Board Game General /bgg/

>Melbourne

I'm in Sydney. What's the boardgame community like in Melbourne?

>What's the biggest stinker you ever bought?
Like I bought Myth and regretted it after my first play. Luckily they sent me two copies of the base game plus the exclusives so I made a tidy profit selling both.

>trainwrecks you've dodged
Tons of overhyped kickstarters, only considered a few but after Myth I learnt my lesson.

>games you missed out on?
Couldn't afford Conan at the time, which was a shame since it looks like it turned out pretty good if you got all the kickstarter stuff.

The fun is there. It's extremely random though. I think the randomness heavily cuts the replay value because you know you're going to just get lost in a sea of dice and cards and the net effect is always roughly the same because of it.

Same. Except no. That's probably Terra Mystica or Lost Legends. Still pretty up there.

>What's the biggest stinker you ever bought?
Pricewise, Terra Mystica. I expected not to like it but stupidly bought it because it was on sale.

Expectation-wise, Summoner Wars Alliances. Holy fucking shit, fuck you /bgg/ and your hypedick too.

>Alternatively, trainwrecks you've dodged
Almost fell for the KDM meme. Thank goodness I tried on TTS before wasting a ton of money. Same for Cthulhu Wars until I realized it was a thin, shitty arena control game. I'm pissed at Sandy. He was the owner of the Dallas-Rockwall game store I used to attend and a really brilliant guy—we met discussing my favorite game, Quake, and I had no idea who he was. Ultimately his game was an overhyped, underdelivering plastic pusher.

Amazon is selling the base game for $30 user, jump on that shit because the game is fantastic. I only have the base game as well; the expansions are way too expensive so that blows but the base game alone is worth it

What makes Terra Mystica regrettable? I've been looking into that game so I'm interested in why you don't like it

>>biggest stinker

A friend got me King of Tokyo after an acquaintance of theirs talked about how good it was. Total shit. Torn between trading it or trying to bash it into a good game.

After talking about it yesterday, I went and bought Barbarossa today. Probably won't get to play it until next monday though, unless I play a solo round.
Really like the overall card design, although I'm kind of disappointed by the city cards, since all of them look the same and even the top three cities only differ in the character shown, but not the background. A shame since I actually like the artist for them (Hayami Rasenjin, among other things, he did a nice short manga about a russian witch fighting nazis in WW2 called Kutsuzure Sensen).

>biggest stinker
Munchkin. The problem with this game is everyone seems to love starting it, but not playing it. I have only played one or two rounds that didn't feel like an endless drag because everyone lost interest in the game after their 5th turn at most. At least the game wasn't expensive.

Almost the entire game is decided before turn 1. No two decisions are more important than starting placement and clan. The clans are horribly unbalanced and once you actually start playing, you're extremely choked on actions. It's near impossible to react to what your opponent does or do anything flexible. It's more like a strategy simulator because you're too action-starved to change once you start. If you fuck up, you could spend half the game doing almost nothing every turn, which isn't fun.

I think this is one instance where Tam Vasal nailed why the game is bad.

>I've been looking into that game so I'm interested in why you don't like it
Get it, it's a classic.

>Biggest stinker you ever bought?
Love letter desu
I guess it's fun but it's not £8 fun

>Stinker
Right now it's Super Dungeon Explore.

I got the original and Forgotten King sets. Great sculpts and pretty artwork and the promises of a gauntlet-like slash-em-up all looked great.

In practice it felt like a painful slog. The overlord (without blindingly good luck on his side and blisteringly bad luck on the heroes side) could never do enough damage to the heroes to outpace the native healing that happens through the dice. And most of the combat boils down to
>Hero turn
"I'm doing a basic attack"
>Rolls dice, count stars, remove figures

>Overlord turn
>Puts four more figures on the table,
"I'm doing a basic attack"
>Rolls dice, hits heroes for a few damage which they heal on their turn

Repeat the above for two to three hours until you get to the only interesting part of the game which is the mini-boss/boss fight which are usually over before they begin due to the heroes just absolutely gang-banging that single model. And heaven help you if the heroes have any sort of status effects to make it even more ridiculously lopsided.

Hoping the new rulesets that come out in Super Dungeon Explore Legends make things more interesting and fun, but I'm not exactly holding my breath. I'm getting ready to sell it off.

