Game: Battlemist

Thread: Re: Battlemist: Atmospheric but flawed

leberegel — 2008-11-14T08:58:14+00:00

One way to solve the questing problem: You can only gain a star from questing, if you gained one the "normal" way...

Thread: What does expansion (Sails of War) fixes?

Galcatorex — 2008-09-05T13:19:50+00:00

I have read different opinions on the expansion. Could someone please tell me what it fixes?

And still, after reading all praises abot expansion, it does not raise the rank of this game sufficiently. Why is that?

What is the major problem with Battlemist even after improvement with expansion?

Thanks for any insight.

Thread: Re: Battlemist: Atmospheric but flawed

robbbbbb — 2008-05-27T22:29:28+00:00

That's a fair review. It seems that most opinion on this game boils down to:

(1) Man, it's fun to build the board.

(2) The questing sub-system sucks, and if you could fix it, this would be all sorts of fun.

(3) Trade in goods is hard, and the incentives to do so... eh. And fixing that might help with buildup/balance issues.

I've played around with (2) somewhat. If the heroes interacted with the rest of the game in a meaningful way, then this game would be a whole lot better. As is, I find it a fun one to play from time-to-time.

Thread: Re: Battlemist: Atmospheric but flawed

mi98c10 — 2008-05-27T10:32:34+00:00

Sorry messed up the oringanl game also lets you recrut monsters.

Also on the back of the rules it says coming july 4th 1999 Reigns of Power,
which they've renamed Realms of Power.

IT'S BEEN 9 YEARS WHEN IS IT COMING OUT? And stop saying "coming soon" you've been doing that for two years!

Rant over

Thread: Re: Battlemist: Atmospheric but flawed

mi98c10 — 2008-05-27T10:12:26+00:00

Just to add the changes Sails of War brings.

Map Setup

You are dealt 5 tiles and keep 3. Combined resources can not exceed 10.
You have three choices for tile placement:
1. Draw randon face down tile and roll to see where it goes.
2. Place one of your draw tiles, subject to dot colors and can't be added to a landmass of 4+ tiles, and can't be placed by itself, ie making a 1 hex island
3.Place your homeland. Only restrictions are 2 spaces away from another homeland.

It comes with a mat of 6x10 hexes. empty spaces are water.

Game play:

Now every turn you roll on an events table instead of a randon event card popping up.
Also after the star phase EVERY player rolls to move sea serpants. Don't leave your ships at sea carry troops in anywhere near a sea serpant.
This of course adds sea combat but since the ships are trade, transport, and warship. It's not as detailed as land combat. Also they add ports to towns and cities you can build.
To trade you sail a trade ship to a port of a player who agrees to trade. Count the distance between ports. The owner of the port gets this amount of any resource. The player who owns the ship gets double the amount but must sail his ship back. As you can see the chances of double cross are great. Becasue nothing is to stop the secound player from attacking the trade ship with his warships. and sinking the cargo.

Each turn you bid for initiative. the counters has tw0 numbers one for spring and one for fall.

Combat.

Nothing has changed but now you can hire monsters to boost your forces.

Heros:

Biggest change in the rules. Now heros explore hexes and turn over hidden counters that might be stars, Artifact, Mystic lands or nothing.
To go on a quest you draw a card, move your hero there at the rate of 3 hexes a turn. draw a card to see if you found a star or where you move next. After finding the star you have to get it home which brings to the 2 biggest changes:
Heros fight each other, and the biggie of all
HEROS EFFECT BATTLES NOW, a hero allows you to use 4 units in a round up one from before, and lets you reroll one combat roll.

Finaly you can win by controlling 4 of the 5 mystic lands.

It improves the base game greatly but some of the unbalnece remains ie dark one

Thread: Battlemist: Atmospheric but flawed

darker — 2008-05-27T05:04:39+00:00

[Where I'm coming from: I've played Battlemist about half a dozen times. All of those plays were a number of years ago, though my memories of the gameplay have remained fairly strong. I refreshed my recollection of the rules with some online browsing before writing this review; however, I do not own a copy of the game. All in all, I'm sure that others could write more comprehensive reviews - but the poor entry is sitting here with none at all, so I'm stepping up. Also, I don't think my core points are dependent on rules minutae.]

[Note: I have not played with the Sails of War expansion.]

Overview
Battlemist is a heroic fantasy wargame about the clash of kingdoms; it has, to me, a feel strongly reminiscent of Middle-Earth. The goal of the game is to accumulate five Stars of Timorran, either by sending heroes questing, by conquering your opponents and taking theirs, or by purchasing them; having more Stars also grants greater magical powers to be used each turn. The wargame involves resource production/management, unit production/management, kingdom expansion, and, of course, fighting.

Brief, incomplete rules synopsis
The game begins by building the map - players lay hex-tiles of four different terrains (plains, woods, mountains, and wastes) along with one origin hex for each player. Colored pips along hex-sides restrict what tiles may be played adjacent to each other.

