Remember a few years ago, I was interested in Malifaux? Well, it didn’t really go anywhere at the time, which is probably just as well. Back in April though, Wyrd Games announced 4th edition is coming this year, and it looks like some interesting changes are coming to the lore. More models of course, so that’s always nice, and the game still uses a deck of cards instead of dice, so it’s still keeping that USP. Might be one to keep an eye on, to see if Rasputina gets a new model…
A few years ago, I also talked about Zombicide. It’s the flagship game from Cool Mini Or Not – or that should be, it was. CMON have apparently been struggling due to the tariffs, as their business model is of course based on Kickstarter and getting stuff made in China. Turns out, using a future campaign to fund production of a completed campaign doesn’t work out when you didn’t account for the import duty increase in that completed campaign. So Asmodee have bought the IP. What does that mean? Well, Atomic Mass Games are the miniatures studio under the Asmodee umbrella, so maybe AMG will now have to make Zombicide stuff as well as Shatterpoint, MCP and Legion..? Unless it remains marketed as a board game, and is put under Fantasy Flight? Time will tell. If it’s moving away from the Kickstarter model though, and instead will be produced like a regular board game, it could be interesting enough to take the plunge…
Finally, Cyberpunk 2077 is getting a co-op, story-driven card game! I’ve recently been thinking a lot about Netrunner again, so I’m kinda interested in this idea. Not enough to pre-order it sight unseen, but it’s probably something worth keeping an eye on… it sounds almost like the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, which would be lovely!
Hey everybody, As we all know, Tuesdays can be incredibly boring. That’s why Tuesdays are Game Days here on my blog! I used to post quite religiously here every single Tuesday, which was quite the feat when I look back, though I suppose my board game collection was significantly bigger back in the day than it is now. However, I still try to get gaming related posts up on a Tuesday, whenever I can. After a number of years where my attention was quite firmly on Warhammer, I have begun to rebalance myself a little, so that I am once more playing with the other games that I own, and have had some really fun times this year so far, playing a lot of stuff for my 10×10 gaming challenge – some of those games have barely seen the light of day until now, so that’s been great!
One of the games that almost made it onto the list was Hellboy. The kickstarter from 2019 is quite the beast, with two massive boxes that are full of trays of miniatures with which to populate a classic dungeon crawler game. I have only ever scratched the surface with this game, and it’s almost a constant surprise to me how little I have actually played it. Well, I played a game at the weekend, and while I don’t know if I got all of the rules right, I did have a good time. I say “good” and not “great”, because it’s a curious beast, this one.
The game system is pretty good, I think. The classic dungeon-crawl experience is here, as you have agents with multiple actions who can act whenever you decide, you don’t have to take your whole turn in one go. You have room exploration, which turns up minions or clues, or scenery that can be thrown. The combat system is interesting, making use of custom dice along with an “event” die that introduces more random effects. The damage system is also interesting, and feels a bit like a holdover from the designer’s former work on Warhammer Quest. Replay value is high because of the case files system, where you may never see some cards from the case file deck when playing, so the next time you play the same case file, it may be completely different. Expansions and additional Kickstarter content have brought a host of new enemies, new agents, new requisition cards, all of which mingle in new ways to make a fairly modular game experience. Indeed, one of the expansions, the BPRD Files, is based around this idea of modularity, giving cards to allow you to construct your own games in any number of different ways.
However, there is very little opportunity for respite, and I find it interesting just how punishing the game can be, especially for two players. It does feel very reactionary, and I think that might be why I don’t always feel like I’m in the mood for it. There’s no explicit timer, although there are several elements that can coalesce into bringing about the final showdown – which is on-theme, because in the world of Hellboy, the enemies are always plotting in the shadows to bring about the end of days, after all!
There are a lot of miniatures in this one, which seems to be the thing a lot of companies rely on when it comes to their Kickstarter games. I’m not trying to suggest that the number of miniatures in Hellboy is used to prop up a poor game design, but there are a lot, and I find it interesting from the standpoint of watching the evolution of board game design. Going back ten years or so, these things would have been cardboard tokens, or cheaply-produced PVC miniatures. Nowadays, it seems like everybody wants 28mm or 32mm hobby-scale plastic miniatures to represent every last thing, all in the name of immersion or something.
I think my biggest issue with this game comes down to my own lack of plays with it – in that respect, I think it would have been the perfect candidate for the 10×10 challenge! Before the game at the weekend, I had last played it in 2021. I had no idea it was so long ago! I seem to have some degree of interest in the game, and I get to play it a couple of times, but then it goes back to gathering dust, and this lack of experience with it almost always leads to me needing to replay the tutorial, which I think sells the game a bit short in terms of what it’s all about. Forgetting about the kickstarter juicy stuff, there is so much even within the base game that I have little to no experience with, such as the requisition stuff, scenery, even the other case files – I feel very much like I have only begun to lift the lid on it, really.
However, isn’t this almost always the case with these sorts of games? I’ve talked a bit about Kickstarter before, and the problems with having so many glamorous games on there that look amazing. My buddy Tony is a total nut for collecting Kickstarter games, and has hundreds of them that he has barely, if ever, played.
The resurgence of my interest in board games has been really fun, though, and I have already mentioned my desire to add another to the collection with Dune Imperium this Christmas. Hellboy has got me thinking about other board games with a heavy count of miniatures, though, and I have begun to look at one of the juggernauts of the genre, Zombicide. This was first launched via Kickstarter as well, by Cool Mini Or Not, who have had huge success with the crowd funding platform. Zombicide dates all the way back to 2012, with a second edition coming out back in 2021. There are an absolute ton of expansions and ancillary products for this game, which I think is testament to the Kickstarter lineage. I’ve been trying to make sense of everything, with some varying degrees of success, but looking at the core gameplay for it, I think it sounds like it could be a lot of fun.
As a rule, I’m not a big fan of Zombie games, but the more I’ve been looking into this, I don’t think that’s a massive barrier for me. I have played quite a few, many years ago, as an ex-girlfriend was a big fan of Last Night on Earth and similar. However, I think this game has the co-op aspect going for it, first of all, and the second edition appears to be a campaign-driven system, which could be very interesting indeed. While I don’t particularly go in for the zombie theme, I do like post-apocalyptic themes, and of course I do enjoy co-op games, so there is definitely something here for me.
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