So, one of the dangers of reviewing board games from my shelf is that I sometimes don't know there is a new edition out. So this is a review of 1st ed of Aeons end, because that's what i own and what i played. Apparently, the issues i mention about the boards and dials is solved in the 2nd edition of the game. So that's good. Still, I think the game is amazing for 1-2 and kinda not for 3-4 though. Can you think of other games where the player count makes a huge difference? And what do you reckon is a better way to do 3 players in this game?
3 Minute Board Games The stand-alone expansions get better and better. In later editions, instead of “Player 1, Player 2, etc.” They have a mechanic where players can choose: “Player 1/2” and “Player 3/4”. Wherein the first time the player turn card pops up, the 2 players decide who takes the turn. When the second time the card pops up, the other player goes. It helps with the 4 player mode. I’d recommend Aeon’s End: The New Age the most
3 Minute Board Games I am not sure how it worked in the 1st edition but for the 2nd edition onward it is a wild turn order card that any player can take
Yeah, i wasn't a fan of that. Due to the most practical response to that is the channel all the extra turns to one player so they can get supercharged and doing loads of damage earlier.
One of the later editions gives you a token you hand round clockwise for the wild. Takes some of the strategy out of it though. I like the idea of everyone having a token that they flip over to take a wild turn. Then when everyone has flipped their tokens (because they've all taken a wild) they all unflip. I really like the idea of there being a decision space around who should take the turn, just hate that it led to he best strategy being one person taking them all.
I play AE solo, but I always run a 3-mage squad with 1 damage dealer, 1 support character and 1 specialist (a mage I tune to combat the specific ability of the nemesis). I’ve done this since the original game, through all of the expansions.
Great video! This is by far one of my favorite games. You were able to explain it so well in such a small amount of time....I like your video format. You got yourself another subscriber :-)
Absolutely my favorite deck builder, and I love it at 3P. Not sure how 1st edition handles it, but choosing which player takes the extra turn each round is a nice extra layer of strategy. I’ve also recently completed the Legacy version and I can’t recommend it enough. Fantastic.
See for me, with the way players get strong in deck builders the more actions they take. I just couldn't see many reasons, other than being social able, not to give the bonus turn to the same player each turn to get them to end game power faster, and then so they could just keep hitting. Which is why it didnt grab me
@@3MBG Each standalone expansion has experimented with the 3 and 4 player turn order rules. In the base game it's as you described. In War Eternal, 3 is the same but they add 1/2 and 3/4 cards for a 4 player variant. First time a 1/2 card comes up you choose who plays and they take a token, second time the other plays then the token goes back in the middle. In New Age, for 3 player they added a Wild token that rotates between players, but the 1/2 and 3/4 for 4 player is standard.
The coop theme about destroying a monster together reminded me of The Big Book of Madness, which was my "foundation" game ;) I just started getting into the hobby and your videos have been really helpful!!
Aeon's End is probably my favourite co-op deck builder at the moment. It is great for playing solo but I also agree that the sweet spot is definitely two players. Good review, I hope it will get more people to give it a go.
I have the original, as you do ... when I backed the next game in the Aeon’s End series (war Eternal), they gave me upgraded cards for ALL cards! ! The newer cards are more readable and are what the the 2nd edition has.
At 1:37 when you buy the cards I thought the bought cards go first and then at the end of your turn you place the used cards in any order you want on top of your discard. Which is correct?
Our favourite co-op deckbuilder. The legacy campaign hooked my partner which I'll be forever thankful for 😁 two is definitely the sweet spot but we don't mind three with the newer rules. 4 just leaves everyone with unsatisfying decks that are about to get going, so I'd completely agree that it's not great.
Played cards don't go into the discard til the end of your turn, and then go in whatever order you choose. This is a major part of the strategy of the game.
Great video. Interesting game. I had one noob question. I understand you dont shuffle your deck once you use all your cards during play, but before you start the game do you control which order the cards are in? Or is it shuffled and/or randomized before gameplay. Hope that question makes sense.
The player starter decks are 10 cards. 5 start in your hand, and 5 in your draw pile and they are noted on each player board. So with new cards going to the discard, your first 2 turns are controlled out of the gate. The order you play those cards determines the restack order.