Also inb4 "of course the game is boring, you don't have any of the expansion sets, that's where all the cool content is!". Well god forbid that I buy a premium priced board game and expect there to be a good, complete game in it.

There are supposedly 4 clans / factions in the game that are reasonably balanced, but I'm not certain which 4 they are. But I can see where it can be an un-fun slog if you get stuck somewhere.

I don't think you'll notice the balance issues unless you're really good and playing competitively.

I don't think you even know what you're talking about. At best, that sentence says that the game doesn't grow with you. At worst, you're telling everyone how little you know about this website:

terra.snellman.net/stats/

You do realize there is now official handicapping by altering starting vp that was introduced in the app:
VP FACTION
15 Darklings
16 Cultists
16 Engineers
19 Chaos Magicians
19 Mermaids
19 Nomads
19 Witches
20 Dwarves
20 Halflings
20 Ice Maidens
21 Riverwalkers
22 Shapeshifters
22 Swarmlings
22 Yetis
23 Acolytes
24 Dragonlords
25 Giants
27 Alchemists
27 Auren
33 Fakirs

This has to be one of the saddest attempts at damage control for a game I've ever seen. Let's pick one singular argument against the game, ignore all the others, then argue against just the one point with an app players may A. never notice and B. shouldn't have to exist.

>Biggest stinker you ever bought
If we don't count munchkin or killer bunnies or that damn copy of exploding kittens my wife's friend gave us, probably summoner wars. I have no remaining love for Dominion, and Thunderstone only ever saw a single play, but I don't think either are bad games by any means. Also still have a copy of Eclipse I can't get excited about.

>Trainwrecks you've dodged
Everything CMON to date. I know lots of people like blood rage, but it's not for me.
Rum & Bones was tempting, but I'm glad I didn't go in on that mess.
Getting serious about X-Wing would have been damn expensive, glad that didn't happen either.
>Games you've missed out on.
Dune, but that's [metaphor cleverly mixing water under the bridge with spice].

Yeah, that might have been fun.

Tempting, but I'd probably go mad chasing expansions. Don't have much solo material other than mage knight, but the vidya backlog is huge.

Looking at the GMT500, Space Empires 4X is coming along nicely:

gmtgames.com/gmtStatusSheet.aspx

The statsheet says 364 buy-ins, which is awesome. It's about time this stopped being a scalper's market.

Anyone here going to do the P500 too? I already put in my $42.

>I've missed out on a few KS that I wanted - like the Xia expansion.
I think I will cry if there's no retail release of that expansion. I'm a huge Xia fan and had no money when it was going.

I already have too much incoming from GMT, and I barely have place for the stuff I have

Also, ironically, I think it would be harder to sell a heavy 4x space game to my friends than a heavy historical game

I'm so torn

Just the opposite for my group. No one here gives a fuck about historical wars but loves scifi space.

Of course you are. It's top spot on BGG and therefore people feel like they're "supposed" to like the game. Nevermind the actual criticisms real people have of it. Go watch Vasel's review.

youtube.com/watch?v=MqEznEPNk0g

(When he criticizes the magic bowls, he means that doing the OPPOSITE of what the game rules tell you to do is actually better)

>At worst, you're telling everyone how little you know about this website:
You realize this site is mostly really good players playing competitively, right? Read my comment again, dumbass.

> that sentence says that the game doesn't grow with you
No, it means that unless you want to participate in Terra Mystica tournaments then you won't care about the slight imbalance. (And if by chance you _do_ end up caring, then you'll just play one of the four 'optimal' factions. Assuming they won't tweak the tournament rules by then.)

Terra Mystica is one of the few boardgames that's played competitively at tournaments, so it's no wonder that balance issues were found. No other game was stresstested that much. (Except for chess and go, I guess.)

>It's top spot on BGG and therefore people feel like they're "supposed" to like the game.
Uh, circular logic much?

It has a top spot because it's a unique combination of traditional competitive perfect information games with a eurogame focus on strategy over tactics.

P.S. I don't even like the game that much, IMO the fiddly parts of the rules need to cut down by half. That said, it's still an amazing game and you should at least try out the app.

>If you fuck up, you could spend half the game doing almost nothing every turn, which isn't fun.
Then don't fuck up. It can a punishing game, but that isn't nessecarily a bad thing. Imbalance between the races can largely be mitigated using handicapping with novice players, or auctioning the races with experienced ones.

