Starting this week, I’m organizing games on Wednesdays at my new FLGS (Friendly Local Game Shop), Empire Game Shop, and this week I brought in a bunch of Lovecraft-inspired games to play.
We didn’t play those, but we did play two demo copies the store has!
First: Marvel Dice Masters Avengers vs X-Men
This is a dice-building game. The mechanic is very similar to deck-builders: you start with a set of “basic” dice, draw them, roll them, and then use them to either attack your opponent, defend against an attack, or buy other, more powerful dice (using “energy,” which is on roughly half the pips on the dice).
We played the beginner game, with Spider-Man and the Flash vs. Captain America and Thor. There are some “action” style dice you can also buy which have special powers to give you either more energy or a special buff or debuff for your existing dice on the field.
I lost, but it was a very close game, and I enjoyed it immensely. I’m excited for the April 23rd release of this game, which will be $15 retail and has expansion boosters for $1/pack.
There’s also an organized play program starting in June, which you know I’ll be all over, right?
Second: The Walking Dead Board Game
This is a cooperative board game where you take on the roles of the Survivors, vs. the Walkers.
It was brutal. We made it most of the way through 4 turns before the Walkers took out one of the characters. We played on beginner:hardmode, which is a strange mix where you can view all the event cards (the bad things that are going to happen), but if one character dies, the game ends.
It was, however, fun. It lacked any kind of traitor/out-for-myself role, something that would probably enhance the game a bit in terms of tying it to the comics/TV series a bit better. For example, if each character also had a “you win if so-and-so dies while you aren’t the Leader” mechanic, that might be pretty slick. Not sure how you’d balance that if nobody was playing a certain character, though.
The shop has a demo copy of the Woodbury Expansion, which just became available. We didn’t play the expansion (yet!)
I also played a hand of Magic: the Gathering with Juls, who finally beat me with my own demo deck! At last! I think that means I’m ready to buy a full-sized starter deck, right?