Tannhauser
This is a review of the Taunhauser by Fantasy Flight Games. It's Summary is

Materials=9
Rules Presentation=8
Gameplay=8
Personal Tilt=9
Replayability=3
Usefulness=4

This is a prime example of a game I love, but unfortunately probably won't measure up with as great a score as I would want to assign it. That's why I have the personal tilt portion, because that reflects my TRUE feelings of the game. This review, however, takes a more impersonal and balanced view of the game, or as balanced as I can make it (afterall, to be honest, every reviewer has some bias in there, but I try to take as impartial a view as possible in my reviews).

Materials - This game is great for the materials. The playing pieces, or 10 plastic minis are prepainted, and durable. In addition the stat boards, are actually durable, more durable than normal cardboard even as they seem to be mounted and printed on some sort of paper/cloth mixture. The board is a standard mounted board. It does have cardboard chits, and though durable, it's still cardboard chits. Their are also dice, which are black, and about your standard amount. The biggest detriment is a summary sheet included which explains what tokens represent. This summary is a flimsy sheet of paper which is easily destroyed by ripping, a drink tipping, or other nefarious means.

It scores a 9

Rules Presentation - The rules are surprisingly easy to understand, given that this game could be very complex. The worst portion of it are all the token summaries and putting one and one together, but overall, rather easy to understand.

It scores an 8.

Gameplay - This game is a move dicefest, where you engage characters in a tactical squad based battle. Each player gets 5 miniatures, represented as Heroes which you get three of, and the 2 others which you can spawn as you need (provided that you score enough points in the game to spawn such minions). There are several various modes of play, though the primary one we played was an objective based game. In this, you try to accomplish your objectives. You can lose most of your team, but as long as you achieve your objective before the other player, you win the game.

We weren't too fond of Deathmatch, but it is also availble.

Each player takes turns setting down tokens which represent objectives. In order to achieve these objectives, one of your characters will have to use their skills (as defined off a token) in order to activate the token and gather it up. Each team have different objectives, and to further complicate things, the other player may decide that the best way to accomplish their objective, is to kill YOUR team.

This leads to combat, which typically has one of your team members using a skill, which is defined by a number. They roll that number of dice, as well as also using that number to define what they have to roll. As they get hurt, the number that defines a stat goes down.

There are various weapons and items you can use to further complicate this procedure, such as machine guns vs. pistols, knives vs. a huge freakin gun which completely eradicates an enemy on a roll, as well as aids that will improve a characters chances to hit, or even items that will heal a character.

Most of these items are chosen and given to characters prior to the games start.

The game moves quickly, and combat is fast and furious.

There is a down side. The game works movement with a system of pathfinding. This is basically a set of circles of similar and different colors. If a figure is on the same color, it can see and shoot anything else on that color. If it is on a different color, it cannot see or shoot anything.

The problems with this come in when people can't tell what color is what, or due to the darkness of the board, claim they have problems telling what exactly the circles should be.

I had no problems with it, but a few of the people we played with did.

It scores an 8.

Personal Tilt - I love this game. I enjoy the theme and the little plastic figures, the dice rolling, and the ability to choose and modify a character prior to the game start. In fact, this game is terrific for those who want a minitures type game, but don't want to spend the long hours that can be spent on many of the larger and more time consuming games.

It scores a 9

Replayability - This hurts. I want to have this game score well, but...it's very limited. It has a two sided board, and with the pathfinder system, it means that eventually all your games are going to seem the same. There are various ways to reassign objectives, but the fact is that they are always going to be in one of 6 spots, and always going to be in the same similar situations. It's like playing a First Person shooter where you only ever have two maps. There can be multiple variations that you can add, but in the end, there are only two maps. With the combination of how the game works, the pathfinder system, and the maps, it really degrades this score.

It scores a 3.

Usefulness - This is another area that hurts the game. This game has all the makings of a wonderful system, but it is limited with replayability, with the fact that for the most part it's ONLY a two player game (meaning on game nights with more then two it's not going to be able to be used), and that even with two, there are only various limitations on which sides you can be, means that unless it's a game with a set buddy of mine who hasn't played it yet, or I decide to try to play it solo with me as both teams, this game isn't going to see much use currently. This makes me sad, but unfortunately, is where I currently stand on it.

It scores a 4.

In final summary, the game flows great, is tremendous fun, and I enjoy it tremendously. Unfortunately, due to limited replayability, and the fact that it's hard for me to use it on game nights, really reduces it's score for me.

Hence it's final score is a

6.8



(Edit: For reference, link to explanation of my game ratings http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/2426690#2426690 )