Like many others, the 3p game with the wild card personally made the game more interesting for my friends and I. There's an interesting choice to be made on who to let go twice depending on he situation. We also play 4p with the 1/2 and 3/4 wilds. Turns move briskly enough to there isn't too much downtime between turns. Also, hooray for the Sentinels of the Multiverse shout out, I own everything for that :P
I too came on board late, but picked it up via the kickstarter at the start of this year . Every year in February there was a KS for a new core set. So far we have Aeons End, AE: WarEternal, AE: Legacy, AE: New Age, AE: Outcast . Not to mention all the expansions. So keep an eye on KS February 2021.
Interesting. I don't think that ever happened in any of our games. Either we start smacking the Nemesis for 10 or so each round or it eats gravehold first.
Just been playing New Age solo. It think it's a good way to start. Really fun to do the expedition with 2 players. Plus no stock of 2e or War Eternal in NZ.
We found that maggot guy really offputting. Once we got to the spider it was better. We got Legacy AFTER that, but I recommend that everyone interested start with legacy.
Love this game! I agree with the player counts though. I'm okay with 3, but both my other players said they preferred it at 2. Which is fine by me as I get to play it more often when one or the other of them are unavailable. >:)
Just tried this game, it's good fun but very, very hard. Tried 3-4 times and failed now. Each time we radomised the supply deck and nemesis (rerolling if a nemesis we already faced)... Will say that randomising the decks is a bad idea, sometimes you just end up with some terrible spell combinations/choices. So don't be afraid to mulligan/choose a diff one. Played it with 2 players 3 games then 3 players. This game feels terrible with anything over 2 players.
We played this once with 4 players and we we're all pretty bored by the end. You ultimately just do the best part of whatever you drew then rinse and repeat. None of us felt like there were any real choices to make.
Been eyeballing this game since I got into deep gaming. I choose Clank! over AE because I'm a fan of push your luck. Now that I'm looking for more adventure games this has been popping up more. Bummer on the components, but wanted to see if you would be investing in one of the many expansions?
Yes, second edition is not only nicer, but it is functionally much clearer. I'm staring at these 1st ed. cards and I can barely tell what a gem is... and I know them all by heart! Also, it's up to you, but if you plan on only buying one box, I might suggest New Age (or maybe legacy, if you want to shell out a few more dollars). I love the (2nd ed.) base game, and I'm glad I got it first, but if you are only buying one box, New Age is much better right out of the box. The base game bosses are fine... but they do not highlight the beauty of this game's mechanisms nearly as well as later ones do.
Because this is the copy i own? It may surprise you, but not every game covered on the channel is gifted to me by publishers. In fact, most games covered here are not. Due to covid-19 as well, i've been covering games from the shelf instead of new releases as well. I also did this for pandemic, as my copy of that game is ancient.
@@3MBG Immediately the nemesis unleashes twice and you lose one of your breaches and all of your charge tokens. After that you can't gain life but you don't count as the player with the lowest health and any damage to you goes instead double to Gravehold. Otherwise play as normal.
I prefer it at 2, 3 has that weird boost card thing, which to play optimally, you should almost always give to the same player each turn so they can make the strongest deck and do the heavy lifting.
On the note of complexity, I think most will find that it keeps going up as you get into expansions and such. For whatever reason, the "main" box is kinda... simple? Like the concepts seen in the characters, monsters, and player cards just dont go all that far, when compared to all the loopy things that the expansions do (both big and small boxes). I seem to recall that Sentinels of the Multiverse actually had this same problem, where if you bought JUST the original main box and played only that, you'd have nothing but overly simple heroes and villains and the game wouldnt seem quite as deep. Which never made those heroes or villains BAD, just that the game wasnt very interesting when it was ONLY them. Both of these games absolutely thrive on their expansions. Which might be a downside for some players. Like Sentinels, AE has an absurd amount of content out there. That being said, Aeon's End is an amazing game. It's what got me into the hobby, and I have every bit of content for it, though I'm a purely solo gamer and always multi-hand everything. And I tell ya, this game gets like ten times better once you add New Age's expedition mode into the mix. That took an already great game and just made it utterly amazing. No reason to ever go back to "normal" mode, at least not in my view anyway. Though anyone interested in the story elements should play Legacy before touching New Age, which contains major spoilers on the front of the bloody manual. Also it's really interesting to see what the first edition looks like. I see now just WHY they made such heavy changes to the look of it. It's like a night & day difference.
