 winner on the following day
• Note: Depending on how difficult the shot is, it'll take a long time. One of my shots took 2.5 hours and all other ones took about 30 min on average

2. Rating Games

• Let's spend some time this week to leave our ratings on all of the games we haven't reviewed yet! You can review your overall impressions and score by clicking on the "Leave a Review" button. You can also rate the learning and strategy complexities for the game
• There are no prizes associated with this challenge, except that we'll have milestones created so that when you reach a certain number of ratings, you'll be awarded a badge to show off on your profile :)
• After going through this process, feel free to share about your experience in a forum post. Were there any games you ended up rating much higher or lower than expected? Has your feelings toward a game cooled off after a while?

I hope you enjoy the challenges!

I'm at the very early stages of creating a new game with what I believe is a unique/different game mechanic and would like to get some feedback from the community.
I have outlined the idea and key gameplay elements below.

Overview
There is a serial killer at work in the city and they must be stopped. Investigators are on the case and must travel round the city to collect clues as to the location and identity of the killer. The twist, one of the investigators is the killer. Be the first to collect the clues and work with or against the others - to stand the best chance of catching the killer you must share your clues, but give away too much and they might beat you to it or the killer may go free.

Key points
4-6 players.
Tile based board system - 2 sets of tiles Street and Location.
Clue cards specific to each scenario - each clue is in the form of a QR code and once scanned on a mobile phone will reveal the clue.
Clues fall into 4 categories - physical evidence (collected at murder scenes), witness, suspect and surveillance.
The Police Station tile is placed first as the start tile.
Each turn the player places 2 tiles, one from the street pile and one from the location pile.
You then make your movement.
Perform a search and draw a clue card and reviews it in secret.
Choose whether to share or withhold the clue - you do not show the others the clue, you describe it. Or you can choose to identify the killer or lair location - each of these can only be done once per player and to identify the location you must be on that tile.
At some point one of the clue cards will identify that player as the killer, from that point they may choose to give false leads. Early games will have false clues, later games it will be up to the player to make up their own.

The game ends when all tiles are placed + 3 more rounds.
OR
The Killer is correctly identified
OR
The Killers lair is discovered.

The setting would be Modern or Future.

Any thoughts on the idea would be appreciated and please share this post with any gaming friends you have as the more feedback I get up front the better.

Thank you
Anthony

Part of the community challenge is rating your board games on BGA. I've been going through and slowly rating my collection and was suprised at a few of the ratings my favorites have. #Karuba in particular stood out to me as we have it rated as a 64 on BGA and I think I would give it an 80 on fun factor alone. Even on BGG, it has a GeekRating of 6.924 out of 10.

What about everyone else? Are there any games you feel BGA or BGG has rated too low? Why do you think they're rated so low?

I've been working most of this week on improving the look and feel of the game pages and it's now live! Take a look and let me know what you think of the changes!

I also improved the page loading experience and added in a game mentions feed as well!

Here are all of our recent giveaways! You can find them on our giveaways page but I wanted to give a reminder in case you might have forgotten that page exists:

Machina Arcana (ends Oct 6)

Return to Planet Apocalypse (ends Oct 4)

Starship V Sleipnir (ends Oct 2)

It's a Wonderful World (ends Oct 1)

Good luck! :)

I was thinking about how funny it would be to describe our favorite games in the worst way possible and having other people try to guess what games we're talking about based on those horrible descriptions! For example, Castles of Burgundy topped my list of top 25. To describe this game in the worst way possible, I could say "a game about placing hexagonal tiles to score victory points." Of course, I suppose this could describe any number of dry euros lol

So let me guess your favorite games...How could you describe your favorite game while making it sound way worse than it actually is?

This would be especially helpful for "news" related posts. In updating my post about the upcoming #Dune: Imperium game, I found myself wishing I could have a comment or two "pinned" to the top, so that updates didn't get lost in newer comments from people discussing what they were reading. And now that I've added another update in the form of a new comment, it'd be especially nice to have that pinned now that the initial attention on the post has died down. Even if OP had the ability to pin a max of one comment, I think that would be quite useful. Maybe admins/mods could pin more.