Legit though, people do think being on the top of BGG makes a game better even if they've never heard of it before. Gaming is about personal taste, not collective taste. What some random in another household thinks of Monopoly doesn't change my experience with it. Making a purchase based on that number without seeking reviews for yourself is just foolish.

I'd say it's significant enough if you like Euros and other lighter games as there's quite a fair amount of constant events on Meetup, the weekly one in the CBD on Tuesdays averages 50 people and the weekly on Thursdays at the same location averages 30. several more scattered all over the place that can get 10-30 people, my friend's LGS only gets single digits on every second Thursday though

I prefer medium/heavy weight wargames, Ameritrash and Euro-hybrids with strong conflict so the events on Meetup don't particularly interest me, but the organiser of one of them was a cool dude to talk to so I'll try and go back there at some point

Oh here comes the "why isn't the ground harder?" guy. You know when it's a really bad time to wish more of your bones were broken? When you shell out $75 for a board game because everyone tells you it's the greatest thing, then barely understand the poorly written rules, and finally try one thing that drains your resources for 3+ turns (half the game).

As an introduction to that game, it's an unbeatable way to make someone hate it. If you want a new lifestyle game to replace your old chess addiction, maybe Terra Mystica can fill that gap. Otherwise, it's overhyped garbage with people like this asslord defending every negative trait it has.

> "I'm a dumbass who's buttmad because I'm too stupid to play a game more demanding than Liar's Dice"
For fuck's sake, man, at least try to list some real negative traits of the game.

Deep, razor-sharp gameplay is never a bad thing.

You're just rustled because you got owned, you manchild.

Looks like /bgg/ will never learn. Why do you fanboys have to come out of the woodwork to start shitflinging every single time a negative thing is said about your pet game? It happened with Kingdom Death at least three threads in a row recently and now this is the second Terra Mystica shiftlinging thread. Do you not understand that you are actively contributing to a worse environment?

A dude asked whether he should get Terra Mystica or not. Instead of telling him why he should, you pick the one motherfucker in the thread who didn't say a damn word to you and made it your mission to defend your game. This is the same shit that happens constantly and it's tiring. Stop. You fucking crybaby, just stop.

I'm sorry all those participation trophies you got as a kid made you think you should be great at something the first time you tried it.

It's cute how people use "participation trophy" to shit on young adults when their parents—the Boomers, were the ones throwing a fit and insisting we get them. ;)

Haven't messed around with FK but the 1.0 definitely has a few balance issues. The pally is too overpowered so if he's in the mix the overlord has issues, and if any of the casters get decent enough gear to help their defense you're in trouble. I won't tell you the expansions fix it, though the Von Drakk mini-boss gave the heroes some trouble when I got to play with that set, but they rolled the vamp so I'd call that a wash. The minis are great tho (and useful for any 1" rpg setup), and the company is loads better than CMoN, so I don't mind having it around until I figure out how to run a campaign for it, or tweak the rules to balance it out more.

>missed out on Dune
I promise when I get the full scans of not-Dune, and re-draw them for Dune, and do up the box/board/etc, I will post the game listing and let you buy a copy. Currently can't decide if I wanna do stills or art for it; and the X-wing map storage and ammo crate come first, so it's maybe by the end of the year project.

looking for advice /bgg/

i thought about gifting my gf a boardgame
she's a casual player and plays mostly with me and her sister
her favorite game is ticket to ride because of the straight forwards rules and beautiful components

i'm leaning towards takenoko but also thinking about getting tokaido or fresco. what do you think?

I'm not a fanboy (I don't even like it that much) and I gave him a precise rundown on what exactly draws people to the game. You're the shitposter here.

I'm an x-er, stuck in the middle, annoyed by millenials and hating the boomers for fucking up them (as so much else) up.

Dude not cool. I'm an X-er too and I can't see any reason to hate muh muhlenneeuls. They were dealt the shittiest hand possible by the job and healthcare market, my dude. Give them a break. We did whiny embarrassing bullshit when we were teens too, we just don't have to be haunted by it on social media.

Takenoko is very cute visually with the panda and bamboo storks

Tokaido is fun but less replayable and I think hits a different note then takenoko, it does have an app you can try though

It's ok user. You annoy us too, stop posting off topic anytime

>tfw you're rex and you skate around the miskatonic university grabbing clues like you're tony hawks pro skater

Biggest overreaction/griefting you've seen in a board game session?

