Gaming Articles

In Theory: Warhammer 40k 10th Edition

Back in 2016 I wrote an in-depth article about getting into miniature paint/assemble war games. This article even after nearly 10 years continues to get regular hits and comments from my readers I think in big part because when it comes to miniature war gaming, very little has changed since the 80’s, to be honest. Sure the quality of the game designs and the miniature games themselves have improved one hundredfold, but so far as advice about getting into the hobby goes, everything in this article still holds up. I wouldn’t change a word of it.

In fact that article is my mantra when it comes to miniature-war gaming and every time I get excited about a new miniature-war game, I re-read it to remind myself of all the pitfalls of the hobby. In recent years my interest in painting and assembling miniature games was revitalized thanks in part to games like X-Wing being refreshed, the fantastic Songs of Ice and Fire miniature game which I maintain is one of the best miniature games out there today and most recently I have re-connected with Warhammer 40k and the Middle Earth Battle Strategy Game thanks in large part to the new updated rules and modernization of Games Workshop.

In today’s article, I’m going to talk a little bit about Warhammer 40k 10th edition specifically and why I think Games Workshop and in particular the Warhammer line is really going through a renaissance of sorts and how and why I actually gave up on the game about 10 years ago, but now find myself coming back to it.

Warhammer 40k In The Past

I played Warhammer 40k starting with 2nd and 3rd editions and then again between the start of 5th edition through to the end of 6th edition.

I really enjoyed the game and actually, I look back on these gaming experiences with great fondness but I also recall a lot of frustration.

This is the first miniature game box I ever purchased, it was colorful, it was exciting and at the time, my friends and I had no clue what we were buying into.

The great part about the game was that the creative process of getting your army ready was invigorating and inspiring. Painting miniatures is a lot of fun and the entire hobby-craft part of the game was awesome then and it’s even more so today thanks to both the quality of miniatures and supplies, in particular, the quality of paints massively improving over time.

Once your army was painted and ready for the table however is where a lot of the problems started with Warhammer 40k and ultimately where a lot of my frustration led me to abandon the game entirely.

For one, Games Workshop was terrible at maintaining the game back in the early editions. They were very anti-online updates, in particular releasing information about the armies so printed books would be left unchanged even if they had glaring mechanical and balance issues for years at a time. I recall some codexes would go half a decade between updates. This meant that if you painted an army, that army would, depending on how long it’s been since the codex was updated, be borderline useless in actual play at the table.

All that work preparing your army, lovingly painting it only to discover that every unit you have chosen is completely useless and out of date at the table is a disheartening experience, and having to wait sometimes through entire editions of the game to get an update took a lot of energy out of the experience. Often when a new codex would come out for your army, it would be designed to sell those miniatures so then you would end up with an army that is so powerful and unbalanced in the other direction that players would not want to play against you because you had such an unfair advantage. In a way, you were screwed either way. The periods where the game and your army were in a good place, where games were fun to play were few and far in-between.

After many editions, this problem never really got any better and while I had a couple of fully painted armies, I found myself always playing with an army that was either too weak to be fun, or too powerful to be fun. The balance of the game was just terrible and I eventually gave up on Warhammer 40k altogether for greener pastures. Despite this transition, I always kept up with 40k on some level through other mediums like PC games and I think somewhere in the back of my mind I was always planning to come back eventually.

What has changed in modern Games Workshop

In general, three main events woke the company up and made them realize what was important about miniature war gaming to miniature war gamers.

First was that at the turn of the century, both Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k were no longer the most popular miniature games on the market. Competition had turned out several very popular games and even at Games Workshop, they produced the Lord of the Rings miniature game later renamed The Middle Earth Battle Strategy Game which sold better than their main franchise.

What made The Middle Earth Battle Strategy Game unique was that its central focus was on re-creating the many unique battles and campaigns from the movies. The game fully supported (and still does) this approach and it makes this a far more robust and interesting game to play. It also had an excellent ruleset.

