From: cricket@students.uiuc.edu (daniel steven kast) Subject: BATTLEMIST (review) I've been waiting for this game to come out for several months now... it arrived at our local game store last week, and a couple of days ago I finally got a chance to play it, so I thought I'd give you all my impressions. OVERVIEW Battlemist: The Stars of Timmorean is the second in Fantasy Flight Games' "Hexplay" series (following on the heels of the exceptional Twilight Imperium), in which players take control of one of six fantasy races (humans, barbaric humans, orcs, dwarves, elves, or the undead) and attempt to achieve supremacy by being the first to obtain five Stars of Timmorean. The board is created by arranging 30+ hexagonal pieces, each of which has a terrain type and a production value: plains produce grain, woods produce (what else?) wood, and mountains produce iron. There are also wastelands, which produce nothing, but allow rapid movement. Watching the board evolve is almost more fun than playing the game itself -- but then, I'm a big fan of games with variable board layouts. However, there is a whole bunch of strategy involved at this stage of the game, as I quickly discovered: I waited too long to place my (elven) homeland, and as a result I ended up in a horrible position... COMPONENTS The game board pieces were obviously created via computer (KPT Bryce?), but I've seen worse. The cards that go along with each territory are a little better, with unique pictures on each, along with descriptive text. I was happy to see that the Action and Quest cards are the size and quality of normal playing cards, instead of the tiny cards used in Twilight Imperium. The playing pieces themselves, however, leave much to be desired. Our entire gaming group was of the opinion that the army units looked silly, especially the dwarven cavalry (exception: the undead pieces are very nice!). And the pieces provided for keeping track of each player's commodities are woefully inadequate -- for one thing, there aren't nearly enough! This leads me to one of the biggest flaws I found in the game: a complete lack of player aids. This was one of the problems I had with Twilight Imperium, as well, and while it is easily fixed with a pad of paper and some pencils, I did pay $50 (US) for the game; some player reference cards would have been nice. Overall, the amount and quality of game components in the box is worth $30, maybe $35, but not $50. GAME PLAY Here is where the game could have made up for everything else, but it didn't. I won't give a detailed description of game play, but highlight some aspects of note. HEROES & QUESTING: Each player can have up to three heroes in play at a time, and these heroes move around the board on "Quests". At the beginning of a quest, the player draws a Quest card which has a brief storyline on it which directs the heroes to a specific location on the board. Sometimes, the hero will have to face a monster of some sort, other times he won't. Once he arrives and defeats the monster (if any), another Quest card is drawn; most of the time, this card will continue the storyline, but every so often the hero will discover a magic item, or possibly one of the Stars of Timmorean. It is a very clever idea, but the implementation is rather disappointing. While reading the cards as part of an evolving story is somewhat fun, it really comes down to "move here" and "move there". Also, the rules are very vague in many aspects; for example, what happens when heroes encounter enemy armies? COMBAT: Heroes are something of a distraction in the game, as the main fun is with armies and combat. In this respect, Battlemist does not disappoint; the combat system is fun and unique. Each battle round is divided into three parts: archer fire, cavalry charge, and infantry combat. There is also a distinction between "routed" and "killed" units; at the beginning of each round, there is the possibility of getting some of your routed units back, while killed units are, obivously, gone for good. All in all, there is enough variation on the "roll dice and remove casulaties" model to provide some interest, but it isn't so complex as to slow the entire game down. The flaw in the combat system, however, is that it is very difficult to build up and maintain large armies. So much so that I was eliminated from the game by a force of two infantry and a cavalry invading my homeland. Granted, I had overextended myself, but if I (and the other players) had taken the time to consolidate and play it safe, nothing would have happened until three or four hours into the game. Which brings me to my final conclusion: Battlemist is a valiant effort, but there is just too much wrong with the game. It's very hard to define, but consider this: in no other game of this type I have ever played have two players been eliminated from the game in the third turn (me, and the player who eliminated me). It is too difficult to expand safely, but if you don't expand, there's nothing to do except run your heroes around the board. We plan on giving the game another chance, implementing some fixes and house rules we think might help... I'll keep you all informed. Dan Kast "We deal with what is; leave Area Director what might have been to eyes Indiana State University that can see it plain." cricket@uiuc.edu --Ellis Peters, "One Corpse Too Many" From: Matthew Gardner Subject: Re: BATTLEMIST (review) Thanks for the review, I also picked up the game last weekend and though I haven't played it yet I would like to echo and embelish on some of your comments. daniel steven kast wrote: > Watching the board > evolve is almost more fun than playing the game itself -- but then, I'm a > big fan of games with variable board layouts. However, there is a whole > bunch of strategy involved at this stage of the game, as I quickly > discovered: I waited too long to place my (elven) homeland, and as a > result I ended up in a horrible position... I really like variable board layouts. An interesting point on the Battlemist board setup is that the board is not constrained to a hexagonal shape (such as Kings and Things, Twilight Imperium, and Settlers) but is rather free-form (like Magic Realm). Also, there is no inherent balancing of player position like there is in Twilight Imperium - it is far too easy to get stuck in the middle of the board if you place your home realm too early or too far away from the action if you place your home realm too late. Here's some problems I see with the map generation and maybe some variants which can help alleviate them. Of course, as with everything in this post, these are my opinions. If you don't agree with some of the things I point out as problems, please say so. 1) No scalability to account for number of players. That is, the map is just as large in a two player game as it is in a six player game (except for the additional home realms, of course). How to fix? Remove hexes of course. Removing anywhere from 2-5 hexes per player less than 6 would make the map more manageable for fewer players. It might be best to make sure at least 2-3 hexes of each resource are left in play. 2) It appears that player starting locations will be unbalanced most of the time. How to fix? Develop better strategies for tile placement. Of course since board creation strategy looks to be a very important aspect of the game, this puts new or inexperienced players at a pretty serious disadvantage. Maybe an "introductory" version of the game would require everyone to place all their NON-home realm tiles FIRST, and then after all the tiles are placed roll dice to determine the order of placing the home realm. Everyone then goes back and exchanges any tile on the board with their home realm tile (within legal placement parameters of course). After all players have done this the extra tile each player holds can be played again normally. Hopefully this would encourage everyone to build a balanced map with no hopeless opening situations since you don't know what order you will place your home tile. > And the pieces provided for keeping track of each > player's commodities are woefully inadequate -- for one thing, there > aren't nearly enough! I set up a six player game, and there aren't even enough resource tokens to get past the first harvest phase!!! You are REQUIRED to either make more tokens or record everything on paper. Very tacky. One other thing you will need to record on paper is the health points each hero has remaining, so you might as well start adding up the columns on a ledger starting from turn one. > Overall, the amount and quality of game components in the box is worth > $30, maybe $35, but not $50. Agreed. Isn't it wonderful that they did not include any plastic components, as previously advertised, but were able to keep the retail price at the same high level? Another gripe about the components: counters are printed on only one side. Blech. > HEROES & QUESTING: Each player can have up to three heroes in play at a > time, and these heroes move around the board on "Quests". At the > beginning of a quest, the player draws a Quest card which has a brief > storyline on it which directs the heroes to a specific location on the > board. Sometimes, the hero will have to face a monster of some sort, > other times he won't. Once he arrives and defeats the monster (if any), > another Quest card is drawn; most of the time, this card will continue the > storyline, but every so often the hero will discover a magic item, or > possibly one of the Stars of Timmorean. It is a very clever idea, but the > implementation is rather disappointing. While reading the cards as part > of an evolving story is somewhat fun, it really comes down to "move here" > and "move there". Also, the rules are very vague in many aspects; for > example, what happens when heroes encounter enemy armies? This IMHO is the weakest part of the game. In answer to your question, I guess armies, cities, and towns do not affect heroes at all. This makes sense and playing it any other way would make it virtually impossible to complete most of the quests. So what are the problems with questing and what can make it better? 1) The text on the quest cards is pure eye candy. It adds nothing to the game other than provide a little flavor. Did you read more than a couple of cards before you got impatient and just skipped ahead to the underlined objective location? 