I went back to hometown and introduced Blood Rage to my old friends. They both play MTG competitively, let's call them A and B.

Everything went well. They seemed interested in the game, although A just seems to be taking it casually, performing his moves without thinking much at all. Then during one of the battles, B used a battle card that intentionally lets B lose, just so he can steal one rage (action point) from A, reducing A's rage from 1 to 0, making him unable to perform any action for the rest of the round.

Holy shit, A got so mad, he slammed the cards on the table and said he's rage quitting this shit game. It happened so suddenly and they're both my good friends, I had no idea how to defuse the situation properly in the heat of the moment.

mfw I've never experience this situation with the game, and I've already played 7 games of it with different groups prior to that.

in b4
>mtg players
>expecting them to not be tryhard retards

>mtg players
>expecting them to not be tryhard retards
You know it's true user

So is the problem that they were fighting over a shit game?

>Biggest overreaction/griefing?

>Friends codenamed Belligerent Irishman, Mormon Brony, Salty Thespian, DotA Nerd, and Midget Brother playing Dead of Winter while I memorize rules for and set up the next game on the other half of table.
>Belligerent Irishman is convinced Mormon Brony is the traitor because reasons
>B.I. cannot convince anyone else M.B. is the traitor
>B.I. sabotages a crisis in an attempt to frame M.B.
>No one is fooled
>Everyone decides B.I. is the real traitor
>Exile him, surprise, he's not.
>Salty Thespian completely deflagrates, loses his shit that B.I. would deliberately sabotage something when he's not the traitor.
>M.B. is equally baffled.
>DotA Nerd trying to keep a straight face in the background.
>Midget Brother shoots himself in the head with an airsoft pistol.

I was dying.
Pic unrelated.

I've always been enamored with Space Empires, but it comes to the point where I'd rather just play 4X on the PC.
Almost definitely going to pick up Spacecorp though.

Minor feminist white knight shitstorm over on Reddit:

reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/68qo9d/the_kickass_female_designers_behind_mansions_of/

What are your guys' thoughts on this?

Anybody here who plays Mysterium? I tried it with a few friends and it seems kinda shitty. I get that Im supposed to indicate shit to players with the vision cards, but tons of they are super vague and dont really have enough going on to be useful. In addition, the betting system doesnt make sense to me, nor does the final resolution.

Echoing Takenoko is definitely cute, heavy gamers tend to not like it as much because it's too random with hidden goals and you might be helping the other side win without being able to do anything to block it. Tokaido is very relaxing, no heavy decisions, but enough depth to come back to it every so often. Not sure which, if either, has great longevity; but they're both good casual games.

First time playing Bang! with sister, brother in-law, two of their friends and my teenage nephew. First game took 10 minutes, rather bleh; second game comes up I'm the sheriff. Everyone at the table is beyond shifty eyed, so I decide to just kill them in a line. Nephew is first out, claiming the entire time he's my deputy. Turns out he was, and left the table in a rage; cards came up in my hand every turn making me unkillable, I had to finish off 4 more people by myself. 45 minutes later I swore never to play that game again.

There are no productive thoughts to be had beyond "don't be a dick to people for stupid reasons" and "when necessary, remind your friends not to be dicks to people for stupid reasons".
There's nothing wrong with women designing games, but it's not "better" than men doing it, just good that people are free to pursue the careers and projects that interest them.

I bought it off the premise it was like Dixit but competitive, and I played it like that. I ignored all that dumb shit about betting and made it entirely about whoever can correctly make the 4 guesses first. I'm probably going to play Dixit with the cards from now on.
Incidentally, anyone played Deception: Murder in Hong Kong? Considering buying it right now.

Yeah, it's a mess of a game.
Get Deception: Murder in Hong Kong. It's just better.

It's quite good, definetly scratches the mysterium itch in a much more satisfying manner. Still regret giving away my kickstarter copy as a christmas present, but at least I still get to play it pretty regularly.

It's boring, unclear, stupid, there are no interactions, winning points is way too random.
It's basically "try to think how to the ghost would think about how I would think". It's stupid. Played a game once, and never again. I'd rather play Bang!

thoughts on this?

>reddit

That just about sums it up.

Ignore the betting an compeditive BS added in the english version and play it as a pure cooperative game, otherwise it just becomes a contest of who knows the ghost best or who does the ghost know best.