Then, each turn, everyone:
* Refreshes magical power (equal to # of Stars - just 1 at game start);
* Determines initiative for the individual turns;
* Draws an Action ("do special stuff") Card. Some of these are Events, which may result in things happening on the board, or result in a vote amongst the kingdoms to decide between different possible consequences;
* Harvests resources (grain, wood, and iron) from each controlled hex (plains, woods, and mountains); settlements double resource production;
* Purchases units, population centers, and, potentially, Stars of Timmoran (at a very steep price). Unit placement is limited by population centers (1 at towns, 3 at cities).
Each player then takes an individual turn, moving any/all of their units and resolving fights wherever troops end up cohabiting with another force. Once all players have done this, upkeep must be paid for each unit and population center a player controls, lest the unit/population center be discarded. Lather, rinse, repeat.

One of the units you can buy is a Hero. Heroes don't interact with the military game at all; their two purposes in life are to (a) go questing, in hopes of finding the Stars of Timmoran (or failing that, occasional neat magic goodies); and (b) go beat up enemy Heroes, to keep them from doing likewise.

There are magical spells (common to all players) which may be cast; they can add resources, sway battles in your favor, and generally be helpful. Each kingdom has special abilities unique to it, as well as differing stats for the three basic unit types.

Piece #1: The wargame
I find the actual fighting in Battlemist to be engaging and entertaining. Battles are a bit more involved than "roll for hits, see how many die", primarily in three ways:
1. There are three phases of combat in each round: Archers fire, Cavalry charge, Footmen fight. Each phase has some simple rules about how many of that type of unit can attack, and how hits must be applied.
2. Rather than only scoring a Kill or a miss, a unit may Rout an enemy. Routed units are flipped over and don't get to attack, but at the end of each combat round there's a Rally phase during which some Routed units may be restored to usefulness. The target number (on a 10-sided die) for Routs and Kills varies not just by unit type, but by kingdom.
3. Footmen are required to hold the field. If you don't have any un-routed Footmen, the enemy may overrun you and wipe you out.

Battles can also be affected by magical intervention, action cards, the presence of special units, and the presence of a population center. With the exception of some archery-affecting cards (particularly when used with/on the elves), I never felt like any of the external influences were excessively swing-y / broken. Notably superior numbers will generally carry the day, but troop composition is very important, and outside factors (or plain old weird dice luck) can result in upsets. There can be some pleasingly agonizing decisions, particularly in the areas of assigning casualties and distributing forces between hexes.

There are some number of chits to deal with - units, population centers, heroes, resource markers - but hey, it's a wargame. Chits happen.

You can earn Stars for the military game, but only by taking over another player's home hex. This has three problems:
1. Unless they're new to the game or fall asleep at the wheel, this is no mean feat - they get free defensive bonuses and have the advantage of much shorter supply (moving-troops) lines to replace casualties over the turns you advance.
2. It's a direct incentive to go for the jugular, which folks who dislike player elimination may find annoying. The only redeeming grace this has is that it's much more worth your while to knock out players who are ahead (you'll eliminate a more likely competitor, and get more Stars to boot).
3. It doesn't actually add more Stars to the game - it's worse than zero-sum, because some of the Stars in a conquered home are lost.

Piece #2: The economic game
The economics of Battlemist suffer from two difficulties.

The first is the usual wargame resource-flow difficulty of "When Player A and Player B fight, both suffer casualties, which cost resources to replace. Relative to all other players, both of their positions suffer. This discourages conflict." (Is there an established name for that particular dynamic?) In Battlemist, the problem is mitigated to an extent by the upkeep rules - players who suffer many casualties will pay less to support their troops. "Mitigated", however, does not mean "solved"; it's still a problem.

The second - and more serious - trouble is that maps (being player-created) can be wildly inequitable in resource distribution. Sure, in an ideal world, table play might manage to balance out what happens if one player draws no iron during board-building - but in practice, they just tend to have a miserable time of it. As a good friend put it, "If you lose the five-minute game called 'Setup', you're hosed for the multi-hour game called 'Battlemist'". (Which is really too bad, because semi-competitively building the gameboard is fun.)

Beyond that, the economic game is all right - not amazingly gripping, but it drives the wargame well - a kingdom lacking in one resource type will value those areas more highly; a kingdom with lots of grain production but less wood/iron (ie: easy support, hard production) will want to play differently from a kingdom with lots of wood/iron but less grain (ie: easy production, but can't support so many units).

You can earn Stars for the economic game - the price is in all three resources, and goes higher the more Stars you own already. This is the most reliable way to get Stars, but also the least fulfilling - instead of spending your resources on kingdom expansion (cool) or troops to go fight with (cool) or Heroes to go questing (potentially cool, though see below), you're...buying victory. Less cool, and less interaction with other players. Well, other than the fact that they'll then come try to stomp on you, since you're both an easier and more worthwhile target - which is kind of an interesting dynamic, but, overall, the "you can buy stars" feels like a hack designed to prevent stalemates and compensate for the randomness of the questing system. Which brings us to:

Piece #3: The questing
As previously mentioned, heroes don't interact with the military game at all. They're unhindered by enemy armies, and even enemy population centers.

When a player begins a quest, they draw from the quest deck, which gives them someplace to go. (The name of one of the hexes.) Once they get a hero there, they draw from the deck again, finding a clue to some other region, a foe to fight (followed by a clue), or a treasure - perhaps a Star, perhaps something lesser. Once a treasure is found, the quest is over. Only one Quest can be ongoing at once, and a hero must be at one's home hex to begin a new one.

