Thoughts on Return to Dark Tower(Core Game, No Expansions)

 I'll admit that I never got to play this game, or the vast majority of board games and fun gimmicky things when I was a kid. My family was not middle class enough to splurge in such ridiculous ways, so the only board game I was basically ever of was in the "normie" tier of board games, like monopoly and battleship. We also didn't have TV, so I just...never heard of any of these games until years later, on youtube.

But something called to me, with this game. I will save you the spiel, we assume you know what the game is here at Batreps. But something really did call to me. 

The mixture of RPG and Board game is a long sought after prize, and there's been very few games I've played that have done it well. Heroquest was effectively a simplistic DnD-type game to try and cash in on the RPG craze. Its cousin, Warhammer Quest was (likely) an attempt for Games Workshop to control that space, with their large catalogue of minis and a pre-made world and army of designers and artists to corner the market. I've played many of these. Many many many. Gloomhaven, Descent and it's Star Wars themed half-brother, Imperial Assault, Massive Darkness and such. I don't think any of them really function well or do the thing that they're trying to do very well. These are very pretty games with lots of miniatures, but they're either so simple they trend towards boring (Heroquest) or they're so complicated they trend towards turning the table into a massive scrap pile of tokens, minis, board pieces and cards - arrrgh! Not to mention the setup times.

Dark Tower at first glance had me concerned it would be more a silly novelty - a neat prop for my 10mm games of Warmaster and not a hell of a lot else, with a semi-decent game that probably didn't really end up being worth the money. Oh god, and its an app game, and I'm still part of that core of gamers who cringes at legacy games requiring to destroy cards or add stickers. An App game, which will one day in the future, be literally impossible to use, is something that I would usually never consider.

I can tell you that this game kicks ass. Return to Dark Tower is what I'd like to call "on the right track" for doing an RPG/Board Game hybrid.

The first reason I think so is because the game has Great and Meaningful Character Progression, you start off as a fairly good character, and every single virtue(think of these as 'feats') you gain from the game afterwards just makes you stronger, have more utility, and the game is generally designed at least a little bit around you progressing, as the game gets fairly tense in the last two months. You pay for unlocking more using a currency called spirit, which is gained anytime you cleanse a place of skulls, defeat foes, or successfully navigate dungeons, so it feels like you are getting stronger through adventuring. You also pick up gear and treasure to gain Advantages, which you use in combat (by enemy type), so you have actual goals for how you want to build and customize your character, and this also means you can get extremely powerful with only a full inventory and no extra unlocked virtues.

The second reason is because the game Removes All The Tedious Bullshit. If you're going to play an RPG, there's usually a fair amount of book-keeping you need to do, and you also need to do preparatory work. The hope of the RPG/Board Game hybrid is that you a) the amount of book-keeping is reduced through the use of tokens and cards, and b) the preptime and setup are also very small. Many of the hybrids that exist don't really do this very well at all, and I don't see how Journeys in Middle Earth, Heroquest or Gloomhaven are really worth giving up the one thing RPGs have over all of their board game cousins: limitless possibility, constrained only by the rules and the player's imagination. They're either too simple to be worth it or, in some cases, actually have more work for everyone to do. 

Dark Tower solves this problem really well. The App actually takes so much stuff off the table and puts it into the aether. Without the App, Return to Dark Tower would require: 

1. An events deck, with separate cards for each different boss, companion, and monster. This would need to be put together for each and every game, alongside a deck of cards for tower events. I guess a die would be required to see whether or not you actually have events, because you can lose events.

2. Monster decks for each and every enemy and boss in the game. There would be zero room for any art, either, because you'd need the specific advantages there. Which would also mean that combat is way easier, because you would be able to see whether or not an advantage was worth spending, which would slow decision time more, or you would need to have some kind of sleeve that hides it, which would be more components. There's also an adversary that edits monster decks, so you better add for that as well. So likely the advantage system would need to be changed completely. 