Any suggestions for a replacement for the cardboard markers for Diplomacy?

I'd really like to find some good minatures that aren't too large to use with the board. Diplomacy is easily one of my favorite board game, but the flat pieces are really lackluster.

Τakenoko has great production values and components. But my ex would beat me everytime. It does not reward overthinking. It is random af.
So yeah if you want cuteness buy Takenoko. If you want a good game though with cute theme get Patchwork.

One user here just 3d printed and sprayed up some plastic tanks and ships.

I couldn't give a single shit about the gender of a designer

You could buy some Axis & Allies pieces of tanks and ships. There are some internet stores that sell them.

OMG EVERYONE LOOK AT THIS SEXIST PIG THIS IS PATRIARCHY AT WORK THIS IS WHY WOMEN WILL NEVER BE SUCCESSFUL IN ANYTHING!

You bait, but this annoys me because the tabletop industry seems to keep moving towards this like it was ever male dominated for anything other than only males being interested in it

LIKE EVERYTHING

>It is random af.
>But my ex would beat me everytime
>everytime
>random af

You sir, are a fucking dumbass (in more ways than one).

Man fuck GMT and their P500 program, look at all this crap I need but can't afford

Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea
Ariovistus
Bayonets and Tomahawks
Colonial Twilight
Here I Stand 500th ann. upgrade kit
Imperial Struggle
Pendragon
SpaceCorp
Welcome to Centerville (maaaybe, I like Dominant Species a lot and this is another Chad Jensen game so)

Also gotta pick up Comanchería, A Distant Plain, the Triumph&Tragedy upgrade kit, and Fields of Despair at some point, when I have money.

>I already have too much incoming from GMT
Do tell!

You should go back there.

How's Teraforming Mars? Is it cult of the new hype or do you think it has some staying power?

>What's the biggest stinker you ever bought?
Probably gonna be Dark Souls, honestly. But I've got someone I'm selling it to for 80% of my money back so honestly I won't even know.

>Apocalypse Road: not there yet
Fuck you I need Death Race 2018.

Its a bit of both. Its a solid engine builder, but nothing ground breaking. Needs to be played with the drafting varient to see its full potential, which can make games too long for som. If the theme is one that grabs you, get it. If not, the game may fall flat.

That might be what I end up doing. Ideally, I'd like a dreadnought for fleets, and either an infantryman, machinegun, or howizter for armies. Paint them with a flat coat for easy identification.

I'll look into that, thanks for the idea user.

Alright, thanks! I don't have an engine builder of my own and am not looking for something ridiculously innovative or anything. I'm ok with just accepting a well polished game and I like the theme a lot.

Like Munchkin, the results are largely determined through luck and the appeal of seeing all the cards and card combinations wears thin after a few plays. The drafting variant might mitigate this (or it might just enable even more degenerate combos and further upset the tenuous "balance" of the unique player powers) but that's a larger time investment I'm not sure is worth it.

Expansion does a lot for it in terms of options. If its dice rolling that bothers you though then yea nothing will fix that.

First off is Pericles, which I'm super hyped for; I love the period, think the whole semi-team dynamic sounds cool, and with my players I know it'll hit the table a fair bunch

I'm also getting Ariovistus, even though I've only played Falling Sky a handful of times, I know it's going to be one of those games I revisit all the time.

The Seven Years War: Frederick's gamble is also going to be cool, I guess the main appeal is that I want a Virgin Queen-ish game for 4 players.

Finally I'm getting Triumph and Tragedy; I got fed up with the fact that I didn't really have any games that hit that 3-player sweet spot, and this game looks magnificent.

I'm kind of starting to get a board game 'flow' going; where I sell the games that don't see much play, in order to make room for incoming games. My apartment space is really straining.

>going to my first ever boardgame night at lgs
>go in the afternoon to ask how it works
>it's closed
>on the facebook page says it'll be open for game night
>21.00
>it's fucking closed

Most LGS are awful with scheduling. Then again most LGS have odd hours, take random days off, aren't nearly as clean as they should be, have as autistic a sales staff as their clientele (half of which need a shower, and the other half need an etiquette lesson), and no customer loyalty incentives. Part of me hopes the rumors are true, FFG/ANA is planning some sort of evil cafe empire that runs all the LGS into the ground and instead gives us a Starbucks-esque franchise that has standard practices and you know what you're getting no matter where you are.

