Sunday, September 16, 2018

Session - Aeon's End: War Eternal, Battlecon & Titan

10th September 2018 (Monday)


Game(s) Played:



So I kinda impulse bought Aeon's End: War Eternal because someone was letting it go brand new and it is kinda not available where I live. And so we needed to give it a try! Gideon is going to bring his Battlecon: Devastation of Indines for me to try out as well.

I've decided to put the video up front so you don't have to run through the entire post if this is all you're looking for:


Session – Aeon's End: War Eternal


Game: Aeon's End: War Eternal
Designer: Kevin Riley
Players: 1 – 4 Players
Playing Time: 60 minutes (This Play: 60 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Coop, Deck Building, Hand Management, Variable Player Powers

Player(s):


I've been eyeing Aeon's End for a while now, I don't have any coop games and this one was getting good reviews, the only thing was its availability. But now it's MINE!

So in brief, in Aeon's End: War Eternal you play as a Mage in a post-apocalyptic world where the big baddies and their minions come out of the woodwork like termites trying to devour the last stronghold of mankind, Gravehold (what a unlucky name). As Mages we need to defend Gravehold, buying better spells to fight off the Boss Monster and his minions as they show up.


Today, the Umbra Titan (the suggested Boss for first play) and its minions come to threaten Gravehold


Each Mage has its own unique power and Aeon's End: War Eternal takes Player interaction to another level with spells and powers that affect and play off other Player's actions


At the market, Players can buy Gems that can be used to buy more powerful spells / charge your Player power / pay off the Power Cards of Bosses before they explode


My role was to use my power to heal Gravehold whilst Gideon's was to thin Player's decks from unwanted cards and Sean was our primary damage dealer, Mist who could cast many spells

(Editor's Note: Sorry Sean we got this one wrong, after casting the spell has to go into an ally's hand even if it is your own spell)


Aeon's End: War Eternal is known for its low win rate but we managed to secure a win in our first game, dealing the Umbra Titan some humiliation by killing it with a lowly Spark spell

Results Of Game(s)

WINNER – Gideon, Sean & Justin



Session – Battlecon: Devastation of Indines


Game: Battlecon: Devastation of Indines
Designer: D. Brad Talton, Jr.
Players: 1 – 5 Players
Playing Time: 45 minutes (This Play: 90 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Hand Management, Variable Player Powers, Simultaneous Action Selection

Player(s):


I've wanted to try Battlecon: Devastation of Indines for a while now, mostly from my curiosity about how a fighting game can be adapted to be a good boardgame. The game has actually made the jump to PC and is now available on Steam in its beta version, so be warned about glitches for now. It then turns out that Gideon does have a copy so I asked him to bring it today so we can give it a whirl as well.

So I actually have more of a brawler play style by instinct. There's something simplistically primal about closing in, weathering the hit and delivering a pulverizing blow to your enemies. And yet most of the time I end up playing a range glass cannon or summoner zookeeper in most of my action RPGs. This was an excellent opportunity to give in to my instincts and so I picked Shekhtur Lenmorre "Cursed Heroine" who gains speed (called Priority) the more damage she deals. Sean picked Karin & Jager Brandtford "Hunting Pack", a girl who has a top hat wearing wolf as a summon!


Karin has a lot of different moves depending on her position relative to Jager and more often than not I got caught in the wrong place. Here I'm about to be dragged over to Karin by Jager for her to deal the finishing blow because I'm in the same space as Jager


Each turn you choose 1 unique character card and match it with 1 standard move card to determine the Range, Power and Priority of your attacks


Sean was literally toying with me at the end, making sure he had Priority and then stunning me so I couldn't attack him in return


In round 2, I picked an even heavier brawler called King Alexian XXXVII "War King". He basically soaks damage, prevents stun and literally becomes more powerful as he closes in on his enemies


This was a really weird round with Sean's Eligor Larington "Successor to Saint Kelbran" always having the same Priority as me which results in a clash and us having to change the basic attack card attached to our character card. As a result, Sean had less options in dealing with my Alexian who charged in for the steam roll over Eligor

Results Of Game(s)

WINNER – Sean
LAST – Justin

WINNER – Justin
LAST – Sean

Session – Titan


Game: Titan
Designer: Jason B. McAllister, David A. Trampier
Players: 2 – 6 Players
Playing Time: 30 – 240 minutes
Main Mechanisms: Dice Rolling, Player Elimination, Secret Unit Deployment

Player(s):


With a little bit of time left, I decided to do an introductory game of Titan with Gideon & Sean. I don't have any ameri-style games in my collection besides Titan and honestly it is more for the nostalgia than the game being good that it actually is in my collection. My uncle introduced me to Titan when I was a wee lad and it sortof became my annual competition with him each year.

Titan suffers from all the classic drawbacks of being an ameri-style game: direct player conflict, survival of the fittest and complex rules. To be brutally honest, Titan is not very different in design from Risk, you move around the board recruiting armies and attack enemy armies when you encounter them. The only difference is that battle occurs on its own board depending on the terrain (Endless Legend does this for combat) and each Player has a vital unit hidden amongst his armies called the Titan which eliminates the Player when the Titan is killed.

I've been working hard on a variant that doesn't involve Player elimination, reduces the time spent in combat and limiting the overall game time. However I decided to just do a few turns with Gideon & Sean to show them how the game works, roughly.


So I discovered Sean is not in for those long, epic 3 hour play times. I think I will have to reserve Titan for those special occasions. ALAN!!! When are you coming back to boardgames???



Honestly I wasn't going to write a session report on this but before I knew it I had the camera set up, the pictures taken and then it became more of a "why the heck not" situation. Hopefully the rest of you had a good weekend playing boardgames as well.

Until next time, keep calm and play better.

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