What games are you BUYING? ARCHIVE

Brewmiester wrote: Picked up one each of the initial wave of Dungeons & Dragons Attack Wing.

I'm debating on this one. On one hand I fully expect the same shenanigans that is in the Star Trek side, and the Star Trek OP which I was organizing at my local shop is officially dead. But on the other hand I can offer up my services to run the D&D:AW OP (@ Sag - That's Dungeons & Dragons: Attack Wing Organized Play) with my new free time to get the free organizer stuff and see how far just the base set can get me.

VonTush wrote: On one hand I fully expect the same shenanigans that is in the Star Trek side, and the Star Trek OP which I was organizing at my local shop is officially dead.

What where the issues? I thought this game was the hotness that several FATties were selling off x-wing for.

Just ordered Cosmic Incursion, so I can finally support 6 players in Cosmic Encounter.

Now I just need to convince my lame group that this game is fantastic.

Well let me start off by saying that I still love the game, still play it (have a pickup game schedule on Sunday) but it isn't without flaws. Or more specifically one man's flaws is another man's features so to speak. Also, I'm starting to develop a strong dislike of WizKids and their business model and practices so what does follow isn't without some level of bias. And forgive the long rambling...And I'll admit shenanigans perhaps isn't the right word...There's just things that they do that don't earn them any Awesome Points.

The other day I was chatting with another player who came into the game about 8 months in, where I've been there since Day 1. Around Wave 4 things took a turn and a handful of things happened that just changed the tone of the game:
-Andrew Park, co-designer, was very active on the BGG forums and kept a Rules thread going and responded very quick. He left to head up D&D:AW leaving Chris Guild the other co-designer as the face of the game. He's since gone MIA.

-The Borg shined the light on their costing structure of adding up stats and multiplying it by 2 and the imbalance it creates. The Borg have 360 fire arcs and have superior movement with the ability to go NSEW whenever where every other ship has a forward momentum restricting their movement. This created a situation where as a player you're handicapping yourself by NOT taking The Borg.

-Early on there was the ability for people to run Fleet Pure, Ship Pure and Mixed factions and still have an entertaining game. As time and releases go on though it has become very apparent that the fleets will never be balanced to make Fleet Pure viable. Even ship pure put the Federation and The Borg on a higher level than every other faction.

-With the rapid release of cards and ships it has become apparent that there's little internal playtesting, with the amount of stuff that comes out each month there's just no way to anticipate combos that can be exploited. And there's also some minor gaffs that just look sloppy like putting a Dominion symbol on a Vulcan card.

-So, combining mixed faction as the way to play the game, loose playtesting and a steady stream of new cards the game is becoming more card-game where the fleet build and the ability to squeeze the most out of your points has become more important than the actual game-play. Still play skill does factor in, but a better build (some may call efficient, some call exploitative) is going to win.

-Then factor in stuff like the GenCon snafu where they released a Cloaked Ship Pack with Exclusive cards for the Crew of DS9 and had an embarrassingly short supply. Reports of staff lying to people saying they'd have more to release at 11:00 causing them to leave the line only to have them show up later and the booth having no product. Other staff saying GenCon has a policy of no long line queues and shooing people away. Overall there was a general lack of organization and control there.

-Then there is DS9 itself which was the prize from The Dominion War which is now getting a retail release but this time with actual rules now to make it playable like a movement dial and other rules. And this is more of a personal gripe because there's no indication that they'll release a upgrade pack for the DS9 I already have.

-And lastly they recently announced a "Suggested Format Change" for Tournaments and Organized Play where they recommend capping ships at 50 points to curb the trend towards Borg Super-Cubes and Voyager Dreadnaughts (which variations on those two builds account for over 75% of the Top 8 at all of the Regional Events). Which amounts to putting a band-aid on some issues people feel the game is developing.

So...All of this just starts building together. People who jumped in on the game early on are feeling bits of regret and deception I think where the game didn't go down a path parallel to XWing with balance and tightness. Then others try to squash their critiques by basically saying the game is what it is and accept it. And WizKids is just in the background doing their thing letting the community get toxic.

For lack of a better word, the community is getting toxic and WizKids just allows this stuff to fester and then throw out little bits like this 50 point cap which some people get happy about and others hate further dividing the community.


But all that said...Again, I still enjoy the game. I think XWing is the better game when you get to the table and setup across from each other. That's because it is the same scenario. Designing the game around 100 pts per side with six asteroids allows a level of balance that Attack Wing can't achieve.

