Superheroes Ltd (Sentinels of the Multiverse)

REVIEW #100

Are you an up and coming hero with a special set of powers?  Do you want to do more with your life besides catching bank robbers and purse snatchers?  Do you want a sweet uniform that doesn't look like you robbed an old ladies clothesline?  Then you should apply for the Sentinels of the Multiverse, the team that rights wrongs, battles giant monsters and inter-dimensional threats, and looks good while doing it.  Positions are open today!



BACKGROUND:  Sentinels of the Multiverse is a cooperative card game published by Greater Than Games for 2 to 5 players in 2011.  Players take the role of various super heroes and team up to battle powerful enemies.

GAMEPLAY:  Each player takes a Hero card, and appropriate deck, and choose a Villain character and rules card, and matching deck to battle against, and a Environment deck to determine where you fight.  Gameplay consists of the Villain turn, the Hero turn, and the Environment turn.  Villain and Environment turns consist of effects that trigger at the beginning, an action to reveal a card, and an end phase to trigger end of turn effects

VILLAIN:  Villain character cards have various abilities, and generally have two sides, which flip when certain conditions are met, and have varying abilities depending on the side shown.  Each turn, players reveals the top card of the deck, and any others according to the card chosen.



HEROES:  Once the Hero turn starts, a player is chosen to go first.  A typical turn starts by playing one card from their hand.  One Shots will apply once and be discarded, while Equipment and Ongoing stay in front of the player.  Cards with Limited mean you can only have one of that kind of card out.  Then the player may activate a Power on either the Hero character card or a card in front of them.  The turn is ended by drawing a card.  Players may get to draw or play more cards if they have a card which allows them to.  Alternatively, if a player feels they cannot make an effective turn, they may skip their turn to draw 2 cards.

WINNING:  All Hero and Villain character cards, as well as some Environment and Villain cards have Life totals either in the top left below the Sentinels logo, or the top right.  If a Heroes ever drops to 0, They flip their card, and can now only choose 1 of the 3 actions on that card during their turn.  If all Heroes drop to 0, the Heroes lose.  If the Villain drops to 0, the Heroes win.

CONCLUSION:  Sentinels is designed to be a difficult game, but it isn't nearly as hard as most co-operative games can be.  The world built in here is obviously crafted with care and love, and with more forethought than I can give some comic books.  Mechanically, it seems like a fairly simple game, but there's a lot of complexity going on.  It can be a bit frustrating to remember and deal with some of the Villains, as they play a lot of cards and effects that are all over the place, but if you can get around that, then Sentinels of the Multiverse has a good amount of replayability, especially with the various expansions of new Villains and Heroes to play.

They're Rolling the Hobbit to Isengard (Lord of the Rings: Journey to Mordor)

1 ring to rule them all
1 ring to find them.
4 Hobbits to battle them all
and 5 dice to blind them.



BACKGROUND:  Journey to Mordor is a dice game published by Devir and Fantasy Flight Games for 2 to 4 players.  Players take control of one of the 4 Hobbits to destroy the One Ring

GAMEPLAY:  Each player takes a color, and rolls the 5 dice on their turn.  They must keep at least 1 die per roll, and cannot keep two of the same on the same roll.

RESULTS:  Once they have finished the player marks off a location on their map for each Ring showing.  However, if more Orcs are shown than Fellowship swords, the player does not advance.  Nazgul cause the player who own the color on the die (or the roller if the die was black or that color isn't being played) to advance on their map below their route, while Gandalf makes it so 2 Nazgul must advance on any empty location.  Finally, the White Tree ends the players roll, but a player may ignore any symbols other than Nazgul.

ADVANCED:  In the advanced mode, there are additional rules for all locations save Bag End or Mordor.  For example, in Helm's Deep, All Orc results are doubled.  In Gondor, Nazgul only affect other players.



WINNING:  Once a player has crossed off the last location on the Nazgul path in Mordor, hethey are eliminated.  The player to make it to Mordor on their path wins.