3. Some kind of indicator of what turn it is and what month it is.

4. The tower would be the worst fucking thing in a game ever, because without an App to do everything it would probably require a lot more effort. You'd likely draw from the events deck how many cards, and then if you draw a tower, you'd likely have to manually rotate things, it would add a bunch of cost and not really do much than just be...I don't know, kind of a crappy dice tower wannabe.

The conclusion I think is that without the App making your life easier, this would probably join the other Kickstarter games that were overly ambitious, too expensive, and not worth your time. With the App removing scads of cards, tokens and other nonsense, you have a really good little game, and the tower has been an instant hit, even among people I know who kind of roll their eyes at big silly components like that. It's a deeply charming piece of game, making fun sounds and dropping skulls to cause issues for you. 

So it really does add everything you'd want. It's simple, the playtimes are short, you will go on a whole-ass campaign of dungeon crawling, monster slaying and world saving and it's simple enough you can teach this experience to small children. It's not quite "cracked the code", but it's really, really close to hitting that perfect ideal of the RPG/Board Game hybrid, and designers looking to stand apart in this crowded cottage industry should look to Dark Tower before releasing another clunky dungeon crawling boredom fest.

- Klang out

War of the Rings: Yarp/Klang Batreps 1-3

This is an accounting of the first three battle reports I played with a local friend, who will simply be called Yarp for his anonymity and because I didn't ask his permission , or really want, to use his real name.

The game is War of the Ring, and I'm not going to summarize it here. Please check out the excellent video review from Shut Up And Sit Down if you want to know more. This is going to be just me talking about the good and bad times I've had with my opponent. I'll be playing the same faction every single time as well: The Shadow.

Edit: I have been informed by some of the good dudes on Reddit, that in fact, we played the game incorrectly. Whoops!

Game 1

 Mainly a tutorial game, we made it about seven rounds in. I spent a few rounds mustering, and then I gathered a very large force in Minas Morgul and I invaded Gondor. I managed to take Osgiliath easily enough, but ran into my previously not well understood concept of stacking. Stacking means you cannot have more than ten units in a single battle, and if you say, have ten army units and you invade a guy with five guys, the aggressor must discard (they are not killed, returned to supply instead) down until there are only five units. This isn't a combat strength measure, it's a "physical mini", and heroes and minions/companions do not count towards the total.

Anyway after being forced to discard most of my army, I got utterly shitstomped in battle, at which point Yarp shrugged and moved in to take some free real estate. Ignoring the tenets of "let them come to you", I sent everything else in Modor against his now much larger army, and found myself destroyed. He causally moved around taking territory and finished the game with 6 victory points.

Lesson learned: Do not be the aggressor. And Minas Tirith is almost a fool's gambit to try and take, since army size is generally meaningless if you're invading.

 

Game 2

 I lost this one. As well to my own Hubris, my eye was too much on the prize and I got, well, very reckless and got my ass beat.

Ignoring Gondor and Rohan, I instead began to build up power in the North, and my general strategy was to take most of the North (and if Sauron takes the entire north, he wins the game) and then start picking away at Gondor and Rohan.

Things did not go to plan. I got a little too cocky, far too much 'emptying out' of my troops from Key positions and I learned you just get a place for free if nobody is defending it. 

I managed to conquer Rivendell and Lorien. Lorien managed to stay alive, although they lost many troops in the process. Which is a good thing, you should 100% be throwing men at Free Peoples armies because even a single hit is devastating, unlike the Shadow, which just moves them back to the supply. Sometimes it's a valid strategy to "waste" good units so you can recruit them elsewhere for the Shadow. Having Saruman on the field with all of his Wargs in an Army makes for a terror, but now Orthanc is undefended(unless they're there). I had a "super army" at Orthanc, a "big army" at Rivendell and a "large army" in the far east, the plan being to sweep, but since I'd emptied out Moria and Dol Goldur, the Elves were able to take those places with a smile and a skipp and I wasn't able to reinforce sufficient troops in time to stop the bastard. 