The results of questing are flavorful and atmospheric. They are also, unfortunately, completely random and utterly insulated from the rest of the game. The only real decision a player has is how vigorously to pursue questing - whether to pay for 0, 1, 2, or 3 heroes - which can be abstracted out to "how quickly, on average, do I get to draw from the Quest deck?" There are no per-kingdom differences between heroes, no choice of goals, no relation between how much danger a Hero faced and the likelihood of getting a Star, and the shifting geography of kingdoms has no influence on the results of questing. The random swings of the deck can be immensely frustrating; a player with three heroes may find naught but pain while the dominant military power happens to luck into a Star or two after short quests. (Oh, also: the heros' combat system is a simple "roll a die, inflict hits" system, lacking in any depth or interesting choices.)

The entire point of questing is gaining Stars - the occasional other magical rewards wouldn't generally be worth it. It's arguably the primary method of gaining them (if not, then economics is, which I find faintly depressing in a high fantasy wargame), which turns the questing system from "atmospheric if too-random side mechanic" into "highly frustrating core mechanic".

Or to put it another way: Some games are "see what happens" games, where the fun is not so much in making decisions, as in seeing what the vagaries of chance may bring. (eg: craps, Cootie, War, Fluxx, Chutes + Ladders, and about a bazillion others). That's fine; such a thing can be enjoyable. But making the primary means by which victory is pursued a "see what happens" mechanic strikes me as a design choice poorly suited to a 3+ hour chit-based strategy wargame.

Final judgement

Battlemist has great atmosphere, and the actual fighting is fun. If you and your friends care more about playing through an epic fantasy struggle together than victory being achievable due to your strategy, you might well enjoy it, particularly if you use a house rule to keep anyone from being hosed too badly during board setup.

However, one of the two major paths to victory is uninteresting/unthematic, and the other is a sub-game both isolated from everything else that's happening and entirely random to boot.

Personally, I don't think I'll be playing it any more.

Image

lothlorian — 2007-03-25T13:15:24+00:00

Battlemist Hexes Sheet of Grass and Wastelands

Image

bbhanson — 2007-01-26T22:09:40+00:00

Countersheet 2 of 2

Image

bbhanson — 2007-01-26T22:09:06+00:00

Countersheet 1 of 2

Image

Harlekin — 2006-09-25T12:09:39+00:00

Thread: Re: Battlemist??

Thornkin — 2005-09-07T06:37:37+00:00

My opinion seems to be in the minority here but I think that Battlemist is one of the better games of its genre. The map construction is unique and creates for some interesting playing surfaces. The game (with 4-5 players anyway) is fun and pretty fast. Certainly faster than its predecessor (Twilight Imperium). The combat system makes use of combined arms which creates more balance than many. If you can get 4-5 players, pick it up. The demand may not be high but it can be a lot of fun to play.

Thread: Re: Battlemist??

gironha — 2005-09-07T00:48:30+00:00

I think it really needs 5 - 6 players to play well. Having said that, I think it is possible to construct a map that will play fine with 3 players, but the normal set up is a random map. Well not really "random", each player takes turns placing tiles, but what they will have to place next turn is not known.

By 'construct a map', I meant a pre-built scenario.

Thread: Re: Battlemist??

KrudgeWelder — 2005-09-06T20:48:19+00:00

For me I found that it was just a long game in which it really required a large number of people to get the true feel of it. Since our gaming group is lucky to get three people together at a time, it seemed tedious to keep it around.

Shameless plug, I have one up for trade. As for grabbing it for value's sake... not sure that it's valued all that much. I keep offering my copy up for trade and no one bites even for small $20 value games. So unless it's $20 or less, I'd say it's not really worth it.

Also, rumors have been going that a rewrite may be in the works from FF. If that's true, I'd say wait and see what improvements they are working on.

Just my 2 cents.

Thread: Battlemist??

dragonblaster — 2005-09-06T20:42:37+00:00

Does anyone know if Fantasy Flight's Battlemist is tuff to find? I found a copy of it and wasn't sure if I should get it just because it'd be hard to find another copy of it. Does it suffer any problems in gameplay like earlier versions of Twilight Imperium?

Image

Tisander — 2005-08-29T14:33:59+00:00

Image

Tisander — 2005-08-29T14:33:59+00:00

Image

Tisander — 2005-08-29T14:33:59+00:00

Image

Tisander — 2005-08-29T14:33:59+00:00

The giants were not enough to save the Dwarves

Image

Tisander — 2005-08-29T14:33:59+00:00

The battle board

Image

Tisander — 2005-08-29T14:33:59+00:00

Thread: Re:Ready for a 2nd edition?

roberious — 2005-02-21T08:41:27+00:00

Bozzutoman (#87735),

Why not ask him? I think this is a great game and with a good clean re-write and new components it should be a best seller.

Roberious

Thread: Ready for a 2nd edition?

Bozzutoman — 2005-02-21T03:35:56+00:00

It's been 7 years now.

Twilight Imperium has gone to 3rd edition.

Does anyone think Mr. Peterson could apply the innovations of TI3 to this one as well?

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Since Jon Comeaux didn't show, the Battle Mist crew of Eric Alleman, John Moore and Lenny Leo recruited an unsuspecting Bill Sanders into the game so they could play it to completion. Unfortunately, Bill was given a severely abridged version of the rules and had little clue as to how to play and what moves to make. He made some incursions into Lenny's territory, placing Lenny on the brink of extinction, but was suddenly hit by the play of several action cards which completely foiled his plans. Since Bill was unaware of the potential impact of these action cards, his taste for the game quickly soured. Sensing his displeasure, I offered to sit in for Bill for the remainder of the game so he could play something more to his liking.