CONCLUSION:  I do not enjoy playing this game.  There is no real choice or strategy made here, and what little strategy is there is made simply by not taking bad things.  The theme fares little better, as the point of the Fellowship was to band together to help each other, and all 4 Hobbits are fighting each other in this game.  The one compliment I can give this game is that the maps and dice are nice looking.  This is the game that you play with younger relatives or children in order to teach them the concept of strategy and pattern recognition, but don't expect to actually enjoy playing it.

Come play, me Lord (Dominion)

Hear Ye, Hear ye, it has just been discovered that the King has perished in his library not moments ago!  The funeral procession will be in one week, and Prince Flip will be in ruling our fair Dominion!  LONG LIVE THE KING!



BACKGROUND:  Dominion is a card game published by Rio Grande Games for 2-4 players.  Players buy cards to improve their decks for their kingdom.

GAMEPLAY:  Each player begins with a deck of 10 cards.  Each player starts with 5 cards in hand.  A turn consists of first playing up to 1 Action card in the action stage, buying up to 1 card in the Buy phase, discarding the rest and then drawing back up to 5 cards.

CARDS:  The market consists of 10 cards chosen either randomly or by players.  Players may also buy Victory Points or money.  Various Action cards may increase the amount of Buys or Action cards you may do that turn.  Keep in mind that you don't ever have to buy anything, even if you have Buys left



WINNING:  Once players have bought the last green province card in a stack, or there are 3 stacks bought, the game is over.  Players calculate all Victory Points in their hand and deck, and the player with the most wins.

CONCLUSION:  There's a reason that Dominion is known among board gamers as the grandfather of deck builders.  This game may not necessarily be the first deck builder, as the genre was inspired by TCG's, but it does know how to make a solid game with easy to understand rules and a strong system.  The biggest criticism I could make is that there is no real theme here to speak of, just an excuse plot of ruling a kingdom.  That being said, if any game has proven that you can make a game work by slapping a theme on, it's Dominion.  With over 10 expansions, Dominion has proven it has staying power.

AFTERTHOUGHTS:  I am aware that there is a free online version, but I would make the recommendation to use that as a test for determining if you would enjoy it, and support your local game store.  Besides, it's more fun with friends.

Exterminate! Exterminate! (Dalek Dice)

The Doctor steps out of the TARDIS, a smile on his face.  "This, my little friends," he says, holding up an ordinary looking teapot.  "is a teapot.  BUT!  This is a teapot from tomorrow, taken from this place, and this cup is from yesterday."  The Daleks lights start flickering, realizing what this means.  The Doctor has stopped them in the past, present and future.   The Doctor pans to the camera, "And this is Dalek Dice."
CUE INTRO

BACKGROUND:  Dalek Dice was published in 2016 by Cubicle 7 Entertainment for 2 or more players.  You and your friends are Daleks, wanting to exterminate the humans before the Doctor shows up.

GAMEPLAY:  Each turn, a player rolls all the dice.  They must take 1 and only 1 TARDIS and EXTERMINATE (indicated by the lack of number), and at least 1 Human or Dalek die.  Each of the numbered die represents that many units.  Then players roll until they wish to stop or cannot roll anymore.



SPECIAL:  If 3 TARDIS' or are rolled, the player ends their turn and scores 0 for the round.  If a player rolls 3 EXTERMINATES, they will not roll anymore, and double their score on counted humans.  If a player would not be able to roll next turn, they will still score 5 points.  If there would be dice they could roll, they cannot score.

SCORING:  If a player manages to get more Daleks then Humans, the player counts up the collected amounts of humans and scores that many points.  A player may also score 5 bonus points if they would not be able to roll any longer.  If a player rolls more Humans than Daleks, they score 0 points.

WINNING:  The first player who hits 60 points at the end of their round wins.

CONCLUSION:  This feels like a Steve Jackson dice game.  Simple, easy, and to the point.  As long as you can count and roll, you can play.  Obviously, this is going to drive off people who dislike games of chance.  However, this is a light in-between game for other games or during your Doctor Who watch party.  For non-fans, I would consider sticking with Zombie Dice.