I'd weirdly be ok with that honestly. Every LGS I've been to has been very fucking cliquey

>If its dice rolling that bothers you though then yea nothing will fix that.

(Not the user you were replying to) The real problem is both KoNY and KoTY use crappy dice mechanics with little in the way of mitigating factors.

What I've done is take the dice manipulation upgrade cards and give one three cost and one four cost to each player. It at least gives each person a little bit of ability at the beginning. Also makes the game run a little faster since people have a head start on abilities.

There was talk about them buying up game stores shortly after all the ANA changes to online vs brick/mortar shops. They had some deal with making you jump through hoops to get demo kits/Asmoplay tourney stuff. Sounded at the time like they had inspectors/spies going around and making sure you had an F at your LGS; and this led to rumors they were looking to expand that way. I'd still rather have local businesses do it right, but everything I've ever heard about the FFG HQ store and play area, the staff are total bros and it's clean. I remember one person years ago in /bgg/ talking about how he checked it out, had just gotten a new game (not FFG) was setting it up to play with a friend next to an X-wing table, they were puzzling through the rules and the FFG employee stopped his game, walked over and taught it to them because it was one he owned/knew.

Please recommend me any other P500s that aren't historical war. Kthx.

PS I love space

>Run a demo game at my LGS
>One guy shows up.
>No big deal, still pumped to show off the game.
>Talk to random customers about it as they pass.
>Build some interest, everything goes fine.
>As I've leaving one of the employees who is some otherkin character (older man with long grey-pink dyed ponytail, corset/bra type garment under shirt/moon necklace) makes snide comments that only one guy showed up.
>Tell him he should thank me for doing his job for him and showing interested people the game.
Mildly disappointing experience.

>Card/Board game focused LGS opened about three months ago
>Try to go occasionally on fridays
>90% of the store is just people playing magic
>LGS does event for International Tabletop Day
>Don't like Wheaties very much, but went cause I was craving to get some games played
>Plus I know the guys who run the store and they're more normal than me
>Shop has like six tables and four chairs per table
>Bring a big fat bag of games, three folding tables and eight chairs
>So many people show up the shop is still running out of table space and chairs
>And there's only like four people playing magic! Hallelujah!
>Game from about noon till 11pm
>Wasn't able to get Scythe played, but was able to get tons of other shit played
>Met some nice, stable people who were around my age and responsibilities (balding and solo mode)
>Set up having regular gaming sessions with them in the future

Sorry your store sucks user.

I'm just waiting for the reveal that one of them is a pedo or serial killer. I'm planning to have our gaming meetups happen at the store to avoid dying.

Afaik the entirety of the non-historical wargames on P500 atm:

>Spacestuff:
SpaceCorp
Space Empires
Space Empires: Replicators
Talon
Talon 1000

Of these I'm mainly interested in SpaceCorp. 4X and ship battles just don't do it for me.

>Euros:
Welcome to Centerville
Golden Gate Park

I'm not too hyped about the theme of Golden Gate Park, but both are Chad Jensen designs and I love Dominant Species enough to just assume Chad's games will be excellent.

>Solo:
Mr. President

I know solo games aren't everyone's cup of tea, and not mine much either, but for whatever reason the idea of a game having you as the US president trying to handle politics and crises and whatnot has me interested.

Uh, I completely forgot about the Next War series, both Next War: Poland and Next War: Korea are on the P500. I know next to nothing about these except that they're contemporary hex and chit type wargames, probably on the heavier side complexity-wise.

What is with the Summoner Wars hate in the last two threads? I think it is great for a short-ish skirmish game that does not take a ton of time to set up and it is even decent as a 2v2.

Is it the dice rolling everyone hates?

Different strokes for different folks.

It's fine, but was seriously overhyped at launch and that resulted in more than a few unhappy customers. Plus there was a week in /bgg/ where any question about what's the best/what do you recommend/what's the new hotness? Summoner Wars was the answer. If you look back through the archive I'm pretty sure you can see someone claim it had the best miniatures combat of the decade.

No hate, but for a game almost entirely about positioning and combat, neither element was super interesting. The smaller third leg of card and resource management was almost more fun for me. When I won, my opponent usually had more salt directed at the dice and percieved card I'm balance than at me for styling upon them, and I usually count that as a sign of problems.