2) There is only one type of quest - go to a location and pick up another quest card. Sometimes you have to fight a monster before picking up another quest card. Sometimes the quest card you draw is a treasure. But there is no decision making at all. You may not choose to go to a different location, nor may you choose to try to evade the monster and perhaps spend a turn or two trying to get around it. You may not discard your current quest card unless one of your heroes dies. There was a wonderful opportunity here for rich and varied quests other than "Go to X." Even some simple options like "Fight this monster OR sacrifice X resources OR lose your next hero quest phase" would have been great. How about a quest to kill another hero, or scout out an oppopent's town, or deliver some resources to an ally? 3) The quest reward is in no way proportional to the length or difficulty of the quest. After reaching the quest destination, the next quest card you draw may either be another hex to travel to (most likely) or it may be a treasure (not very likely). No matter how many hexes you had to travel to and how many monsters you had to kill, you may end up with a treasure inferior to the one obtained by your opponent's hero who had to just travel for one turn and did not face any risks at all. How to fix? At the very least, once you do get your treasure, add up all the quest cards you went through to get it. For each card take X resources of your choice. Or, make up a table before the game that has a list of all the treasures on it in some order of value. Assign each a number and roll on this table, modifying your roll by the number of cards you turned up and the monsters you fought, instead of keeping the treasure card you drew. For example, Roll Treasure >= 1 Potion of health ... >= 6 Spurs ... >= 9 Star Example Modifiers: for every 3 locations visited, add 1 to the roll. For every monster fought, add 1 to the roll. 4) All the heroes are the same and there are not many varieties of treasure. Fix: Give heroes a racial ability. Maybe dwarves have 6 hit points instead of 5 and elves can move 4 hexes instead of 3. You get the picture. Also, make up new treasure types that can make individual heroes stronger. The potion of health increases hit points, why not add boots of speed or a cloak of evasion or something? Would not be difficult and I think it would add to the game. Of course it is important not to make heroes more important than armies. > We plan on giving the game another chance, implementing some fixes and > house rules we think might help... I'll keep you all informed. Please let us know what house rules you are thinking of. I think there is a lot of potential for expansions and optional rules in this game. Another thought: Every race can cast the same exact spells. Why not have a few race (or alignment) specific spells or make some spells cheaper for a certain race than others? -Matt From: The Mighty Davethulhu Subject: Re: BATTLEMIST (review) My game group played 3 or 4 games last weekend. daniel steven kast wrote: > I've been waiting for this game to come out for several months now... it > arrived at our local game store last week, and a couple of days ago I > finally got a chance to play it, so I thought I'd give you all my > impressions. > > OVERVIEW > > Battlemist: The Stars of Timmorean is the second in Fantasy Flight Games' > "Hexplay" series (following on the heels of the exceptional Twilight > Imperium), in which players take control of one of six fantasy races > (humans, barbaric humans, orcs, dwarves, elves, or the undead) and attempt > to achieve supremacy by being the first to obtain five Stars of Timmorean. > > The board is created by arranging 30+ hexagonal pieces, each of which has > a terrain type and a production value: plains produce grain, woods produce > (what else?) wood, and mountains produce iron. There are also wastelands, > which produce nothing, but allow rapid movement. Watching the board > evolve is almost more fun than playing the game itself -- but then, I'm a > big fan of games with variable board layouts. However, there is a whole > bunch of strategy involved at this stage of the game, as I quickly > discovered: I waited too long to place my (elven) homeland, and as a > result I ended up in a horrible position... I agree with this. In a six player game, it is possible that the last player will be unable to play his home realm at all. Map construction definately requires some experience. The game feels like it would be better with just four players. Perhaps during tile distribution, everyone should be given at least one mountain and one forest realm. > > > COMPONENTS > > The game board pieces were obviously created via computer (KPT Bryce?), > but I've seen worse. The cards that go along with each territory are a > little better, with unique pictures on each, along with descriptive text. > I was happy to see that the Action and Quest cards are the size and > quality of normal playing cards, instead of the tiny cards used in > Twilight Imperium. The playing pieces themselves, however, leave much to > be desired. Our entire gaming group was of the opinion that the army > units looked silly, especially the dwarven cavalry (exception: the undead > pieces are very nice!). And the pieces provided for keeping track of each > player's commodities are woefully inadequate -- for one thing, there > aren't nearly enough! This really pissed me off. There was a similar problem with Twilight Imperium, with similar complaints. > > > This leads me to one of the biggest flaws I found in the game: a complete > lack of player aids. This was one of the problems I had with Twilight > Imperium, as well, and while it is easily fixed with a pad of paper and > some pencils, I did pay $50 (US) for the game; some player