Darren introduced me to this game, one of the Flip Block games from Columbia Games. I think he regrets it because he hasn't really wanted to play it since!
I love this game. Though this description will be a bit vague and messy as I'm mostly writing this from memory of a time when I got to play this game!
The theme is Braveheart, William Wallace, Scottish Independence. William Wallace vs Evil King Edward.
The map of Scotland is broken up into different counties, and most of the counties have a noble associated with them. Most of the nobles start in the service of the King of England. The objective for the Scottish is to turn the nobles to their cause (enough of them at once time and they win!) and for the English the objective is to kill William Wallace or potentially the King of Scotland within a certain time frame.
Each turn is broken out into five parts, each part is represented by each side playing a single card from their hand of five cards. Most of the cards have a number, and this number represents the number of counties on the board you can activate. An activated county allows whomever is there to move. The numbers range from 1 to 3. There are also event cards that have various impacts. For example there's a Sea Transport event that allows the side that plays it to move two units from anywhere to any other coastal county. Or there's the devastating Parley (a random 66% chance to flip a noble to your cause without fighting... It's devastating if it works, and even more devastating if it doesn't!)
If two event cards are played at the same time by each of the adversaries it ends the year and all the remaining cards are chucked into the mix for a new deal and an advancement of the turn counter.
So, the blocks... They represent the nobles, or military units that go to war. They have a Letter and a few Numbers on them as well as a number of Pips. The Pips represent the strength of the unit, most units have three Pips, but they range from two to four. The Pips represent how many dice you throw when the unit attacks, and they also represent how many hits a unit may take before changing sides in the case of a noble or disbanding in the case of a regular military unit. The Letter indicates how quick the unit is. "A"s are quicker than "B"s which are quicker than "C"s. And the two numbers represent how effective the unit is in combat (what it needs to 'hit' on a d6) and how fast the unit is.
For example William Wallace is the baddest man on the planet, and his unit strength is 4 Pips, with "A" as his letter, and 3 as his #, so he throws 4 dice, fastest, and needs 3, 4, 5, or 6 to score a 'hit'. Since most units only have 3 Pips, and all but the Cavalry of the English are B or C speed, he's quite a killer one-on-one. He also moves 3 counties and most units only move 2.
Nobles get an added bonus to their 'to hit' if they are defending their home territory. This pushes them from 2 to 3, so they go from needing a 5 or 6 to hit to a 4, 5, or 6. And as anyone will tell you 16.667% more of something good is better.
A turn starts with five cards being dealt out, each side picking a card to play, the reveal of the cards, and then the turn order is established. Events are resolved, and then the player with the higher value card moves, ties mean the English move first (better logistics and all that). Battles are then resolved in the order the player who moves first wishes. Upkeep is done at the end of each year when "Winter" arrives.
The counties have number values as well indicating how many blocks they can support. Some of the counties have a symbol that indicates they can support one more block for the Scottish than they would for the English (home field advantage don'tcha know.)
For the English, upkeep is simple, all your nobles go back home, all your non-infantry units return to England, unless you decide to Winter the King in Scotland. If you do this you will get no bonus units in England this year, so he better have a pretty good posse with him at the time (as you get to ignore the support value for the county where the King resides, and everyone is considered supplied). Otherwise each side gets Pips back on the existing blocks within their counties equal to the supply value of the county they are in. If the Scots have 'extra' Pip availability along with a presence within a county and fewer blocks than the value of that county they spontaneously generate a new block! So the Scots grow on the map like a fungus if the English let them.
The Scots have some other decisions to make like whether or not to winter Wallace in Some Forest down by England which puts him at huge risk, but might be better than the alternative he's currently in, and whether or not to send Moray home (he's the only noble that gets a choice.) Comyn and Bruce also happen to own two palatial counties and so long as they are not occupied may choose to return to either.
If a noble returns to their county and that county is in possession of their enemy there isn't a problem at all! The noble just switches sides, easy peasy! Seriously if you have noble Scottish blood in you you have to ignore a lot to avoid finding this game offensive!
For a while (and theoretically still) it was even available online at f2fgaming.com, but I've had nothing but issues with this site for a couple of years now, and the last update in their news section is from 2006. Occasionally I get an email from one of these guys saying they are going to take a look at the problem, but so far nothing has come of it.
8.667 out of 10. It's simple, it's fun, it frequently comes down to the wire, and a little bit of luck with some dice, and online it's easy to start a new game when one goes off the rails (that's what costs it a point, it can go off the rails pretty badly due to horrible luck which is a tremendous pain in the posterior with the board game, and no big deal online.) If f2fgaming would find a way to get themselves up and working again it'd be nice.
No comments:
Post a Comment