when you play 6+ games with the same 4 people the game takes about 3h for 4 people (and ends no later than 6-7th round) with 2 it drops down to hour and a half if both know their race and played 4-5 games before
Was looking forward to hearing your perspective. On the surface, the draw 5 out of 10 card deck mechanism seems like it would lead to predictable battles over time. My guess is that the context for those cards (units on each side, strategic timing, dice) will make the card play interesting throughout. And the limited amounts of cards would make it easier to learn the decks and notch up the speed of play and mind games in combat.
Ben Foster What you say is correct. It's also worth considering the deck building implications. In my previous game, I went heavy morale, and was able to hold on to try and just last through the 3 rounds of combat, getting cards to force opponent's to re-roll their dice and rally units in the later rounds. So, it was great to build a synergy. There's also room for "interesting" dynamics based on timing. As the defender I would often play a "Rally a unit" in the first round.. against enemies that "auto" rout via a card, and I would just stand him back up :)
Would love to know what your friends that play Starcraft all the time thought of it. We are going to review this game in our next episode and compare to Starcraft as we were big fans of that board game too. -Marty
Rolling Dice & Taking Names I haven't talked to those guys in a few years now. I'm not even sure where they game. We had a group of 50 back in the heyday. My current core group is about 12. :)
Question: At 17:53 wouldn't the little unit have died and not been routed since it took more damage than it's health? Then the rest of the damage would have routed the bigger unit?
Drive Thru Review Oh man. I hate to be "that guy" here's quote from the rules. " When a player suffers damage, he must choose any one friendly unit on the area to suffer the damage. That unit must be unrouted unless all of his other units are routed. If the damage equals or exceeds the chosen unit’s health value, that unit is destroyed and removed from the game board."
I just got this game and it's arriving next week. This video was a great help, thank you! Have you gotten the chance to play this again after all these years? When was the last time you played it? Just curious :) I remember this being your Top 5 game of all time three years ago. (after that it was Frostgrave and a bunch of miniatures game that play with metrics and without any board, not our jam, we find movement through measuring really awkward, so with that in mind, in my book this was your Top 1 game of all time if I didn't count those last 4 miniatures game, hahah!) Speaking of miniatures wargames, we also got Battlelore 2nd Edition and we have been playing it A LOT, now THAT is our jam, big board with hexes, casual rules easy to understand but with a lot of tactics and luck involved. Loving it.
I still have Forbidden Stars and love it. It's been a couple of years. Last time I played it was in 2019, but that's partly due to COVID as well. Still own and play Battlelore 2nd Edition as well :)
+Eric Finley Good question. I have played them all. I would probably lean Eldar I think, but I really enjoy them all. Not sure Blood Rage cuts into this game's market. Probably a little bit though. But Blood Rage is a 90 minute game where this is a 3-4 hour game. Hard to say.
Bloodrage and Forbidden stars are tottaly different games on desing and mechanics. Bloodrage is symmetric and more euro-area control oriented game. Forbidden stars is more like a wargame with a bit elegant resource managment with really really hybrid combat mechanic. If you want cinematic epic moments FS is for your, if you prefer more chaotic euro game Blood rage is the best choice.
Joel, this looks great, but I have "dudes on a map" games already. My favorite is probably Clash of Cultures. Could you offer any comparison to CoC? Obviously they are completely different, but they are filling a similar niche. Thoughts?
Misterboy I could see it fill a similar niche for some folks. But, it's very much more about tweaking your deckbuilding and fleets. It's much more smash and grab without any real epic sweep feel to it. Well... it feels epic, but it's not like "civ" epic. It sits in a strange spot to try and describe... between multiple thousands of years but still has a saga feel to it.
Drive Thru Review Yeah, I think "smash and grab" is a good description. While the gameplay looks great, I feel it's probably too similar to other big epic guys-on-a-map games and I think I'd prefer a saga than a fistfight. Thanks for the input!
zwicky93 I have. I enjoy it quite a bit. I bought a bunch of extra stuff to try out with it, like the Plague expansion etc... Just not gotten around to reviewing it since it's very tough to find anyway.