Awesome insights, and I can totally get where you are coming from as i have the Sentinels core box, BUT have all of the sentinels content on the app. And the gap between core box and all the extras is massive.
This game is utterly amazing. If there was a fire, I’d save Aeon’s End before my wedding photos.
Wow. That's serious.
LOL
I can't even put in words how weird but understandable this is😂
So, one of the dangers of reviewing board games from my shelf is that I sometimes don't know there is a new edition out. So this is a review of 1st ed of Aeons end, because that's what i own and what i played. Apparently, the issues i mention about the boards and dials is solved in the 2nd edition of the game. So that's good.
Still, I think the game is amazing for 1-2 and kinda not for 3-4 though. Can you think of other games where the player count makes a huge difference? And what do you reckon is a better way to do 3 players in this game?
3 Minute Board Games The stand-alone expansions get better and better. In later editions, instead of “Player 1, Player 2, etc.” They have a mechanic where players can choose: “Player 1/2” and “Player 3/4”. Wherein the first time the player turn card pops up, the 2 players decide who takes the turn. When the second time the card pops up, the other player goes. It helps with the 4 player mode. I’d recommend Aeon’s End: The New Age the most
Oh, that does sound like a big improvement. Still, the 3 player rule, did they sort that?
3 Minute Board Games I am not sure how it worked in the 1st edition but for the 2nd edition onward it is a wild turn order card that any player can take
Yeah, i wasn't a fan of that. Due to the most practical response to that is the channel all the extra turns to one player so they can get supercharged and doing loads of damage earlier.
One of the later editions gives you a token you hand round clockwise for the wild. Takes some of the strategy out of it though. I like the idea of everyone having a token that they flip over to take a wild turn. Then when everyone has flipped their tokens (because they've all taken a wild) they all unflip. I really like the idea of there being a decision space around who should take the turn, just hate that it led to he best strategy being one person taking them all.
This format is grand, I am really impressed how much you manage to cram in - well done sir.
I’m really impressed how much you manage to cram in. Title of your sex tape.
I play AE solo, but I always run a 3-mage squad with 1 damage dealer, 1 support character and 1 specialist (a mage I tune to combat the specific ability of the nemesis). I’ve done this since the original game, through all of the expansions.
fantastic video as always! Love the color highlights and this game looks really REALLY fun.
Great video! This is by far one of my favorite games. You were able to explain it so well in such a small amount of time....I like your video format. You got yourself another subscriber :-)
Absolutely my favorite deck builder, and I love it at 3P. Not sure how 1st edition handles it, but choosing which player takes the extra turn each round is a nice extra layer of strategy. I’ve also recently completed the Legacy version and I can’t recommend it enough. Fantastic.
See for me, with the way players get strong in deck builders the more actions they take. I just couldn't see many reasons, other than being social able, not to give the bonus turn to the same player each turn to get them to end game power faster, and then so they could just keep hitting. Which is why it didnt grab me
@@3MBG Each standalone expansion has experimented with the 3 and 4 player turn order rules. In the base game it's as you described. In War Eternal, 3 is the same but they add 1/2 and 3/4 cards for a 4 player variant. First time a 1/2 card comes up you choose who plays and they take a token, second time the other plays then the token goes back in the middle. In New Age, for 3 player they added a Wild token that rotates between players, but the 1/2 and 3/4 for 4 player is standard.
The coop theme about destroying a monster together reminded me of The Big Book of Madness, which was my "foundation" game ;) I just started getting into the hobby and your videos have been really helpful!!
Great review as always, cheers!
Aeon's End is probably my favourite co-op deck builder at the moment. It is great for playing solo but I also agree that the sweet spot is definitely two players.
Good review, I hope it will get more people to give it a go.
Also, sorry this one is a day late. You tube just wouldn't process the video and this is the 4th upload.
I have the original, as you do ... when I backed the next game in the Aeon’s End series (war Eternal), they gave me upgraded cards for ALL cards! ! The newer cards are more readable and are what the the 2nd edition has.
Wow, what a concise, informative, helpful review! Thanks!