Upon assuming Jon / Bill's position, it was obviously clear that Bill had only one chance at victory ... purchasing the two stars he needed. Both John and Eric were camped on his borders with powerful forces, while Lenny was on the verge of extinction with only a few troops remaining. It would be sheer folly to attempt to combat both John and Eric, so I opted to forego the purchase of any new units, instead saving my resources for the purchase of a star. This I did, giving me / Jon / Bill four stars, one away from victory.

Sure enough, Eric and John began assaulting my position and closing in on my home province. Still, I had a shot. However, with Lenny now out of it, there was no one to take the pressure off, so John and Eric simply used the powers in their accumulated stars to deplete me of my needed iron resources, thereby preventing me from purchasing the final star.

On what proved to be the final turn, both John and Eric were on my doorsteps. Whoever moved first that turn would win by capturing my home province and gaining two of my four stars... and it was John.

I've now played Battle Mist 2 1/3 times and the problems of the game are significant, so significant as to ruin the game experience for me. I've discussed these problems in greater detail in previous articles, but will highlight them here:

1) The Quest mechanism, although adding great flavor to the game, is WAY too luck based. It's basically a luck of the draw in determining who finds a star. This time the group played with a variant wherein once a star was found, the hero had to transport the star back to his home province. This didn't really work, though, as players simply formed roaming bands of heroes and would fall upon anyone who found a star.

2) Resource totals should be hidden. They were playing that this was public knowledge, which made it very easy to see who was ahead in terms of resources, allowing players to concentrate on assaulting that person with spells and troops. This actually prevented Jon / Bill / me from winning as I could have easily purchased my fifth star had my opponents not know the number of resources I had.

3) The game suffers from a problem similar to many multi-player games of conquest, including Fantasy Flight's Twilight Imperium. Players get leery of attacking each other as they will then be weakened and made easy prey for that player who wasn't involved in the attack. This can cause the game to drag a bit. However, the mechanisms of being able to purchase a star and finding one via Quests do provide some help here.

Battle Mist is a game which is fun and does challenge the players to balance various objectives and resources. However, it does have some significant problems which prevent me from having the great desire to play it repeatedly.

Ratings: John 8, Eric 7, Lenny 6, Greg 5

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

John Moore, Jon Comeaux, Lenny Leo and Eric Alleman opted for Fantasy Flight's Battle Mist. John and Jon were new to the game so there were some struggles with the rules early on.

The initial set-up seemed a source of irritation as John inadvertently surrounded himself with numerous plains territories. Unfortunately, his race is the Lotharia Elves, who are much more at home in forest hexes. Still, in spite of his positioning, he was able to conclude a three way treaty with Lenny and Jon to provide the necessary resources he lacked.

Eric immediately came under assault from the others as he was perceived to be the player who best knew the game system and had an extremely favorable starting location. Lenny was the first to launch an assault, but was beaten back severely by Eric. Lenny continued these assaults, but Eric was successful in beating back each incursion.

The group did play with a variant regarding quests wherein once a star was located, the player had to transport it back to his home realm before receiving credit for it. This has resulted in a hero bloodbath as the heroes are immediately attacked once they locate a star. John suffered such a fate as he was attempting to transport the star the entire length of the board. Jon, however, dispatched his hero to the area and slaughtered John, stealing the star. John was able to steal one of Eric's stars, however, and as the game halted for the evening, the star tally was as follows:

John 3, Jon 3, Eric 2, Lenny 1

The game will conclude next week.

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

This is the follow-up to Fantasy Flight's popular science fiction game Twilight Imperium. The game uses the same hex-play system with the board being created by the players before the game begins. As players may place their home realms virtually anyplace on the board as it is being created, this insures a different game each time. Very clever, indeed.

The system used is very similar to that utilized in Twilight Imperium, but uses a fantasy theme instead. Normally, this would be a turn-off to me, as I burnt out on the fantasy theme long ago. However, in this game, the theme fits and adds to the enjoyment of the game.

Each player represents one of six various races, each with their own special power(s). The objective is to acquire five precious stars, each imbedded with great magical power. In addition to leading to eventual victory, the more stars a player controls, the more powerful the spells he can cast.

A player can acquire stars in one of three manners:

1) Purchase them from the Grey Guild, which costs an increasing amount of resources depending upon the number of stars the player already possesses. After acquiring two or three stars, the cost is prohibitive.

2) Conquer (and thereby eliminate) another player from the game, in which case you get 1/2 of that player's stars (rounded up).

3) Send a hero on a quest and hope that this results in the discovery of a star (which is a random draw from the Quest deck). Many quests require that various creatures be fought, which is handled not unlike a Dungeons and Dragons encounter, but even when the creature is defeated this does not insure that a star will be found. Oftentimes, the quest yields nothing. Quests are certainly a crap-shoot, but can eventually yield a star or two.

Players purchase troops (infantry, cavalry or archers) using resources (grain, iron and wood), which are acquired by controlling various territories on the board. Resources are also needed to maintain these troops, as well as build and maintain towns and cities. So, in order to field a larger and more powerful army, one must acquire more resource producing territory. Conflict is inevitable.