Drive Thru Review Ah I see. I don't know if you have a group you play wargames with but if you do check out "A Fistful of Kung Fu" from Osprey publishing, 6-15 figs a side it really is a blast, a fantastic skirmish game.
I'm not going to go through the last 401 videos, but I would bet a statistical sampling of, say, 100 would have a larger % where the review was spoiled before the overview in some way than not. :) (Nothing wrong with it, of course.) Also, I have been skating around this one for a while. I have a lot of fond memories of the Starcraft board game, and I do NOT want something that replaces it. Because nostalgia. I already know better games exist, but lots of good memories tied up into that game. Of course, my copy got destroyed in a flood, and I've never replaced it so... maybe this is the game for me. I'm still reluctant.
Drive Thru Review Oh, I know. Wasn't a critique. One of those trademarks, kinda like rules annotations on Rahdo's videos. Or potentially motion sickness. I want to have a contest one day where me and someone else drink a lot and watch Rahdo videos until somebody barfs.
Meant completely in jest, I actually really like his videos. :) I do have words for him someday if I ever meet him though for tricking me into Shadowrun Crossfire. lol
when you play 6+ games with the same 4 people the game takes about 3h for 4 people (and ends no later than 6-7th round)
with 2 it drops down to hour and a half if both know their race and played 4-5 games before
dragonfistbs Can totally see that.
Was looking forward to hearing your perspective. On the surface, the draw 5 out of 10 card deck mechanism seems like it would lead to predictable battles over time. My guess is that the context for those cards (units on each side, strategic timing, dice) will make the card play interesting throughout. And the limited amounts of cards would make it easier to learn the decks and notch up the speed of play and mind games in combat.
Ben Foster What you say is correct. It's also worth considering the deck building implications. In my previous game, I went heavy morale, and was able to hold on to try and just last through the 3 rounds of combat, getting cards to force opponent's to re-roll their dice and rally units in the later rounds. So, it was great to build a synergy. There's also room for "interesting" dynamics based on timing. As the defender I would often play a "Rally a unit" in the first round.. against enemies that "auto" rout via a card, and I would just stand him back up :)
Forbidden Stars Review th-cam.com/video/zBYbumRxEH0/w-d-xo.html
Would love to know what your friends that play Starcraft all the time thought of it. We are going to review this game in our next episode and compare to Starcraft as we were big fans of that board game too. -Marty
Rolling Dice & Taking Names I haven't talked to those guys in a few years now. I'm not even sure where they game. We had a group of 50 back in the heyday. My current core group is about 12. :)
Question: At 17:53 wouldn't the little unit have died and not been routed since it took more damage than it's health? Then the rest of the damage would have routed the bigger unit?
***** A unit routs first and then will be destroyed if it receives damage equal to it's health on it's next damage.
Drive Thru Review Oh man. I hate to be "that guy" here's quote from the rules. "
When a player suffers damage, he must choose any one
friendly unit on the area to suffer the damage. That unit must
be unrouted unless all of his other units are routed. If the
damage equals or exceeds the chosen unit’s health value,
that unit is destroyed and removed from the game board."
***** Oh I gotcha. Yep, you're right. Messed that up big time. I will annotate!
Drive Thru Review Awesome. Still my favorite reviewer.
***** Saving throw success!
I just got this game and it's arriving next week. This video was a great help, thank you! Have you gotten the chance to play this again after all these years? When was the last time you played it? Just curious :)
I remember this being your Top 5 game of all time three years ago.
(after that it was Frostgrave and a bunch of miniatures game that play with metrics and without any board, not our jam, we find movement through measuring really awkward, so with that in mind, in my book this was your Top 1 game of all time if I didn't count those last 4 miniatures game, hahah!)
Speaking of miniatures wargames, we also got Battlelore 2nd Edition and we have been playing it A LOT, now THAT is our jam, big board with hexes, casual rules easy to understand but with a lot of tactics and luck involved. Loving it.
