Game time again!

Alright, the game this time isn’t exactly a “designer” or Eurogame like Carcassonne. But, it’s still a lot of fun. I enjoy playing it and my kids absolutely go nuts for it. So, just like Carcassonne does, this game manages to get a 10 year-old, a 6 year-old and a 4 year-old around the table together laughing and having a good time. Show me an Xbox game that does that?

So what is it? It’s Heroscape! Heroscape, what the heck is that????

Well, if you’re a guy, certainly you remember playing with little green army men or GI Joe’s when you were little? If you were lucky, you had a friend or sibling to play them with and you’d have “battles” with them. Well, if you were like me, those battles quickly turned into battles of words over who killed who’s guys, etc etc.

Heroscape looks to capture the magic of those games but put some amazingly simple rules around the whole thing. Heroscape is technically a war game using miniature figures.

Part of the genius of this game is the game board. It’s not your typical folded cardboard affair with glued-on artwork. As you can see here, the board is comprised of plastic colored “hexes” representing different types of terrain and those hexes can be stacked to create elevations. These hex pieces interlock in addition to being stackable. The end result is this: the game board is completely customizable by you and never needs to look the same twice.

The miniatures are either a “hero” or a squad of “guys”. Here you can see my squad of  Airborne Elite soldiers. But Heroscape is not just an “army man” game. In the distance there you can just make out my opponent’s pieces…a dragon, some futuristic terminator robots and some sort of alien army dudes. And to round out my side, I’ve got some Matrix-like agents and an Elf (which I jokingly call Legolas).

It sounds like chaos but the game pulls it off nicely. Each hero or squad comes with a card that explains how far each one can move in a turn, their range for attack and then the number of dice to roll for their attack and number of dice to roll for defense.

Combat is stupid simple. You visually check to make sure that the attacking unit can “see” the defending unit. Then the attacker and defender roll special 6-sided dice as indicated on the cards.

The dice have skulls, shields and blank sides. If you’re attacking, each skull is a “hit” and if you’re defending, each shield is a “miss”. If the number of hits exceeds the number of misses, then the defending unit is hit otherwise, it’s safe. Simple.

Most units have special abilities that alter the rules somehow…either they can move specially, have a special attack or something similar. You can optionally play a simplified variant of the game where you ignore these special rules and some other more advanced rules are ignored for the most part.

For me, a good attribute for a game is how expandable it is and Heroscape is uber-expandable….you can buy nearly 100 new units/heroes and dozens of new types of terrain to add to your board in a ton of expansion packs. They even have one that just came out a little while ago where you can have units of Marvel super heroes like Spiderman and the Hulk. How awesome is that?

As always though, the true measure of any game for me is – is it fun for everybody and does it bring people together to the table again and again? Yup, Heroscape FTW. I love it…at least an hour of no Xbox, no Gameboy’s, no TV. Want some family togetherness?  Get a good board game.

Be sure to read my other board game reviews for other great suggestions.

Welcome back!

I’ll get to that title in a bit, stick with me here…

I’ve been on a board game kick lately. I’ve always been a “gamer” but I’ve grown increasingly disgruntled with computer games as of late. Most of them value flashy graphics over clever game design or originality. My ability to win computer games is seldom about strategy or wits. Instead, winning most computer games is about how well I’ve memorized the map, how quickly I can click something or which ridiculous combination of keys I know how to do to pull off a special move of some kind (”Fatality!”).

The other problem with computer games in general is a lack of interactivity with other warm-blooded humanoids. Now I know that most modern computer games have some sort of online component, but what good is playing a faceless opponent? And don’t even get me started on how the anonymity of the internet in a gaming context can turn the majority of the population into a complete jack-ass.

Board games can be extremely engaging. I would argue that some of the better ones have even better gameplay, balance and mechanics than the best computer games. To be clear here, I am NOT talking about any board game that you can buy at Target, Wal-Mart or even Toys-R-Us. For some reason, the games that are sold there are generally crap. Monopoly, Clue, Risk – all junk (for the most part). No, I’m talking about “designer” games, so-called because they prominently feature the designer of the game on the box. You’ll also sometimes hear them referred to as “eurogames” because a lot of them emanate from Germany for some reason. There’s a high probability you’ve never heard of these games – and that’s a shame.

If you want to see a “light” example of what I’m talking about, pick-up a copy of the award-winning game “Carcassonne” by Klaus-Jurgen Wrede. It’s a very clever game where players take turns drawing tiles depicting roads, cathedrals and city parts of the medival region around Carcassonne in present-day France. You have to match your tile against those already in play (i.e. field against field, city against city, road against road, etc.). In this way, the game is NEVER the same twice. What you try to do is complete structures for points and this is where the strategy really comes in. In order to score points, you have to claim a structure on the tile you just played with one of seven little “followers” (called “meeple” by gamers). When that structure is completed, you get the points and you get your meeple back. Trouble is, there’s many more things to grab than you have meeples to claim…thus the strategy! What do you try and claim? When do you hold back? How can you place tiles to increase your score or make it more difficult for your opponents to complete their structures?

It plays fast. It’s fast to learn…and at the risk of sounding cliche, it takes a while to master, but it’s fun right away. The other thing you’ll notice is the quality of the components of the game. The cardboard tiles are extremely solid and feel like like they’ll stand up to years of abuse. Heck, even the box feels solid…how many of you have seen the box of Candy Land (or pick your typical game title) disintegrate after about a year? This high production quality is another hallmark of designer games.

Anyway….

Here’s some pictures of a game we played this afternoon with my youngest son, Harrison (4) playing Carcassonne (thus the title, see, I said I’d get to it ).

“My city!”

“I built a church!”

Oh yeah….the little poop won too (with a little help from mom and dad ).

We could easily have popped in a DVD or turned the Xbox on to some zombie-inducing game. Instead, we spent some quality time around the table as a family and had a good time together…talking and joking and laughing. In the process, we all played a game that everybody finds enjoyable and flexes your brain a bit (heck, it even helps teach the youngin’s basic math skills because you have to add up and keep track of your own score).

I’ve got more of these games to play and a bunch more on my wish list. I’ll share the good ones with you. I highly recommend this one.

Be sure to read my other board game reviews too.