Post in question: https://www.boardgameatlas.com/forum/VTwcBdsYLm/dune-imperium-first-look-#pUvIlrm8st

A wild, silly party game that's great for a wide range of players.

Last night I got in a 3P game of #Root for the first time in a while.  It was basically a teaching game (one guy had played it once a long time ago).

The faction break down was Marquise, Duchy, and Riverfolk (my faction).

Now that I'm so familiar with the game, teaching is a breeze.

The biggest challenge in the game was that because we play a lot of Imperial Assault and I'm the Empire there was a natural distrust of me and a strong feeling (at first) that they had to work against me.  This also hurt me as the Riverfolk faction as people didn't buy enough of my goods (at first).

Once we got into the game though it moved steadily along with each faction playing leap frog on their turn with the VP tracker.  One thing that was hard for my game is neither the Duchy or the Marquise would go after each other (which had consequences as we got toward the end of the game).  They also had trouble making temporary alliances with me because of other gaming experience (although I do think it'll be different on future plays).

We got to a point where the Marquise saw they had a chance to win with a Fox dominance card and went for it (this was because there weren't enough battles early on in the game).  This was the first time I've played with a dominance card in play and I did not really love it.  Although, it did create a good story for after the game (which unfortunately we ran out of time to finish, but I think the Marquise would have one in another 2 - 3 rounds on dominance).  

I didn't love Dominance because it made stopping the Marquie the only goal in the game.  While it created an alliance between me and the Duchy, it also meant we couldn't use any of our turns to score any points so we were basically stuck.  This had another major negative impact on my Riverfolk gameplay because I had to take a lot of actions that caused me to spend funds instead of commiting them, which meant I couldn't keep my coffers full of money to spend on my next turn.  So basically it turned into, spend to put warriors on the board, commit to move, commit to battle, repeat next turn.

I think in the future I'd consider only using Dominance cards in 4+P games, but we will see.  I also didn't think of looking at the map from a Dominance standpoint so maybe I'll just make sure we work against potential Dominance even before it gets played.

Can't wait to get it out again.

HeroQuest returns to the tabletop gaming world after 31 years. Is this reboot a must-have for fans of the original or would it be best to save your money for something else? Here's a quick rundown of the available information.

Background

Originally published by Milton Bradley in 1989, HeroQuest is a classic tabletop game that bridged the gap between traditional fantasy role-playing games (such as Dungeons & Dragons) and board games. One player takes on the role of game master while others play as one of four fantasy world character archetypes venturing the dungeon (Barbarian, Dwarf, Elf, or Wizard).

After release, HeroQuest's success spawned a series of expansions and a sequel called Advanced HeroQuest in 1991. The game has since served as a source of inspiration for many dungeon crawlers that shaped games of today such as Star Wars: Imperial Assault and Gloomhaven. If you want to hear more about HeroQuest, just listen to him:

Crowdfunding

Since going out of print, HeroQuest could only be fetched for a high price of $300-500 in the secondhand market. Well, looks like there's finally a "better" option.

Hasbro has launched a crowdfunding campaign on its own platform called HasLab, with a goal of raising $1,000,000 for their HeroQuest reboot. It's an "all-or-nothing" format similar to Kickstarter and features two tiers:

1. Heroic Tier at $99.99

• Core HeroQuest Game System (featuring 71 highly detailed character and furniture miniatures)
• 4 Bonus hero miniatures
• 1 Exclusive miniature

2. Mythic Tier at $149.99

• Includes Heroic Tier offers
• 2 Expansions
• 2 More exclusive miniatures
• All unlocked stretch goals

Stretch Goals

• Warlock Hero by Shauna Nakasone at $1.2M
• 6 Extra combat dice at $1.4M
• 2 Extra skeletons at $1.6M
• 2 Extra goblins at $1.8M
• Quest Book by Stephen Baker (designer of HeroQuest) at $2.0M

More Details

• Deadline: November 6, 2020 at 11:59 PM EST
• No shipping outside of U.S. and Canada
• Shipping to U.S.: $30
• Shipping to Canada (excluding Quebec): $135 (some customers have reported that Hasbro has responded this could be an error. Let's hope it is)

My First Impressions as an "Outsider"

I'm not the target demographic. I have zero experience with HeroQuest so the most important nostalgia factor is nonexistent.