As in Twilight Imperium, there is a 'Council' phase wherein players must vote on various 'events' and occurrences. Each player gets one vote, plus one vote for each city he controls. Most events require a certain number of votes for passage, so diplomacy is usually advantageous. This is a nice element of the game.

The game is very entertaining and fairly easy to understand. I must commend Christian Peterson for the excellent job he has done with the rulebook. After one read through, one is truly ready to play. It is full of concise examples and is very thorough.

There is a problem with the counter mix, though. The resource counters are in incredibly short supply, and we have already run out of town markers. I have ordered the free supplemental counter sheets (well, not exactly free .. one must include $3 for shipping) that are being offered, but it seems that this should have been caught in playtesting.

After covering the rules and constructing the board, we finally got underway around 8PM. The participants are Doug Daigle (the Dark One), Eric Alleman (Zul Orcs), Lenny Leo (Daquar Knights), Trevor Antczak (Lotharia Elves) and I (Dunwar Dwarves).

On the very first turn, Doug and Trevor opted to purchase their second star (each player begins with one) from the Grey Guild, which proved a wise decision. I was able to find a star on my first quest, but this made the cost for purchasing my third from the Grey Guild prohibitive. Lesson to be learned in future games ... buy a star early!

On the second turn of the game, I was viciously set upon by Doug and Lenny, both greedy for resource rich territories. Lenny's assault proved the most worrisome, as he conquered an area immediately next to my home realm. If a player loses his home realm, he is out of the game. This situation has effectively hampered my plans to the present as I must maintain a reasonably strong force in my home realm to prevent an incursion by Lenny.

Eric was able to acquire vast amounts of territory and was in possession of the majority of grain producing areas. This was ... and still is ... a major concern to everyone as grain is what is required to support most troops. Doug eventually led his forces, aided by the acquisition of several monsters, against Eric and succeeded in ousting him from a vital area. Unfortunately, Eric was able to reconquer the area, but both lost vital troops in the process.

I was poised to make a back-stabbing strike against Eric, but Lenny unexpectedly assaulted me along a front where we had a 'peace' agreement. This forced me to divert my troops to this front, where I was successful in ousting Lenny's forces. This, however, left Eric still in a very strong position.

Trevor, meanwhile, had successfully constructed two cities on the outskirts of his home realm, making an incursion into his realm very difficult and highly unlikely. As the night neared an end, Trevor led a strong force against Doug's depleted Dark forces and annihilated them. As the evening drew to a close, Trevor stands on the doorstep of Doug's home realm and is on the verge of ousting Doug from the game. If successful, he will acquire 2 of Doug's 3 stars and have accumulated 4 stars ... one away from victory.

At the break, here is the star count: Doug 3, Trevor 2, Eric 2, Lenny 2, Greg 2

Trevor and Eric appear the strongest, with Trevor on the verge of ousting Doug. Lenny is currently weakened from his ill-advised assault on me. My main problem is resources as I do not control enough territory to provide the resources I need to build and maintain a strong force. Plus, I made the mistake of placing my home realm early in the board set-up process. When the board developed, it left me with too many fronts to protect. Again, another lesson to be learned.

The game should conclude next week. So far, it is receiving very good marks and comments from everyone involved.

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

This game was continued from the previous week. As we resumed, Trevor Antczak was parked directly on Doug Daigle's doorstep and in position to annihilate him and confiscate two of his three stars, thus bringing him to a total of 4 stars. This is exactly what he did, smashing Doug in a terribly brutal fashion and knocking him from the game. This victory put Trevor one star away from the needed five to claim victory.

Meanwhile, I amassed a sizable army and dealt Lenny a crushing defeat on the doorsteps of his home realm. I was poised to take his homeland on the next turn.

In an effort to divert my attention and possibly eliminate me from the game, Lenny sent in a force against my homeland, only to be met with yet another staggering defeat. This left Lenny withering on the vine and I was able to smash into his homeland on the next turn and eliminate him from the game. This gave me my third star, and my hero was fortunate enough to discover a 4th star on the completion of a quest on that very turn. I, too, was one star away from victory.

Eric, meanwhile, wrested control of one of my mountain territories from me and began threatening my home realm (I spent the entire game with my opponents perched menacingly on my doorstep). Fortunately, we negotiated a truce and were prepared to partition the lands between us.

Eric also went on a mission to seek out and eliminate Trevor's hero, feeling that a quest was the most likely way Trevor would find his 5th star. Eric was successful in the cold-blooded murder, and when Trevor attempted revenge on Eric's hero the next turn, he was dealt yet another humiliating defeat.

Unfortunately for us, we didn't notice that Trevor had skipped purchasing new military units for two entire turns AND had made some trades with the merchants in the resource markets. This should have sounded the alarm bells, but we were pre-occupied with our own plans for seeking victory. What this allowed Trevor to do was amass a nice stock-pile of resources and he stunned us all by actually purchasing his final 5th star from the Grey Guild at the seemingly impossible sum of 25 resource points in each of the three resource categories. Eric and I were stunned, but applauded Trevor's sneaky victory.

Finals (in star totals): Trevor 5, Greg 4, Eric 3, Lenny & Doug OUT

Ratings: Eric 9, Trevor 9, Lenny 7, Greg 7, Doug 5

This follow-up game to Twilight Imperium maintains much of the same mechanics as its predecessor and does add a few more twists. It is quite enjoyable and requires an appreciable amount of resource management. One may have the resources to recruit new troops, but will he have enough to maintain the troops and towns during the supply phase? The constant need for more resources leads players to seek more and more territorial acquisitions, leading to the inevitable conflicts.