reference cards > would have been nice. > > Overall, the amount and quality of game components in the box is worth > $30, maybe $35, but not $50. I have to agreee here, also. Considering the cost, they should have supplied at least twice as many pieces. > > > GAME PLAY > > Here is where the game could have made up for everything else, but it > didn't. I won't give a detailed description of game play, but highlight > some aspects of note. > > HEROES & QUESTING: Each player can have up to three heroes in play at a > time, and these heroes move around the board on "Quests". At the > beginning of a quest, the player draws a Quest card which has a brief > storyline on it which directs the heroes to a specific location on the > board. Sometimes, the hero will have to face a monster of some sort, > other times he won't. Once he arrives and defeats the monster (if any), > another Quest card is drawn; most of the time, this card will continue the > storyline, but every so often the hero will discover a magic item, or > possibly one of the Stars of Timmorean. It is a very clever idea, but the > implementation is rather disappointing. While reading the cards as part > of an evolving story is somewhat fun, it really comes down to "move here" > and "move there". Also, the rules are very vague in many aspects; for > example, what happens when heroes encounter enemy armies? I thought the hero rules were kind of cool. They went quickly and allowed someone who was otherwise doing poorly to still accumulate stars. Incidently, my understanding is that heros only interact with other heros, and only then at the moving hero's discretion. > > > COMBAT: Heroes are something of a distraction in the game, as the main fun > is with armies and combat. In this respect, Battlemist does not > disappoint; the combat system is fun and unique. Each battle round is > divided into three parts: archer fire, cavalry charge, and infantry > combat. There is also a distinction between "routed" and "killed" units; > at the beginning of each round, there is the possibility of getting some > of your routed units back, while killed units are, obivously, gone for > good. All in all, there is enough variation on the "roll dice and remove > casulaties" model to provide some interest, but it isn't so complex as to > slow the entire game down. > > The flaw in the combat system, however, is that it is very difficult to > build up and maintain large armies. So much so that I was eliminated from > the game by a force of two infantry and a cavalry invading my homeland. > Granted, I had overextended myself, but if I (and the other players) had > taken the time to consolidate and play it safe, nothing would have > happened until three or four hours into the game. I don't consider the lack of huge armies a flaw. It kept the game moving. Also, note that an army must stop when it enters a realm containing an army belonging to any other player. Even if it's only one footman. > > > Which brings me to my final conclusion: Battlemist is a valiant effort, > but there is just too much wrong with the game. It's very hard to define, > but consider this: in no other game of this type I have ever played have > two players been eliminated from the game in the third turn (me, and the > player who eliminated me). It is too difficult to expand safely, but if > you don't expand, there's nothing to do except run your heroes around the > board. Map construction is not intuitive. It is possible to be completely hosed before the game begins. This is the major flaw that I see in the game. Some things you didn't mention in this review include: 1) Action cards - You get one a turn. They allow you to gain some advantage in play or battle. 2) Vote based evet cards - Occasionaly during action card distribution, an event card will turn up. Players vote (each player gets 1 vote + 1/city controlled) on some game altering occurrance. 3) Spells - You get one "starpower" for each star you control. Use it or lose it. Replenishes every turn. They let you gain extra resources, or otherwise affect play. For example, The Dark One (one of the races, a necromancer) has troops with the worst combat kill numbers but very good rout numbers. There's a spell that can kill routed troops. In battle, The Dark One can easily rout troops, then kill them with his spells. 4) Towns/Cities - Built in realms, these double the resources provided by that realm, give a defensive bonus to troops, and allow troop construction. Cities also provide a vote for the event cards. The game is a patchwork of many different concepts. It feels a little clumsy at the beginning, I'm hoping further play will smooth things out. As I said above, my biggest complaint is the counter mix. This sort of problem is inexcusable. I will refuse to purcase another game by this company if I hear of a similar problem. > > > We plan on giving the game another chance, implementing some fixes and > house rules we think might help... I'll keep you all informed. One house rule that we have implemented is the defensive bonuses for towns and cities. Instead of giving a plus to the defender, they give a minus to the attacker. This feels more "defensive". > > > Dan Kast "We deal with what is; leave > Area Director what might have been to eyes > Indiana State University that can see it plain." > cricket@uiuc.edu --Ellis Peters, "One Corpse Too Many" The Mighty Davethulhu