With that said, this looks like fun times for those who've played the original. It's a modern rendition that takes very little risks and Hasbro knows how to tug on the heartstrings of now adults with lots of disposable income. And that's okay, but...

1. I have a feeling that the artstyle could be hit or miss with the target demographic. It's a "safe" style that's trying to appeal to a wider audience. But fans of the original may prefer the classic look with more realism.

2. $135 shipping for Canada?! Apparently this could be an error on their website, but no answers yet. And $1,000,000 all-or-nothing funding goal and limited to U.S. and Canada? I'm glad fans are getting what they want, but it's almost amazing to see that Hasbro isn't masking their motivations at all.

I should stop before my cynicism leaks out any further. So, what do you think about this campaign? Are you interested in getting this new version of HeroQuest? Or are there games with more modern designs that you'd rather get?

Hey all,

So I just started playing #Terra Mystica in a slow way (i.e. we each take our turn separately and just get an email when it is our go) on board game arena.

Unfortunately, I haven't played before so while I have read through and understand the rules, no one has been able to explain what my priorities should be: I am playing darklings and any advice would be appreciated!

We review the city building game High Rise from Formal Ferret Games. 

I love these pictures lol

Congrats again @Courageous Bob on winning a series of giveaways that led to this epic purchase! Thanks for all of your contributions and it's been great to have you around here.

As I'm sure we all know, the community challenge is to do some trick shots with board game components. I was just curious if anyone had some fun ideas they wanted to share. I'm on vacation this week so I have so much time on my hands. I already sent some videos to @philryuh, but I promise I won't steal your ideas (maybe lol). The first one I sent was used a Gizmos marble in a pretty simple Rube Goldberg style set up of other games into the plastic dispenser.

What's everyone else doing?

I recently realized I joined BGG about a year ago, so I decided there's no better time to rank all the games I've logged plays for since then. I used pubmeeple.com and got a...rather interesting top 10, so I expanded it to a top 25! Lol. If anyones interested in my list, I added the link to BGG.

Wes is a great resource for many new Kickstarter publishers and today shares his top lessons learned in publishing boardgames on Kickstarter....

http://bit.ly/kickstarter-fg

"Tom Vasel takes a look at the Prelude expansion for Terraforming Mars!"

Overview

Dobby the house elf told Harry Potter he shouldn’t go back to school. Something about danger and whatnot. Of course, Harry didn’t listen, and instead ended up getting Hermione in danger as well. I mean, it’s not like this is the first time this has happened. And, just like the villager Emperor Kuzco threw out the window, it won’t be the last.

FunkoVerse is an expansive world of games made from popular intellectual properties (IP) such as Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, and Nightmare Before Christmas, just to name a few. The gameplay is the same throughout all the various versions, but the characters are all unique. This allows for some fun crossovers, since you can use Harry Potter and Vold—He Who Must Not Be Named—in the café from Back to the Future with Marty McFly and…Jack Skellington? You bet your funky Funko fanny!

As these are strategy games, the goal is to earn points—more than the other team—to win. All players have the same basic actions, but have unique actions that utilize a nifty cooldown track, so you’re forced to pace your mondo beyondo powerful actions, as they take longer to recover.

Initial Impressions

First off, the game looks cool. There’s something about these larger-than-life Funko figures on the game board that attracts the eye…and interest. The rules aren’t difficult, nor are there an overwhelming amount of them.

FunkoVerse: Harry Potter is a simple game, but it has enough meat on it that it’s not too simple. After having played it, I’d say that this game is geared toward those who favor lighter games, as well as newcomers to the hobby. And Harry Potter. And, honestly, even people who enjoy more strategy in their games can also enjoy this for what it is.