Further, in order to acquire the necessary 5 stars, it seems that all three methods of obtaining stars are valid: Purchases, Quests and Conquering Opponents. This is a good balance.

I still do have a few concerns, though. First, it is a game where opponents get eliminated. So unless there is another game forming at another table, players eliminated are doomed to a spectator status.

Second, although intriguing, the Quest aspect of the game is nothing more than a crap-shoot. Players randomly draw a card which leads them to a territory on the board. Once there, they usually must defeat some sort of creature in combat in order to complete their quest. Then, they draw a card to see if they have discovered something of value (hopefully a star). More often than not, however, they find nothing and must journey on. So, it boils down to the luck of the draw. I was fortunate enough to discover two stars via quests, while Trevor never, ever did.

Finally, as mentioned earlier, there is a severe lack of components. Resources, towns AND military tokens are in short supply. We had to improvise by using counters of unplayed powers and blank counters we were forced to scavenge. There is no excuse for this.

That said, though, I did enjoy the game and feel it will become one that is played a few times a year. It's a tad long compared to the German games we mostly play, but still at an acceptable length.

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Second time for this Fantasy Flights release which uses a system very similar to that of its predecessor Twilight Imperium, especially in regards to its hex-based game board which is set up differently with each playing.

Each player represents one of six various races, each with their own special power(s). The objective is to acquire five precious stars, each imbedded with great magical power. In addition to leading to eventual victory, the more stars a player controls, the more powerful the spells he can cast.

A player can acquire stars in one of three manners:

1) Purchase them from the Grey Guild, which costs an increasing amount of resources depending upon the number of stars the player already possesses. After acquiring two or three stars, the cost is prohibitive.

2) Conquer (and thereby eliminate) another player from the game, in which case you get 1/2 of that player's stars (rounded up).

3) Send a hero on a quest and hope that this results in the discovery of a star (which is a random draw from the Quest deck). Many quests require that various creatures be fought, which is handled not unlike a Dungeons and Dragons encounter, but even when the creature is defeated this does not insure that a star will be found. Oftentimes, the quest yields nothing. Quests are certainly a crap-shoot, but can eventually yield a star or two. Unfortunately, it is this totally random aspect of being able to find a star which destroys the game. More comments on this subject later.

Players purchase troops (infantry, cavalry or archers) using resources (grain, iron and wood), which are acquired by controlling various territories on the board. Resources are also needed to maintain these troops, as well as build and maintain towns and cities. So, in order to field a larger and more powerful army, one must acquire more resource producing territory. Conflict is inevitable.

As in Twilight Imperium, there is a 'Council' phase wherein players must vote on various 'events' and occurrences. Each player gets one vote, plus one vote for each city he controls. Most events require a certain number of votes for passage, so diplomacy is usually advantageous. This is a nice element of the game.

My second playing was less enjoyable than the first. I found the game to be quite 'fiddily'. One seems to be constantly counting resources (adding during the harvest segment, paying out during the recruitment and supply segments), transferring realm cards when territories are captured and lost, etc. All of these functions fall into the 'record keeping' category and can be quite tedious and cumbersome. It's necessary, but detracts from the flow of the game.

The game does have some problems, the most severe of which is the total luck based Quest system. It is quite possible to win the game outright by simply 'finding' the necessary stars during your various quests. Indeed, Eric Alleman discovered two stars on his first three quests, and Lenny Leo one on his very first quest. The randomness of the quest draws enabled most of the players to reach their realm destinations in one turn, so they weren't these time and turn consuming ventures that I believe is intended.

This randomness of the actual quest draws and the nothing-but-luck factor in actually locating the stars greatly damages any strategic and skill factors present in the game. It's just much easier to send your heroes out on quests to locate stars as opposed to planning a monumental, strategic and time consuming military campaign to capture the victory.

Eliminating quests, however, would also detract from the flavor and atmosphere of the game. The story lines on the quest cards are entertaining, and the seeking of the stars hidden about the realms is intriguing. We brainstormed a bit following the game and devised several possible solutions:

1) Upon 'finding' a star, a player must still fight an encounter with a formidable monster / foe in order to secure the star. This would add some risk element in locating and capturing these valuable stars.

2) Include an action card or two in the deck which allows a star to be stolen from a player and returned to the stock of stars. This would provide a method of 'beating back the leader'. The only method which exists to accomplish this now is to totally annihilate the leader, ousting him from the game. This is what we were collectively forced to do to Eric.

3) Force the hero to transport the star back to his home realm upon finding a star. If findings are kept secret, no one would ever know for sure if the hero found a star or was simply continuing his quest.

I certainly will try one or more of these variants in our next game as the premise and mechanics of the game are simply too good to be derailed by the total luck element of the quests.

In our most recent game, the contestants were Lenny Leo (Daqan Knights), Eric Alleman (Zul Orcs), Trevor Antczak (Lotaria Elves), Darren Arnold (Loth K'har) and myself (Dunwar Dwarves). All but Darren had played before, and, ironically, in spite of the draw being random, we all played the same race as in our first game!

