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Post by mrweasely on Mar 19, 2007 22:12:03 GMT 1
Has anyone here tried Marvel Heroes? I read the rules and some reviews last night, but much like WotR its hard to get a handle on it without access to all the game components, e.g. character cards.
My neighbor bought another game by our fine Italian designers. It was Trojan-war themed, and card based, but it left both of us cold and scratching our heads.
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Post by marcon on Mar 20, 2007 0:07:03 GMT 1
Bought it and played 6-7 games so far. Dunno if you had some specific questions you'd like to have answered.
I don't think it's a good choice for a 2-player game though, I'd recommend playing it with at least 3 or 4 people. The main reason is that the player with the lowest VP-Total gets to pick his headlines first while the highest one always has to face his team's Mastermind whenever he troubleshoots something. This can create a huge gap in a 2-player game and even lead to some headlines being left alone because a player doesn't want to take the lead to face the consequences.
The dice play a huge role, even more so than WotR. Sure, a siege can go awry in WotR but all is not necessarily lost whereas I had a game in MH where I lost Jean Grey (Only character I fielded for the round since she is expensive) and lost against a lowly villain because of poor die rolls. I never recovered from that bad luck and continued playing for another hour and a half perfectly knowing I had no chance whatsoever in winning this game.
I usually love teaching new games but I'm getting tired of explaining this one, the mechanics sometimes require a lot of concentration and I have my hands full managing my own SuperHero team, let alone suggest tips and remind other players of what they can/should do.
-Marco
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Post by mrweasely on Mar 20, 2007 1:40:16 GMT 1
How's the replayability and depth?
I had really good luck with the first two boardgames I bought: Puerto Rico and War of the Ring. By comparison, the 8-15 games I've bought since then haven't been as good, generally getting played once per 6 months, if ever.
With WotR and PR, they built the game for the ages, with good replayability after 100 sorties. In your humble opinion, is Marvel Heroes in that leauge?
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Also, thematically, the MH victory conditions are very wierd. Suppose you were an X-man. You read in the papers one day that the Avengers have just saved the earth from some atomic disaster. They're media heroes. (In game terms, you've just lost the game). You should be happy, the world is saved! The game tells us you should be sad - you just "lost".
Losing would be when The Brood supplants humanity as the dominant life form on Earth. That's a loss. Not being out-prestige by another band of well-meaning freaks.
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Post by marcon on Mar 21, 2007 0:06:37 GMT 1
On the depth : You look at the Headlines on the board and choose a suitable hero to tackle some of them. You've probably read about Crime/Danger/Mystery (Can't remember the name of this keyword) and the Investigation/Rescue/Mystic/Fight/Etc. Of course, all your neat plans can be screwed up if you play last and the headline you were eyeing was picked up by another superhero team. Sending Wolverine to troubleshoot that Mystery headline is not gonna be easy but hey, what can you do about it? You could've readied 2 heroes but then again, you only have so many plot points.
Replayability is helped by 10 scenario cards that change the win conditions for each game. Of course, it often revolves around the Victory points in one way or the other. The villain deck seems to grow somewhat old quickly, you want to get a hold of the 4 3-KO badasses (Juggernaut, Sentinels, Ultron and Dormammu) so that you can hope to screw up an opponent given the necessary trouble level.
I agree with you that it feels odd to pray for the demise of a fellow SuperHero team but at least you can do it in a subtle way, that is by controlling their Mastermind. This game could have been designed in a completely different way but I think they made the right decision.
Do I recommend it? It won't beat WotR or Puerto Rico but I'm quite sure it will outclass most of the 8-15 games you've bought since. Given 4 players, I'd rather play Marvel Heroes than a clunky WotR quatuor extravaganza.
-Marcon
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Veldrin
Lord of the Nazgûl
Posts: 1,305
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Post by Veldrin on Mar 21, 2007 14:11:29 GMT 1
If you like any of the Marvel heroes and comics this game will blow you away. It is a fun and fast game with much flavour.
But if you can't tell the difference between Galactus and Daredevil it ain't for you.
I have it and love it.
[glow=green,2,300]Veldrin[/glow]
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Post by Goodgulf the Grey on Apr 3, 2007 14:14:08 GMT 1
I have it and like it, but as Veldrin says you need to be a Marvel Comics fan to get into the theme. The combat is fun and flavorful but very dice dependent and light-hearted. Don't over-think the game and make quick decisions to keep it moving...
The different scenarios are okay for replayability but it isn't as replayable as WoTR. It's easy to create your own scenarios and just use the 10 in the game as starting points for ideas.
Also, I've been working on creating a ton of new heroes/Masterminds for the game to give it more replay and variety by allowing different team combinations and power ups. Hopefully, I'll post these on the Geek and see what other people think...
Other games that have depth and replay value ... Power Grid, Princes of Florence, and Tigris and Euphrates.
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Veldrin
Lord of the Nazgûl
Posts: 1,305
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Post by Veldrin on Apr 3, 2007 14:42:24 GMT 1
Other games that have depth and replay value ... Power Grid, Princes of Florence, and Tigris and Euphrates. Tigris and Euphrates is a good game, Princes of Florence a Great Game (probably the best I have ever played) and Power Grid is something I can't stand. [glow=green,2,300]Veldrin[/glow]
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Veldrin
Lord of the Nazgûl
Posts: 1,305
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Post by Veldrin on Apr 3, 2007 14:45:54 GMT 1
My neighbor bought another game by our fine Italian designers. It was Trojan-war themed, and card based, but it left both of us cold and scratching our heads. If it was Hector and Achilles I am not surprised. I had Francesco teach me it at Essen last year. It was quick and I felt very unsatisfied once it was over. Not one of his best games, however after having created War of the Ring I will forgive him for anything... [glow=green,2,300]Veldrin[/glow]
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Post by Goodgulf the Grey on Apr 11, 2007 16:04:19 GMT 1
I posted the Excel file with additional Heroes and Masterminds on BGG and added my commentary here: boardgamegeek.com/thread/161127The file linnk is here: boardgamegeek.com/fileinfo.php?fileid=23543Let me know if anyone tries these out and has any feedback. Also, let me know if you want a copy of the ppt slides that have character cards for all of these characters (and the original ones). Not quite as good as the ones in the game
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