The review : I feel this game is about 10 years too late. It's...ok. And if it was published around 10 years ago, when board game choices where much more limited, I'd would have enjoyed it more. As it stands, it's a middling game in a crowded field and there's just so much more I'd rather play.
Basic Gameplay
It's a two tiered worker placement. Generic Workers, "Merry Men", gather resources, build things, other supporting tasks and you can usually count on one of them being being threatened by Villains. The Hero Worker, does the Robin Hood things. Rescue Merry Men, win Archery contests, rob carriages, etc etc.
So it's a good theme. All the Robin Hood tropes are in there, I especially like rescuing the Merry Men as a thematic element.
So what's the problem?
In no particular order
- there are NINE types of resources to collect. 4 of them are typed as Weapons and are little interchangeable with on another, and 3 of them are typed goods and are also a little interchangeable. But sometimes you need a specific weapon or good, and you're managing nine of them.
- literally everything is random. Your hero is random, your secret end game goals are random, your Merry Men are random, where the villains move and what they do is random, defeating guards is random, winning an archery contest is random. Everything is random.
- In the hero phase the board changes too rapidly. You simply cannot plan ahead because the event/villain deck just alters everything right before every hero moves.
- Also in the hero phase: There's this mechanic where if a guard shows up in a location with a Merry Man, you have to ante a good. Well a hero can go rescue that guy, defeating the guard and claiming the ante. And then next event card re-arressts him forcing another good payment. This is just a meteor strike that screws players for reasons. Yikes.
- There's this reinforcing loop of building things to score points but they also give you the materials to build more things. Basically if you don't draw the appropriate Merry Men to gather the proper resources to build something in early rounds, you're also meteor struck.
- circling back to RANDOM, the absolute worst random mechanic is the loot bag. There's a couple ways to get a draw from the loot bag. But there's like 40 tiles, and maybe 1/4 of them give two things and the balance gives 1. I'd probably be ok with it if resources weren't so damn hard to get and so easy to lose.
- my group did play 5 player which absolutely exascerbated the board change and the Merry Men double jeopardy instances.
Can this be fixed with expansions?
No. Aboslutely not. This game is already incredibly busy. Imagine a Christmans Tree and you hang one too many ornament onto it. It'll topple over.
Ok smart ass blogger, how would you fix the 2nd edition?
1)
There's a game concept of active vs. passive Merry Men. You play a Merry Man into a position that can't be blocked, and this guy remains in play passively. The benefits are so small that if there's literally any other direction to go, don't play a guy passively.
I think that there should be actual incentive to this passive play, make this a hard choice and not the consolation prize
2)
Preview the villain deck. Have some mechanism on the villain deck's back that kind of hints at what it does. Or make some kind of timed reveal on what pain is being brought. Make it so the game isn't playing you.
Ok that's it for my stream of concsious ideas
Summary
If theme is important to you, you'll like this game more than me.
If you enjoy chaos, then you'll enjoy this game more than me.
I didn't hate it, I just can name several dozen games I like more.
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