On the very first turn, all of us opted to purchase our second star (each player begins with one) from the Grey Guild at the initial low price of ten of each resource. Unlike our first game, these were to be the last stars purchased from the Guild.

Lenny was the first to discover a star on a quest, followed almost immediately by Eric. My quests, however, were taking me to the far corners of the world, and yielding nothing. Eric's very next quest yielded yet another star, bringing his total to 4 ... one away from victory. This, of course, set him up as THE target, and unfortunately for Eric, he was surrounded on three sides by hostile forces ... Trevor, Darren and I. Eric's early discovery of two stars actually proved to be deadly as he did not have time to build up his military forces and there was only a one territory buffer zone between his home realm and his opponents forces.

Trevor, Darren and I immediately altered our plans and began an all-out assault on Eric's realms. All of us overwhelmed his meager forces and were perched on the doorstep of his home realm. On the next turn, Eric surprisingly opted for an offensive strategy and launched two assaults from his home realm against Trevor and I. The dice were with us, however, and we both won convincing victories, leaving Eric's home realm pitifully defended. I swooped in and captured the realm, ousting Eric from the game and capturing two of his four stars. Thus, I now had four stars and was one star away from victory.

Following my victory over Eric, Darren diverted his forces to a massive assault on Lenny's home realm. Based on the size of Darren's forces, he seemed assured of victory. However, the +2 bonus for defending one's home realm proved critical and Lenny succeeded in defeating Darren's forces. Since Darren had abandoned many of his controlled realms in order to amass his forces for the assault, he was left with few realms under his control and a meager harvest. He was finished.

In spite of being the not-so-proud bearer of the dreaded 'leader' title, I was actually in a much better position than Eric had been. My home realm was much better defended, there was only one hex from which I could be assaulted, and my only military threat was from Trevor, Darren having been sorely depleted. I used a spell to immobilize 1/2 of Trevor's nearest army, preventing any major assault from him.

Here, however, is where luck reared its ugly head again. My hero reached his quest destination and, yes, found a star ... my fifth. Since I had a one hex buffer zone, it would take two turns for my opponents to potentially reach my home realm. Victory was assured.

In spite of winning, it wasn't a satisfying victory. Eric stood little chance of holding off a three pronged assault from Trevor, Darren and I, especially since he hadn't had the time to build his forces; his early discovery (purely by chance) of two stars had prevented that. Since I moved before Trevor or Darren (again, determined by a die roll), I had the first crack at conquering Eric's home realm, which had been sorely depleted. It was an easy victory, earning me two more stars. Finally, it was nothing more than pure luck on the quest draw which gave me my final star.

Again, I do enjoy the games premise and mechanics. However, one must pay very careful attention when setting up the board as the initial tile layout and placement of one's home realm is critical. If one does not plan this carefully, he could be left being surrounded by poor resource producing realms and a placement which makes defense virtually impossible. The real killer, however, is the total luck element involved in the quests. Hopefully, the ideas we devised will help mitigate this and allow the game to played at a much more strategic level.

Ratings: All 6's.

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Stephen Maus had selected this game with his choice and it was enough to lure Trevor Antczak back to the gaming table. They were joined by Darren Arnold, Ashton Arnold and Stephen Pouey.

Battle Mist has been played several times before with our group, but this is the first time it was played using the Sails of War expansion. Although the players seemed to enjoy the game, the general consensus was that the expansion really slowed things down considerably and made traveling much more difficult and slow. Further, the manner in which islands are formed did have the result of greatly benefiting some players with far superior starting positions.

Stephen M. promises a full report soon, so I won't steal his thunder. I will say that the rules explanation and map set-up process took an excruciatingly long time, with the game not fully getting underway until near 9:00 PM. Of course, this meant that it wouldn't play to completion and will be finished next week.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Battlemist: Sails of War can play up from 2-6 players in a medieval/fantasy game of conflict. We got off to a bit of a slow start due to a little too thorough explanation of the rules, but things started picking up some speed after that.

Player Nation Rating

Trevor Antczak The Dark One 7
Steven Maus Loth'Kar Barbarians 7.5
Darren Arnold Dunwarr Dwarves 7
Ashton Arnold Zul Orcs 6
Steve Pouey Daquan Knights 7

First off we began creating the playing board. Each player was able to pick 3 realms; combined with their home realm, we began taking turns placing the tiles on a 'sea' mat or having the option to randomly roll a tile. As the board began to fill up, the latter option started to take a long time as the space that the dice dictated the realm be placed was already occupied.

The layout created an island in one corner where Ashton and Trevor had to share about seven or eight tiles. Unfortunately, two of these were deserts (basically worthless) which was an omen for a clash between these players. The rest of the realms happened to form a large mass of a continent; Darren was located in the opposite corner from the island in a fairly easily defended location also rich in resources; I made some mistakes in placing tiles and ended up in a bit of a tight corner with not much to brag about in resources; Steven Pouey on the other hand was in the dead center of the board and possessed the only land access to a peninsula loaded with resources and the only land access to another player was a bottleneck to me. I saw this a sign of conflict to come as well.

The first few turns were a little predictable as the players moved out their forces to grab nearby realms. The struggle for the little land the islanders were able to grab created a dam of military tension I was just waiting to see burst. Darren and I made a deal to allow me to have two tiles in his corner of the world since I was hurting so badly for space. We also each created a port and a some trading ships and began heading to each other's ports to make some money. Steven P. didn't expand as fast as I expected him to seeing as he had that entire peninsula within easy reach, but he did start to fortify our bottleneck fairly heavily.