And what is that? A fun, light-hearted jaunt in a unique universe with a host of your favorite characters. And let’s be honest, you know you want it just for the Harry Potter figures, anyway.

Gameplay

The Harry Potter FunkoVerse game comes with four unique scenarios you can opt to play with. The basic gameplay involves characters simply trying to knock out the others for points. With the scenarios, different methods of earning points are set forth with special rules. There’s Leaders (your chosen leader gets more points when knocking out players, but is worth more when they get knocked out as well), Control (control various markers to gain points), Flags (kind of like capture the flag, but…different), and Territory (king of the hill, more or less). These scenarios provide unique ways to earn points and can help keep your Harry Potter FunkoVerse game evergreen.

Plus, you can use characters from other sets as well, so that’s a lot of variety! But I digress…

As mentioned, the gameplay is relatively simple: Move around, cast spells (i.e. special actions), pick up point gems, knock down rivals, and finish the job by knocking them out. You gain points from collecting gems from the board, as well as by completing certain requirements as provided by the scenario you’re playing (i.e. control an area of the board or defeat a rival’s leader).

Each side controls two or three characters (without another set, this Harry Potter set provides two special characters per side—Harry P., Hermione G., Voldy, and Ms. Lestrange). If you opt for three characters per side, each side gets one basic character—an Auror and a Death Eater—which are represented by simple cardboard tokens. They have no special abilities, but are characters in every sense of the term and gameplay. Of course, you can always add in other characters from other sets, creating a hodgepodge of characters for a wild crossover of your design.

Throughout the game, characters move and challenge (i.e. attack) rival characters. Succeed in a challenge and the rival gets knocked down. But, a downed character needs to be challenged successfully again in order to knock them out and gain a point. Fortunately, teammates can help their partners up, or if their other characters are exhausted or too far away (use the buddy system!), they can use both of their actions for the turn to get up on their own.

Move, challenge, interact with tokens on the ground, and helping others up—this is the game in a nutshell. While everyone has these actions, characters have unique abilities and special actions that really add to the theme and complexity of the game.

For example, in this Harry Potter set, all characters have ranged attacks (they are using wands, after all). Harry Potter has his (in)famous Expelliarmus spell, allowing him to attack from distance and remove his target’s item. Moldy Voldy (don’t tell him I called him that) is able to attack from distance and roll six dice for his challenge instead of the regular two. Pretty powerful stuff.

When special abilities and items are used, their accompanying tokens (and item cards, if applicable) are placed on the cooldown track. I really like this aspect of the game, as your powerful spells go higher on the track than your dinky spells and items. At the end of each round, everything on the cooldown track shifts down by one, so you’re without those tokens and items for a while.

The cooldown system is familiar to a lot of people who play various video games (such as League of Legends), so they recognize that their more powerful special actions will take longer to get back to them. It’s a good balance, and one I’d enjoy seeing in more games.

Theme

The Harry Potter theme is magically delicious in this Harry Potter FunkoVerse game. I’m a massive Harry Potter fan (I even won tickets to a Utah Jazz game for having the best costume opening night for one of the movies), and I love seeing the familiar spells, nose-less bad guy, and familiar locations on the double-sided board.

The gameplay can fit the theme well, assuming you’re going for knockouts and whatnot, but even when you’re playing the various scenarios (that may not fit exactly with the theme), having those larger-than-life characters tromping around on the board is fun to experience. The abilities and special actions of the characters also add to the theme.

Honestly, the theme is well represented in the Harry Potter FunkoVerse game. And I am glad.

Art

The art stays true to the Harry Potter theme, but in its delightful Funko way—soulless eyes, too-large heads, and cartoony features. The boards look good and have distinguished walls, marked by thick outlines (not top hats and pocket watches) so there is no confusion where one starts or stops. And that’s a helpful design choice.