I still have Forbidden Stars and love it. It's been a couple of years. Last time I played it was in 2019, but that's partly due to COVID as well. Still own and play Battlelore 2nd Edition as well :)
@@DriveThruReview Awesome! Can't wait to play this when it arrives :)
Favorite faction? Have you played them all? I want this game but you don't hear much about it since Blood Rage came out. Coincidence?
+Eric Finley Good question. I have played them all. I would probably lean Eldar I think, but I really enjoy them all. Not sure Blood Rage cuts into this game's market. Probably a little bit though. But Blood Rage is a 90 minute game where this is a 3-4 hour game. Hard to say.
Bloodrage and Forbidden stars are tottaly different games on desing and mechanics. Bloodrage is symmetric and more euro-area control oriented game. Forbidden stars is more like a wargame with a bit elegant resource managment with really really hybrid combat mechanic.
If you want cinematic epic moments FS is for your, if you prefer more chaotic euro game Blood rage is the best choice.
Joel, this looks great, but I have "dudes on a map" games already. My favorite is probably Clash of Cultures. Could you offer any comparison to CoC? Obviously they are completely different, but they are filling a similar niche. Thoughts?
Misterboy I could see it fill a similar niche for some folks. But, it's very much more about tweaking your deckbuilding and fleets. It's much more smash and grab without any real epic sweep feel to it. Well... it feels epic, but it's not like "civ" epic. It sits in a strange spot to try and describe... between multiple thousands of years but still has a saga feel to it.
Drive Thru Review Yeah, I think "smash and grab" is a good description. While the gameplay looks great, I feel it's probably too similar to other big epic guys-on-a-map games and I think I'd prefer a saga than a fistfight. Thanks for the input!
When are we actually going to see you play this guitar you've been teasing in the background for a year now? ^^
Hitchslapped Never :)
Drive Thru Review That's a shame :D
Hitchslapped As out of practice as I am, you should count your umm... forbidden stars I don't hoist it upon people :p
Sorry to go off topic but did you ever get round to playing Deadzone? I know you said you were planning too
zwicky93 I have. I enjoy it quite a bit. I bought a bunch of extra stuff to try out with it, like the Plague expansion etc... Just not gotten around to reviewing it since it's very tough to find anyway.
Drive Thru Review I'm glad you enjoyed it, I didn't realize it was hard to get Mantic stuff in the US, that's a shame
zwicky93 Oh. It can be had. I think it's just in between print runs right now.
Drive Thru Review Ah I see. I don't know if you have a group you play wargames with but if you do check out "A Fistful of Kung Fu" from Osprey publishing, 6-15 figs a side it really is a blast, a fantastic skirmish game.
I'll take a look at it. It is a genre I have a hard time getting out. Two player stuff can be played with my son though.
I'm not going to go through the last 401 videos, but I would bet a statistical sampling of, say, 100 would have a larger % where the review was spoiled before the overview in some way than not. :) (Nothing wrong with it, of course.)
Also, I have been skating around this one for a while. I have a lot of fond memories of the Starcraft board game, and I do NOT want something that replaces it. Because nostalgia. I already know better games exist, but lots of good memories tied up into that game. Of course, my copy got destroyed in a flood, and I've never replaced it so... maybe this is the game for me. I'm still reluctant.
TheGreatHamEl To be fair, I will never out and out "hate" a game if I give it a full review. I save those for my Vlogs.
Drive Thru Review Oh, I know. Wasn't a critique. One of those trademarks, kinda like rules annotations on Rahdo's videos. Or potentially motion sickness. I want to have a contest one day where me and someone else drink a lot and watch Rahdo videos until somebody barfs.
TheGreatHamEl LOL.... harsh.
Meant completely in jest, I actually really like his videos. :) I do have words for him someday if I ever meet him though for tricking me into Shadowrun Crossfire. lol
TheGreatHamEl Haha. I wish to be standing there when you deliver said message :)..... (also not a fan)