The question was why? The answer was simple. Games like Warmachine and Horde, Star Wars X-Wing and the Lord of the Rings miniature game were all just objectively better games mechanically.

To this day, ask anyone who plays Games Workshop games which is the best game they ever made, both mechanically, strategically, and narratively and you will get the same answer. Middle Earth Battle Strategy game is still considered to be the best ever made by GW.

I think at this point, sometime between 2000-2005 Games Workshop realized that while the hobby-craft part of the game they had down pact, they certainly knew how to make the best mini’s in the business, this was simply not enough to compete anymore. You also needed to have a good game, something that makes that hobby-craft effort worth doing in the first place.

The other thing I think they simultaneously realized is that while competitive play was a big part of the hobby, games like The Middle Earth Battle Strategy Game proved that narrative play, where games are more focused on story’s and events from the franchise played a huge role in what motivated purchases. Essentially, lore mattered a lot more than I think even GW realized even though I think 40k lore was always really great, I don’t think they fully recognized that this was actually a huge driving factor of the games sales and longevity of the fan base.

The second thing was that Warhammer 40k’s scale was all or nothing. This was a problem for entry into the hobby. If you wanted to play Warhammer 40k, you needed at least a 1,000-point army and most agreed that unless you had a 2,000-point army there was almost no point in playing. This meant that the entry point for Warhammer 40k was a 500-600 dollar purchase with a few hundred hours of hobby craft before you could play the game “for real”. Not a great place for the game to be given the immense focus on streamlining entry into the hobby many if not all other games where doing at the time.

This is a Tyrannid combat patrol army represents a little less than 500 points worth of an army. To get a 2,000-point army (a real army) you will need to collect and paint 4x’s this many miniatures. That is a lot to ask of a new player.

Meanwhile, games like The Middle Earth Battle Strategy Game could be played (and played well) on a wide scale from small skirmishes with only a small handful of hero’s to massive battles. This was also true about a lot of competing games like Warmachine for example that was at the time also giving Games Workshop a run for their money on the lore and miniature quality fronts.

Middle-Earth Battle Strategy Game had scenarios that required as few as a dozen models, to scenarios that would require several hundred models like the Battle of Helms Deep. Players could scale their experience and collections and grow with the game.

Finally, I think Games Workshop realized that good support with digital releases and making the core rules of the game free was no longer negotiable. The game needed to be supported with regular updates to fix balance issues, corrections, and clarifications to the rules and most importantly they needed to listen to the community and track how the game was being played. Why players where choosing and not choosing armies or certain units and doing something about it in a timely fashion.

How modern Warhammer 40k works today

Today the world of Warhammer 40k is very different from where I left it about a decade ago. A lot has changed for the better.

Combat Patrol & Entry

The most notable change is the release of “Combat Patrol” a sort of basic version of the game that supports the core concept of purchasing a single box set that is fully supported as a game with free rules.

Each army gets a combat patrol that can be purchased for around 100 dollars and the combat patrols are pre-constructed, balanced armies designed to played against each other using the same 40k rules you will play later in the full game, but with slight alterations to make the game more streamlined and easier for new players to get into.

Combat Patrols encourage players by making their collection feel complete and playable as early as their first purchase and that is important for maintaining the early interest in the game and allowing that interest to blossom over time. As far as I’m concerned, this one decision by GW probably saved the franchise because without it no sane person would ever recommend getting involved with Warhammer 40k today.

This was desperately needed in Warhammer 40k and it has turned out that not only is this format newbie friendly and welcoming for new players but quite welcome by veteran players as well as they allow for much shorter/quicker pick-up games.

Now I will say that most veteran players will still want to play a minimum of 1,000 points and 2,000 points is still the standard game. Still, it’s nice to know that when you’re starting a new army, you can play a few games with your starting forces as you work your way toward your goal of having a full army.