Standouts

These are the things that make the game so awesome (for me, anyway):

• Harry Potter!
• Harry Potter figures!
• Easy entry-level strategy game…
• …that has appeal to a wide range of gamers
• Various scenarios
• Ability to crossover with different sets/characters

Things to Consider

The character figures are large, which is awesome. But sometimes, they struggle to stand next to each other without bonking heads. This is a minor concern, as they do fit. But sometimes you have to turn them a bit.

When a character is knocked down, you literally knock down the character. This has them on their back on the board, taking up a few additional spaces. We haven’t had an issue yet in which the knocked down character ended up blocking traffic or was so surrounded they couldn’t physically fall down. Personally, I find it amusing, but I could see a few problems in some edge cases.

Luck. There is a good amount of luck. Which is fine…unless you’re me and can’t roll worth beans haha But really, rolling dice for challenges can be fine, but it can also lead to a lot of non-successes, due to an excessive amount of good or bad rolls. I wish there were ways to mitigate luck and to manipulate dice. One of the items included is the Felix Felicis potion that allows you to set one of your dice to a certain side, but that’s the only mitigation I’ve seen. Don’t get me wrong, I love dice in combat, but I’ve been burned too many times without the ability to mitigate some of that. I’m no Matrim Cauthon, that’s for sure.

Final Thoughts

Would the game work just as well without the cool figures?

Yes. And no. It’s complicated. Sort of.

The game itself would work and play well, even without the included figures. That point is evidenced with the cardboard tokens of the Auror and Death Eater. But, it’s not the same without those wonderful characters crowding the board.

FunkoVerse: Harry Potter (100) is a fun game. Its complexity is fairly low, but there’s still a good amount of strategy and gameplay that makes it fun for multiple types of gamers. You’ll probably find me playing this annually on July 31 (for HP’s birthday, of course), as well as other times when I want to mess around in this universe.

It’s light, it’s fun, and it’s certainly a good family game. I’m already anxious for my boys to grow up a bit more so they can play it with me, as I know they’re gonna love it.

As Albus Dumblydoor once said, “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.” In FunkoVerse: Harry Potter, you get to do both. Brew up a courage potion and control your favorite witches and wizards!

What gets you excited about this Harry Potter FunkoVerse game?

About the Author

Benjamin hails from Canada but now lives in Kentucky with his wife and kids. He’s a certified copyeditor through UC San Diego’s Copyediting Extension program. He’s a freelance writer and editor, covering everything from board game rule books to novels. An avid writer of science fiction and fantasy, it comes as no surprise that his favorite board games are those with rich, engaging themes. When he’s not writing or playing games, Benjamin loves to play ultimate Frisbee, watch and play rugby, and read the most epic fantasy books available. Follow him on Twitter @BenjaminKocher and Instagram @Benjamin_Kocher. You can also read his board game inspired fiction (among other things) at BoardGameImmersion.com.

No game defined a larger part of my life than Magic: the Gathering.  Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) hooked me early, when I received a couple of Revised Starter decks as a birthday present from an older cousin during the summer of 1994.  Not even yet 10 years old, a world of wonder and endless possibilities opened itself to me.  Wonder gave way to obsession as I discovered the competitive tournament scene.  

I took on a part-time job as early as I was legally allowed (14, with my parents’ permission) so that I could buy more Magic cards.  Any money not spent on cards was diligently saved so I could buy my first car as soon as I got my license (an absurdly reliable 1988 Chevy Corsica).  My friends and I spent all of our high school summers working during the week and traveling up and down the east coast to attend Magic tournaments every weekend.  

We chased college scholarships as part of Wizards’ now defunct Junior Super Series program, and as we grew older, we began to attend Pro Tour Qualifiers (PTQs) and Grand Prix in the hope of “going pro”.  Even more than the cardstock we consumed en masse, this dream was the product WOTC peddled to the competitive Magic scene.  If you were good enough, the best of the best, you could make your living slinging cards.  It’s a dream I chased for embarrassingly longer than I’m willing to admit.

Right from the Level 99 store page, “Millennium Blades is a board game about a group of friends who play a fictional card game, which is also called Millennium Blades.”  A game that attempts to capture the culture of being a competitive player in a collectible card game scene?  Is that even possible?  Do I even want that?  