Where Attack Wing I think excels is their varied scenarios and options that makes the pre-game element of creating a strategy and then building for that plan much more enjoyable. The game itself is more just a testing ground to see if your build works.

And if I were to summarize everything, the shenanigans is that WizKids doesn't control the situation developing and sends mixed messages about their product. They have built a game centered on the scenarios included with each ship pack which are asymmetrical for objectives and go from one on one engagements of 30-40 pts, up to a handful of 120 pt battles that have levels of checks and balances build in. But then promote the game with Tournaments and Organized Play that emulate XWing with 100-120 pts, an environment where half the time it it is ignored or doesn't factor in, and objectives for both sides that are "Kill your opponent".

So these mixed messages frustrate some people who are looking for a certain game but finding another.

Again...Sorry for the long post. But this has been what's happening in the world of ST:AW and what I largely expect to see in D&D:AW.

That's quite a writeup. Worthy of its own thread.

Years ago we played SFB but "organized play" meant everybody showing up and building a scenario that was technically interesting and challenging for all involved. You didn't bring your own, you just decided that these seven Klingon ships vs those nine Fed ships looked balanced and interesting. Everyone grabbed a sheet and off you went. If someone was late their ship arriving late would be taken into account in the joint build decision.

I'll be honest -- I think organized play that ran like Duplicate Bridge would be more entertaining to play. Pre-fabbed scenarios that required players to be generalists instead of honers that use the Internet for 90% of their reasearch would be interesting to participate in. But it would be less profitable for the publisher probably, so I don't think that's in the cards.

S.

Sagrilarus wrote: I'll be honest -- I think organized play that ran like Duplicate Bridge would be more entertaining to play. Pre-fabbed scenarios that required players to be generalists instead of honers that use the Internet for 90% of their reasearch would be interesting to participate in. But it would be less profitable for the publisher probably, so I don't think that's in the cards.

Agree. It's just not a great business decision.

Sagrilarus wrote: Years ago we played SFB but "organized play" meant everybody showing up and building a scenario that was technically interesting and challenging for all involved.

Months (over a year perhaps) when there was that TrashDome XWing vs Attack Wing vs WoW/G I ended up with a vote for WoW/G...And thinking about that a year later I still stand by that vote because that's the spirit that is captured with the game. I think not having points, not trying to quantify the quality of something by assigning it a point value has made it the better game overall. And I say that while admitting that it is my least played game of that group by a country mile.

Just grab a few planes and slug it out, whatever happens, happens. Of course though the better game doesn't always equate to better sales.

Oh and speaking of WoW/G...I just heard that NOVA aired "First Air War" last night and I believe my DVR caught it, so I know what I'm doing tonight!

www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/first-air-war.html

Sagrilarus wrote: Years ago we played SFB ...

What the hell is SFB?








Kidding. Just wanted to rib you for the acronym.

Star Fleet Battles

Wiz Kids is a terrible company to get on a serial game from. It you just want to play it for fun, it's probably fine, but they make horrible competitive environments.

To be fair, I think it is insanely difficult to properly support a serial game. Very few companies can pull it off. But I agree, I wouldn't get into a Wizkids serial game.

EDIT: writing would instead of wouldn't? Jesus

I played Star Fleet Battles one time back in the day, took five hours. I turned left. Once.

Last summer's (2013) project was to re-learn SFB and get back into it. The manual is still sitting on the fucking end table. My eyes get heavy just thinking about reading it.

Sagrilarus wrote:

Brewmiester wrote: Picked up one each of the initial wave of Dungeons & Dragons Attack Wing.

What's the production package on these? Come fully assembled? Initial color? Quality of plastic?

S.

They are fully assembled other than attaching to bases and mounting pegs.

The initial colors are fine but definitely not as nice as the displays I saw at Gen Con. Part of the reason I'm thinking of some touch up. I do like the animation of the dragon sculpts but the ground troops are less then inspiring so far.

The plastic is pretty soft and bendy. Once again ok on the dragons but the warpy spears on the elves are pretty disappointing.

VonTush wrote: Oh and speaking of WoW/G...I just heard that NOVA aired "First Air War" last night and I believe my DVR caught it, so I know what I'm doing tonight!

www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/first-air-war.html

It does a pretty good job describing the back and forth advantage each side enjoyed at different times.

Also the New Zealand company that builds and flies replicas from the original design drawings was interesting.