Heroes at this point were something to play around with, but they didn't really accomplish too much. There were a few exceptions: Ashton's managed to find a Mystic Land right next to his home realm which allowed his to summon a fire gaunt into every land battle, Darren's found another Mystic Land which allowed him to control any magic portals on the board. The fiery land of Ashton's could easily be said to have determined the fate of the game as it's ability won so many battles. Although not quite as significant, Darren's too proved to be quite useful in its own right. Otherwise, heroes quested across the map, looking for their destinations, found more quests, and kept roaming the world. My first hero got mauled by three goblins; the same happened to Trevor.

Around the fourth turn, sparks began to fly. The first mistake that started the snowball rolling down the hill was Ashton, seeing Steven P. not taking the earlier mentioned peninsula immediately, made a port, some transports, and sent them on their way with some troops to grab it for himself. Having weakened himself some, Trevor them took it upon himself to attack Ashton and stole several realms on the island; it wasn't looking all that good for Ashton since he lost his fiery Mystic Land.

The next turn, in a narrow battle between Trevor and Ashton where it got down to a one to one unit fight, Trevor managed to conquer Ashton's home realm effectively removing Ashton from the game and gaining Trevor an extra star of Timorran. Where earlier I thought Steven P. was simply playing it safe since he was kind of new to the group by fortifying our front, he drove me out of two realms and kicked my butt thoroughly. Before I could have my turn at him, Darren then knocked me out of the two realms we had agreed I could have near him; obviously, I then canceled our trading agreement. When I finally got to have a turn, I had no choice but to retreat and lick my wounds so to speak. The only good news for me was that one of my remaining heroes managed to find a second star for me.

Not such a good thing for Steve P., he became 'the leader'. As we all know, with the WBG, you never want to be 'the leader'. Get Jon! Wait a sec, he isn't playing, never mind. Due to my scraping all my ships, my port, and pouring all my resources into a defensive front, I managed to look threatening enough for Steven P. to not attack me further. With Ashton gone, Trevor gained complete control over his island and one of his heroes discovered a magic portal there as well. Steven P. finally expanded into the peninsula creating for himself an empire over thirteen realms large. In what would turn out to be a stroke of luck for the rest of us, he also had a hero find a magic portal next to his home realm.

For the next few turns, everyone basically beefed up their forces. Steve P. continued expanding into the peninsula, albeit a little slower than I would have expected. Darren created a small fleet with some transports and warships and started sending some forces around the world on a nice little invasion voyage; at this point I wasn't too sure of his destination, but he was heading in my direction. With a bit of an unstable and unspoken alliance of everyone vs. Steven P., Darren used his Mystic Lands ability and closed off portal travel for all this time.

In one large well planned assault, after asking Darren to open the portals and his agreeing, Trevor teleported his army through and annihilated Steven's defenders with some incredible rolls, both in that Trevor was rolled luckily high and Steven was rolling unluckily low. Seeing the tides of war turning, I took it upon myself to retake the lands stolen from me earlier by Steven; events were looking dark for him. Darren continued to build some fleets and move his others around the world. As he passed me by I let out a sigh of relief.

I, and maybe even Trevor, expected him to lose his next battle as he dared to lay siege to the home realms of Steven's Daquan Knights and in an amazing battle with Steve unfortunately once again rolling horrible dice, Trevor managed to remove Steve from the game and gained another star! Public Enemy Number One then became The Dark One.

A few more turns passed with some building of forces and moving of fleets. This was a big mistake for Darren and I as it gave Trevor too many resources. With a dragon I managed to get earlier from an action card, I flew some forces into the only city Trevor controlled on the mainland and destroyed it, cutting off his reinforcements.

In another turn, Darren's 'round the world fleet' made a Normandy landing on a central realm of Trevor's destroying the only town he had managed to build in an attempt to be able to get more reinforcements there while simultaneously landing on the other side taking the portal realm to Trevor's island. I then kicked him out of Steven's old home realm effectively removing The Dark One's presence form the mainland and making a comeback from my little three realm empire to a prosperous seven and growing. Beat back but not broken, Trevor refortified his island.

Alas, we had not beat him off soon enough as he then went and bought his fourth Star of Timorran from the Grey Guild. This did not bode well for us, but with his island so far away, and Darren controlling the portal, all I could do was try o beat him to it, so I bought my third.

In a last ditch effort before Trevor bought his fifth star, Darren landed some troops on the Trevor's portal while simultaneously bringing some troops though the portal. Although he beat Trevor there, it was too little too late. Despite my being able to buy a fourth star, and Darren's victory one space away from Trevor's home realm, Trevor managed to pull off a well earned victory.

Some recommendations for future play:

-When placing tiles, players should place their home realm, then their 3 tiles in hand, and then place the randomly rolled tiles. This would balance the resources a little better.

-Remove the ability of heroes to teleport between ports, they should have to travel by ship.

-The Dark One's abilities are a little too powerful. He can pay one starpower to feed five troops during supply and he gets one more starpower than he has stars. He should have one of these abilities taken away as it is a tremendous advantage to not have to pay the supply of ten or more troops.

-Ship were basically unused as they are too slow. I'd suggest increasing their movement by one or maybe even two.