Overview:

A game of Millennium Blades is played over three rounds, and each round is divided into a Deck Building Phase and a Tournament Phase.  Setup can be a bit of a bear, as it will require shuffling together twelve sets of cards to form the store deck.  We recommend having the store deck prepared in advance of game night.  There’s also a lot of fun to be had by playing an individual store deck multiple times, as familiarity with a given set’s mechanics can really open up new deck building possibilities.

In the Deck Building Phase, players will buy cards, trade with other players, try to complete collections which they can turn in for victory points at the end of the game, sell cards to the Aftermarket for more money,  and assemble a deck to compete in the Tournament phase.  Sound like a lot?  What if we add a timer to really get the blood pumping?

Each of Millennium Blades’ Deck Building Phases is divided into three timed segments (7 minutes, 7 minutes, and 6 minutes again).  This design choice is absolutely part of what makes Millennium Blades work.  Analysis paralysis be damned!  Players will not be pursuing the perfect play, optimal deck construction, or best moves that plague some games because THERE IS NO TIME!!!!  There’s even a section in the rulebook instructing players to embrace their mistakes as a part of the game.  As someone who has played a card game at competitive and professional rules enforcement levels, this was something I certainly appreciated for the verisimilitude it adds to the experience.

The Tournament Phase, which is untimed, is where players get to showcase their hard work in the Deck Building Phase.  An abstraction of events that typically run for full days, the goal of the Tournament Phase is to collect the most Ranking Points (RP, not to be confused with Victory Points, Millennium Blades’ endgame scoring currency).  Players will bring up to 8 cards acquired during the Deck Building Phase, along with up to two accessories and one deck box in order to compete.  

From there, each player  will play a card per a turn to their tableau, and may activate an action on a card (before or after playing their card for the turn).  Many of these cards will gain you RP when played.  Some of the more powerful ones have a Score effect and will only award you RP if they are still face up at the end of the tournament.  Others will flip your or opponents’ cards facedown, usually denying that card’s owner its benefit.  Some trigger abilities when they are flipped. The range of abilities that cards have is incredibly varied and it would be impossible to mention them all in a mere review. 

Once all players’ tableaus are filled with cards, the Tournament Phase ends and players compare earned RP.  Players earn Victory Points (VP) based on their standing in the tournament, with the lion’s share going to first place.  Play then proceeds on to the next round of Deck Building, or if that was the third Tournament Phase , then the person with the most VP is the “Ultimate Millennium Blades Champion!”

Review:

It seems like any review of Millennium Blades has to start with the money.  Who are we to buck a trend?  Yes, Millennium Blades uses the much maligned paper currency.  But while other games’ paper money is thin, prone to ripping, and annoying to handle, the paper money on offer from Millennium Blades is so much more.  Potentially a meta-commentary on CCG player spending habits, players will not be handling solitary bills while playing Millennium Blades. You’ll be flinging entire stacks of bills at the bank as you buy cards!  Huge wads of currency will change hands in delightfully tactile exchanges.  

If you’re really against paper money or can’t be bothered to complete the somewhat long assembly process, you could just use poker chips or something. But I think you’re really missing out if you don’t give the Millennium Dollars Money Wads (actual name of the component, straight from the rulebook) a chance.  And before you dismiss paying exorbitant sums for a single card as hyperbolic nonsense, when I quit Magic for good and sold my collection of tournament staples, my collection had a retail value of approximately $13,000 USD.  The entire collection fit into a backpack.  Huge wads, indeed.

Undeniably, Millennium Blades scratches the trading card game itch for me.  It activates the part of my brain that used to constantly be thinking about tournament format metas, the janky tech I could add to my decks to give me a leg up, the cards I was hoping to pull from boosters or trade for, the bad beats, the good games with good friends.  It takes me back to a different time in my life when I had far less responsibility.  A time when the majority of my mental energy was devoted to gaming.  