 

Oh well. At least "literally leaving your backdoor open because you fell for the 'orcs will gettum'" meme is at least consistent with the lore. So I won the Lore victory, because Aragon declaring himself King and then going to Lorien to stomp face is not normal.

 

Game 3 AKA the game where I played like you're supposed to. 

I also took proper notes so we could have a really good time with this one. 

 

The first turn went about as well as it could go, since we were both pretty familiar with the systems now. Gandalf and Aragon immediately split from the party and began to hot-foot it to their proper places so they would man up to their respective final forms and get those extra dice. I managed to roll enough of the appropriate die that I was able to bring the other four Nazgul into play. Otherwise - mustering. Sauron and Saruman joined the war (alone). Saruman was brought into play. 

 Turn two was extremely boring. Mustering, placing guys where I wanted them (Mount Gundabad got itself an Olog-hai and a Nazgul to deter any backdoor invasions, and I just threw more guys into Dol Goldur). 

Turn three, Legolas separated from the fellowship. Umbar joined the fray and moved some armies close to Dale. Otherwise, various 'play on table' cards began to come into play.

On turn four, Harad's relatively decently sized army (bolstered by card plays) was able to move with two Nazgul to Dale, slaughter the defenders, and prepare for the next incursion. The armies in Moria and Dol Goldur got bigger and the Free Peoples began, and I need to make this clear - *dumping* elite units into Lorien to prevent it's capture. Both of our armies around Lorien and in Lorien were massive, meaning it was a bait fest to see who would have to discard 7 units to respect the Stacking rule, especially with Gandalf joining the defence of Lorien.

So on turn five, I took the Woodland Realm. Around this time, Rivendell left with a reasonably sized host and moved around the map as I moved to take Erebor, where Legolas awaited. 

Turn six, I took Erebor and the Iron Hills, and, though smacked up a bit, moved back to Erebor and mustered some more troops. Rivendell moved closer. 

On turn seven the Elves of Rivendell, while I mustered an army, moved in and re-took the Woodland Realm, and then, just for the memes, took Dale as well. 

Turn eight, the Battle of Dale was the highlight. Due to shitty rolls, nasty combat card plays and more, the Elves and Dwarven host at Dale managed to bait the forces of Sauron into an "everyone's dead, Jackass!" scenario. And then just to piss me off the Free Peoples started mustering regulars at Dale. I was forced to muster in the Woodland Realm to counter this.

Turn nine, the Dwarves would simply Not Stop and while I mustered forces to take Dale he (for funnies) split a dwarf off and recaptured Erebor again, so I attacked early, before he could summon anything special and took back Dale. Just barely. And then Erebor.

 Then Rivendell, because fuck you and the horse you rode in on, Elrond. At this point, the Victory Points count was getting really high, so the Ringbearer pulled what he called a "gamer move" and used all three of the Rings of Power he had and started zooming up the track to Mordor. I had no eyes with which to search. I allowed this.  On the tenth turn, I brought in the Witch King, rallied and invaded towards Rohan with a sizeable host. Unfortunately, the Host of Isengard's Wargs were all hanging out in the North. 

 Ten eleven, we had a Battle of Helm's Deep. And if you think the Battle of Dale was bad, the battle of Helms Deep had us using all of our combat cards in every single turn, losing 1-2 units a turn, and then finally it was down to the wire. If he won the 1v1 battle he would've killed the Witch King and 4/5 the Nazgul. Thankfully he didn't, and I got my eighth and Ninth victory points. 

 Into the final round, it was very, erm, close to the wire. Frodo had 9 corruption, was in Osgiliath, and once he entered Mordor, every single "fuck you" tile would be added to the pot. So he started moving in, and I drew the beige "3" on his third movement, dialing his corruption to 12 and ending the game.

 

Overall, the third game was our longest and it turns out you just need to be slower and tactical. I had an enormous amount of fun playing against Yarp and I look forward to many more games, but we both agreed it was better to wait until I got the expansions in a week or two to add more, uh, fun to the game. 

 

Klang out