We aim to please :)
I played New age expansion last night. Love this game
At 1:37 when you buy the cards I thought the bought cards go first and then at the end of your turn you place the used cards in any order you want on top of your discard. Which is correct?
Yeah, you're correct, I used a bad example. My error
3 Minute Board Games you are fine, I then realized someone had commented on it earlier. I just wanted to make sure I was not playing it wrong.
Our favourite co-op deckbuilder. The legacy campaign hooked my partner which I'll be forever thankful for 😁 two is definitely the sweet spot but we don't mind three with the newer rules. 4 just leaves everyone with unsatisfying decks that are about to get going, so I'd completely agree that it's not great.
Played cards don't go into the discard til the end of your turn, and then go in whatever order you choose. This is a major part of the strategy of the game.
Correct.
I think that Kelsie is pointing out that unlike the video, everything you buy goes into the discard BEFORE the things you played that turn.
Yep, and she is correct
Another wonderful review
This overview/review has definitely gotten me more interested since my wife and I are usually the only players right now
Excellent explanation, nice and concise. It shows that the new edition is quite a bit pretier. :-D
Great video. Interesting game. I had one noob question. I understand you dont shuffle your deck once you use all your cards during play, but before you start the game do you control which order the cards are in? Or is it shuffled and/or randomized before gameplay. Hope that question makes sense.
The player starter decks are 10 cards. 5 start in your hand, and 5 in your draw pile and they are noted on each player board. So with new cards going to the discard, your first 2 turns are controlled out of the gate. The order you play those cards determines the restack order.
Ah got it 👍. Thank you!
Like many others, the 3p game with the wild card personally made the game more interesting for my friends and I. There's an interesting choice to be made on who to let go twice depending on he situation. We also play 4p with the 1/2 and 3/4 wilds. Turns move briskly enough to there isn't too much downtime between turns.
Also, hooray for the Sentinels of the Multiverse shout out, I own everything for that :P
That's a lot of stuff. I'd like to get more of it personally. But i mainly play it on the app
I heard of a game called Astro Knights that is supposedly this but with superheroes and supervillains. Might be worth looking into.
Wow, yes, looks like its literally just a remake by the same folks
I've been kicking myself that didn't pick this up earlier now its way to expense on the secondary market. I do have it on steam and love it.
I was unaware it was out of print. I imagine a game this popular, it will come back. Probably just short on supply due to Covid
@@3MBG the new Kickstarter Aeon's End Outcast is on the ship, so I guess the new reprint is also there.
I too came on board late, but picked it up via the kickstarter at the start of this year . Every year in February there was a KS for a new core set. So far we have Aeons End, AE: WarEternal, AE: Legacy, AE: New Age, AE: Outcast . Not to mention all the expansions. So keep an eye on KS February 2021.
You can also beat the boss by running out their deck.
Interesting. I don't think that ever happened in any of our games. Either we start smacking the Nemesis for 10 or so each round or it eats gravehold first.
There's a beach make later on that had the ability to discard the top of the nemesis deck. Makes for an exciting end game.
Ross Hebden, breach made later?🤷🏽♂️
@@3MBG I've only ever managed it with the Carapace Queen cause she is just so darn defensive.
Just been playing New Age solo. It think it's a good way to start. Really fun to do the expedition with 2 players. Plus no stock of 2e or War Eternal in NZ.
I think i now know why this one was on special, as its first ed. Got it late last year
We found that maggot guy really offputting. Once we got to the spider it was better. We got Legacy AFTER that, but I recommend that everyone interested start with legacy.
Love this game!
I agree with the player counts though. I'm okay with 3, but both my other players said they preferred it at 2. Which is fine by me as I get to play it more often when one or the other of them are unavailable. >:)
Just tried this game, it's good fun but very, very hard. Tried 3-4 times and failed now. Each time we radomised the supply deck and nemesis (rerolling if a nemesis we already faced)... Will say that randomising the decks is a bad idea, sometimes you just end up with some terrible spell combinations/choices. So don't be afraid to mulligan/choose a diff one.
Played it with 2 players 3 games then 3 players. This game feels terrible with anything over 2 players.
You’re playing 1st edition there though which is why the components were crap. I didn’t think 1st edition was available anymore
See pinned comment
How do I tell the 1st edition from the 2nd one? Sorry, new to the Aeons End
We played this once with 4 players and we we're all pretty bored by the end. You ultimately just do the best part of whatever you drew then rinse and repeat. None of us felt like there were any real choices to make.