An average PTQ season for Magic would run for months.  Like shoving lightning into a bottle, Millennium Blades compresses the energy and experience of an entire tournament season into a game that can be played in a single session after our daughter goes to bed.  It’s all there: building decks, buying more cards looking for the one thing that will make you unstoppable, a meta that evolves over multiple tournaments as you and the other players respond to what each player is trying to do.  It is incredibly engaging and satisfying to be a part of.

The amount of decisions a player has to make in a game of Millennium Blades is staggering, and the intensity of this decision space is amplified by the fact that the Deck Building phase is timed.  There are nights when Millennium Blades will stay resolutely on my shelf because I don’t have the mental bandwidth to contend with it.  No individual decision is particularly difficult, per se, but the number of things Millennium Blades asks you to think about in a given round are so numerous that they can easily overwhelm an already fatigued mind.  

The “High Intensity” legend on the side of the box is more warning label than clever marketing.  One wonders if that portion will be printed in Univers Condensed Light font in the next edition (the same font used for Surgeon General’s Warnings).  But when I can muster the energy that a game like Millennium Blades requires?  It's exhilarating!  The high of winning an individual tournament eclipses the feeling I get from winning some other entire games.  And when I’m resoundingly crushed by an opponent’s superior strategy?  Unless it was the final round of the game, I just look forward to seeing how I can pivot, discovering which new cards I’ll be able to use to counter them  in the next tournament.

As a recovered TCG addict, I’m clearly a target audience for Millennium Blades.  However, it should be noted that you don’t need significant CCG/TCG experience to enjoy it.  Mrs. Saint, who had no prior knowledge of the world of CCGs prior to her exposure to Millennium Blades, initially shared none of my enthusiasm for trying the game.  And while she started off her first play full of trepidation, she warmed to Millennium Blades over the course of that game.  By the end of our first playthrough, she was praising Millennium Blades for the dynamic engine-building puzzle it presented.  And as we continued to play more games of Millennium Blades, she became more and more enamored with it.  Honestly, I think she might like it even more than I do at this point.

This isn’t to say Millennium Blades is perfect.  As with any game with literally hundreds of points of possible interaction, ambiguities do sometimes arise.  Occasionally, a card is not particularly clear on when you can use its effect, or the timing of two abilities triggering simultaneously needs to be resolved.  There is a very comprehensive and well maintained FAQ on BoardGameGeek (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1559935/rules-faq) that will probably be able to answer your question quickly with judicious use of Ctrl+F.  But if you’re not near a computer, be prepared to exercise some common sense arbitration instead.

Level 99 has a reputation for packing their games to the brim with content, and Millennium Blades is no exception. Because of the way in which you construct the store deck, each game can vary wildly.  Even better, with enough familiarity with the different card sets, you can tailor the Millennium Blades experience to fit your game group.  Want a mostly multiplayer solitaire resource management engine-builder?  Millennium Blades can be that game!  How about a highly interactive, cutthroat game where players are constantly butting heads, flipping each others’ cards at nearly every play?  Millennium Blades can be that game too! The core box offers enough content for dozens of plays before one would even think about looking at expansions.  There’s even a turn-based variant for those turned off by the real-time Deck Building phase.  We haven’t tried it because it looks like it would cause massive AP and balloon out the play time, but it’s an option for those so inclined.

Our favorite way to play?  Sealed deck format (grabbing 9 store deck  cards and 6 core deck cards instead of using the standard starter decks) with the cards sets picked randomly by the Millennium Device (http://www.lvl99games.com/app/millenniumblades/, link currently working fine on Mobile but not on Desktop).  

Millennium Blades is part of that rare group of games that has impressed me as much on the tenth play as it did on the first.  It simultaneously evokes in me a sense of nostalgia while being different from anything else I’ve ever played.  It feels like a passion project created by gamers who understand why people play games. And in that capacity it is an absolute triumph.  Millennium Blades.  Wow.  Just wow.

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Before I begin I was provided a review copy of the game in exchange for an honest review. This is not a paid review. If you would rather watch a video of this review you can check it out below. Get your own copy here.

