Duel of Ages II

I've been avoiding Duel of Ages II; it's been sitting on my mountain, smirking at me as if to say "you'll never get anyone to play this". It might be right. I played the first tutorial last night with Gary and he said it was so complicated it gave him a headache :/. It's not really that complicated at all though! It just has iconography and stats!

Anyway, what it is is a team-based super-thematic wargame of epic sillyness. Yes, it's a wargame, so there's hex-based movement, terrain types and line-of-sight rules *BUT* you might have a team consisting of William Wallace, Jade the Unicorn and Mulgoth Dominant: The Infernal Construct. And that makes everything ok.

In our game last night, at one point, I sent Stephen Decatur the Swashbuckler down a mesa on his mountain bike waving a roman gladius to attack Spartacus, but he missed, giving the gladiator chance to pop on his new sneakers and leg it into the bushes. What's not to like?

There are two more tutorials to go before the missions begin and I thought it'd be nice to have a group who can learn how to play together. Anyone interested? It plays up to 4 per team, so up to 8 total.

You know I'm there. I'll play anything once

Kes wrote:You know I'm there.

Awesome. You might actually like this one.

Kes wrote:I'll play anything once

Really? How about Kolejka, the worker placement game about queuing for rations in communist era Poland?

I've deciphered Race for the Galaxy. Iconography holds no fear for me anymore.
Besides, it sounds awesome! Count me in.

I would love to, that sounds amazing.

I've also been hoping to play the Polish queuing game for a long time, is that an option?

I'll even play worker placement games, I might just complain about it.

Paul - Excellent! Break free from Iconographic repression!

Tom - I thought this might be up your alley. As I was writing about it I thought: this all sounds like something Tom would say.

Also, Kolejka's on the mountain so we can definitely play that some time. It's just annoying as it's a multilingual edition so it's in Polish with English paste ups. Except I like the polish text and think paste ups look ugly and I can't find any player aids to play it in Polish. So once I figure that out...

Kes - "might" ?

CocoaCocoabo wrote:Tom - I thought this might be up your alley. As I was writing about it I thought: this all sounds like something Tom would say.

Mostly I just like Extreme Design Cleverness, but failing that I'll also take silly stuff.

Bunglebogs wrote:I've deciphered Race for the Galaxy. Iconography holds no fear for me anymore.
Besides, it sounds awesome! Count me in.

Hell by the time we finished that game I'd got it sussed too - it's daunting but the logic is consistent so once it *starts* to click suddenly the whole mess makes sense.

Of course the first time you look at it your reaction is more brain-hurty

I would also be up for playing Kolejka - I'm British, I love queueing!

So I make that Me, Kes, Paul and Tom? 4's a good number, 2 per team. I guess I'll bring it along to club one week when Paul can make it. Unless people want to make this extra-curricular?

I've found some useable player aids for Kolejka too so we could do that at the same time.

CocoaCocoabo wrote:So I make that Me, Kes, Paul and Tom? 4's a good number, 2 per team. I guess I'll bring it along to club one week when Paul can make it. Unless people want to make this extra-curricular?

I'd go with club for the moment, unless that's an issue for people. I can do other times if necessary though.

CocoaCocoabo wrote:I've found some useable player aids for Kolejka too so we could do that at the same time.

I'm not sure if I can play a fantastical wargame and a queuing game at the same time, you might suddenly find my starving Poles are pushing to the front and my orcs are forming neat and orderly lines.

Yes, I'm definitely in for both!
Happy to play at the club or elsewhere - I could host if we pick a weekend when Her Ladyship has gone camping... or I'll be back at the club next week.

Ok, probably best to do the first training mission at club anyway, thinking about it, we might get some others interested who don't follow the forums. I'll try and remember to suggest it next week.

I noticed this on my shelf last night...

Looks like it was Kes, Paul and Tom who were interested. Shall I bring it in on Tuesday and we can have a go?

Fine by me

Possibly too late to say this now, but works for me.

What's the verdict?
I quite enjoyed it, though it did get very one-sided, very quickly and we risked it becoming a Scooby-Doo style chase around the board had the other team not graciously not stood still to let us pummel 'em.
I think with ranged weapons and special abilities added I would really enjoy it.
The only negatives for me: the artwork is inconsistent, which bugged me, and I didn't like the carry infinite items in a bag rule. I'd be tempted to house rule it such that either a bad let's you carry an extra 4 items or for each extra item lose 1 speed...

Overall, 'twas fun!

Agreed. It was only a training mission. I felt the units were pretty flimsy and luck became the main significant factor in the fighting but I guess in a full game you would be trying to snipe the melee guys and bash the gunners

Yeah, that's not really how the game is meant to be played at all, it's a bit odd only with melee, but you have to start somewhere.

The characters we were using were all very average, other ones in the deck have much more variability in what they're good at. That meant a lot of the time we were only beating the opposition by one point, making it mostly luck whether we got a hit or not. With different characters you'd choose to use someone with a strong melee attack against someone with low reactions, or snipe someone with high reactions like that red haired chick - reducing the luck factor.

Anyway, there'a lot more to the game than we saw last night, it's just a question of putting the time in to learn it all. I think it's worth it.

I agree about the artwork, some of it's good and other bits are crap. Could be worse though so doesn't bother me too much.