Oh yeah, i got those dials from here if anyone wants to know. whatsyourhp.com/
Been eyeballing this game since I got into deep gaming. I choose Clank! over AE because I'm a fan of push your luck. Now that I'm looking for more adventure games this has been popping up more. Bummer on the components, but wanted to see if you would be investing in one of the many expansions?
Apparently, 2nd edition fixes all those component issues. So consider that instead
Yes, second edition is not only nicer, but it is functionally much clearer. I'm staring at these 1st ed. cards and I can barely tell what a gem is... and I know them all by heart! Also, it's up to you, but if you plan on only buying one box, I might suggest New Age (or maybe legacy, if you want to shell out a few more dollars). I love the (2nd ed.) base game, and I'm glad I got it first, but if you are only buying one box, New Age is much better right out of the box. The base game bosses are fine... but they do not highlight the beauty of this game's mechanisms nearly as well as later ones do.
2:12 nice
why would you do video on first edition not second?
Because this is the copy i own? It may surprise you, but not every game covered on the channel is gifted to me by publishers. In fact, most games covered here are not. Due to covid-19 as well, i've been covering games from the shelf instead of new releases as well.
I also did this for pandemic, as my copy of that game is ancient.
Also, i had no idea of the difference until i did the vid.
ok :) was just wondering. This game is so good and has so little marketing and videos. glad for your video
Which is weird, as i see people talking about it a lot.
@@3MBG yeah. but there is no official gameplay or how to play video. only reviews fom 2016
You lose if all players get to 0 hp. Until then you are all still in the game.
I must have missed the bit in the rules where you can still do stuff when your character is on zero health. What actions can you take?
@@3MBG Immediately the nemesis unleashes twice and you lose one of your breaches and all of your charge tokens. After that you can't gain life but you don't count as the player with the lowest health and any damage to you goes instead double to Gravehold. Otherwise play as normal.
Ha, interesting. I guess we never had that happen. :)
This seems...complex. Is it?
Not hugely, I certainly wouldn't call it complex. A bit different but easy enough
the only game that plays better for 3 players than for 4
I prefer it at 2, 3 has that weird boost card thing, which to play optimally, you should almost always give to the same player each turn so they can make the strongest deck and do the heavy lifting.
For some reason your videos don't show up on my radar even when I'm subscribed.
That's the you tube algorithm for you. Outside my control.
@@CasparWilson That too
On the note of complexity, I think most will find that it keeps going up as you get into expansions and such. For whatever reason, the "main" box is kinda... simple? Like the concepts seen in the characters, monsters, and player cards just dont go all that far, when compared to all the loopy things that the expansions do (both big and small boxes). I seem to recall that Sentinels of the Multiverse actually had this same problem, where if you bought JUST the original main box and played only that, you'd have nothing but overly simple heroes and villains and the game wouldnt seem quite as deep. Which never made those heroes or villains BAD, just that the game wasnt very interesting when it was ONLY them. Both of these games absolutely thrive on their expansions. Which might be a downside for some players. Like Sentinels, AE has an absurd amount of content out there.
That being said, Aeon's End is an amazing game. It's what got me into the hobby, and I have every bit of content for it, though I'm a purely solo gamer and always multi-hand everything. And I tell ya, this game gets like ten times better once you add New Age's expedition mode into the mix. That took an already great game and just made it utterly amazing. No reason to ever go back to "normal" mode, at least not in my view anyway. Though anyone interested in the story elements should play Legacy before touching New Age, which contains major spoilers on the front of the bloody manual.
Also it's really interesting to see what the first edition looks like. I see now just WHY they made such heavy changes to the look of it. It's like a night & day difference.
Awesome insights, and I can totally get where you are coming from as i have the Sentinels core box, BUT have all of the sentinels content on the app. And the gap between core box and all the extras is massive.
Aeon's end is great. Shame the port isn't so good imo.
Whats wrong with the port?
I only hear "D*ckBuilding game" the whole time.. i thought i am immature - till the "69 LOL" came
You have the first edition. Components and artwork are much better in the second edition.
See pinned comment and title of video.