I am slightly ashamed to say that I was not particularly familiar with Lucky Duck games until I managed to get myself on their reviewer list. You see I really wanted to check out a game they were looking for reviewers on, and I didn’t get, but they did wind up sending me Tang Garden which I was able to very favorably review. However, what stuck with me was how good the production on it was. It was fantastic, and the gameplay itself was surprisingly significantly better than I anticipated. So I will not lie, I knew NOTHING about Court of Miracles when I learned I could review it, but Tang Garden was quite good, and looked awesome, so I was in for Court of Miracles as well.

In The Court of Miracles you are playing the leader of a faction of the seedy underbelly of Paris: pickpockets, prostitutes, defrocked clergy, and shysters. In the world of the game there is a Penniless King who rules over this underbelly, and every night members of his Court congregate where miracles happen. You are competing to be the most influential guild in Paris, and perhaps take over as the Penniless King should he bite the big one.

Each player will have a set of rogue tokens, each with different assigned points values and different powers. Each turn you will place one out on the board, gain whatever bonus it offers and play a plot card if you so choose. Once one of the districts is full of rogues, then there is a standoff, and whomever has the most power will get to control that district and place out their marker.

Each of the districts has its own additional ability that you get to use when you place a rogue there. These range from moving a rogue that is out on the map to tossing out one of your current tokens and drawing a new one from the bag. In addition to these options, the Penniless King will be making his way around the city to his final destination. As he moves about the city he will stop at various districts and trigger a standoff to see whom had dominance.

The first player to get all of their renown tokens out, or whomever has the most when the Penniless King reaches the end of his track will win.

So what do I think?

Delectable

The art work is great. It really has a Prince and the Pauper feel to it, which I think is great. The board is this unique shape, being that of the city. Is it necessary? Not at all, but I like it. The rogue tokens are plastic pieces that you can place your faction symbol in, and they feel great. I think they are awesome.

The game play itself was surprising to me. There is so much strategy to the game, and so much reading of your opponents. It is truly delightful having the hidden rogue tokens, and when that is combined with the plot cards, the game is a constant clash of brilliant plans. You think you have the upper hand and then, BOOM you shut out of a district.

This is a game that is going to be a blast with 3-4 players. I am looking forward to taking this bad boy to a con again one day and getting a couple games in.

Tasty

I enjoyed playing the game two player. There is a cool chess like vibe to it, which is fun. Though I really think that this is a game that was clearly made for more. So it is a fun, quick game at two, but I suspect max player count will be far better. I also wonder if there is not a potential for some king making at higher player counts.

Edit: I actually created a work in progress AI for the game for both solo play and adding AI to regular games, here: shorturl.at/oT028

Edible

The game manual has a rather long story introduction which talks about the Court of Miracles, and the magic that happens there. However, I do not get any of that in the game. It also takes time to talk about the different factions, but in the game the only difference is that they are different colors. I wish that they had something slightly different, even just having a slightly different opening rogue load out. I think it is a missed opportunity.

I also think wish that the game had some player aids for all the different rogue tokens. As it is now, you have to look on the back of the rules every time you draw a new one.

Bringing it all together

Court of Miracles is a surprising game to me. It does not do anything particularly new, I have played worker placement games, I have played some with an area majority vibe to it, and even some with hidden strengths on your pawns. However, this game is just tight and fast, and really has a focus on outwitting your opponent in the most delightful way. The production on the game is very good, and the art perfect. I think there is a missed opportunity or two on the factions and theme, but really this is a game that is far, far better than I anticipated. I am really looking forward to taking this with me to a convention and playing with max player counts.

I wish you were the wordless king…sheesh

* Production, and art are great on the game (though there could be an awesome deluxe edition!
* Quick, tight game
* Easy to learn, but a lot of strategy, and outwitting your opponents
* Two player game is good, higher player counts will be tons of fun
* Wish the game had a player aid, and the tiniest bit of asynchronous-ness
* Wish that the idea of miracles happening in the court was more realized
* This is going to be a brilliant game to take to conventions once those are a thing again

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