Crusades & Narrative Play

Another big improvement of the game is that Games Workshop has now fully committed Warhammer 40k to narrative play via the Crusade system. The Crusade system is very similar to the Middle Earth Battle Strategy narrative system which allows players to replicate key battles in the Warhammer 40k universe as well as string those famous battles into a series of campaign games as well as rules for creating your own campaigns in which player armies and army leaders can gain experience, effectively improving through experience.

This mode is supported by “story books” like the Warhammer 40k: Crusade – Tyrannic War which walks you through how to setup narrative battles and long-running narrative campaigns. Crusade mode is also supported in each codex, giving each army unique narrative advancements and campaign styles that can be run.

Narrative play is just one of several ways to enjoy the game, but personally, I think this is probably the most fun way to play the game as it offers progression, and story and provides relevance to the battles you have on the tabletop beyond determining a winner.

This is fantastic news for players who are not into the competitive scene and want to explore a less generic style of play with less focus on list building and more focus on creating stories for their games and armies.

Active Online Support & Competitive Game Focus

One massive improvement Games Workshop made was committing themselves to not only track but do something about the state of the game at any given moment, not just at the release of a new edition or the release of codexes. Regular updates to the point values of armies based on competitive results as well as rules changes that they track with a focus on ensuring that all armies meet certain win/loss ratios has resulted in a game that is generally far more balanced than ever before.

This is particularly noticeable if like me you have been away from the game for a few years and are coming back now. In the days when I played, more than half the armies at any given point were objectively and unequivocally broken and unplayable competitively, in fact, many of the armies were so bad that they would be banned from anything but official GW competitions simply because they were too weak or too strong to qualify for fair play.

The community engagement goes far beyond simply posting updates, but as strange as it may sound, this was a huge leap forward for GW who saw concepts like posting rules online or updates to codexes as a roadblock to profits. I’m glad they have woken up as I believe if it were not for their much-improved community engagement, there would be no 40k today. The absence of digital release was one of the main reasons not to play GW games.

Long gone are these days of radio silence, GW is taking a very active role in making sure the balance of the game is well taken care of. That is not to say that they automatically succeed in doing so, some armies fall below the ratios while others are a bit too good, but the ranges of balance are much closer and the time to make corrections is much quicker. Generally speaking, almost all armies at any given moment are worthy of competitive play and those that fall behind don’t have to wait for years to be fixed.

Lore Support and Writing

This is not a category that will be super important to most players, but many of us are readers and we want/need good lore and good writing to support our experience. The story is a big part for me and I have to say, after reading the core rulebook lore, the codex lore and the crusade lore, I can say unequivocally that the writing for Warhammer 40k is exceptional.

The Black Library makes GW games one of the most supported franchises in gaming. Your 40k experience can be so much more than just collecting and playing the game.

Not only that, if you crave more from the Warhammer 40k universe you have the Black Library, a virtual utopia of content that you can endlessly explore. There is so much great work for Warhammer 40k for readers and lovers of lore, that I don’t think it’s overstating it when I say that Warhammer 40k is the single best-supported lore of any miniature war game out today short of perhaps Age of Sigmar which gets similar attention from GW.

They have done an amazing job supporting the game on this front.

The Supplies Have Made It Easy

I’m not sure most people fully realize it but modern hobby-craft supplies that support the miniature game hobby today are overwhelmingly and vastly superior to anything we had 10 years ago. The technology has lowered the difficulty levels of creating beautifully, very professional (looking) armies within the grasp of even the most un-artistic people out there.

Contrast paints in particular have expedited the time it takes to put a fully painted army together by about 90%. Like, I recall just trying to get a marginally looking army of 2,000 points fully painted would take me a at least 2 years or more of daily work to put together. Today, with contrast paints not only can I do it in a quarter of the time, the result will look like I spent hundreds if not thousands of hours meticulously painting my army. Contrast paints are a miracle technology that has completely changed everything, it has made hobby-craft fun even for guys like me who don’t have an artistic bone in their body.

These are Tyranid miniatures I painted with contrast paints. Each one took about 15 minutes to get to this level of quality. I’m not saying it’s anything particularly eye-popping or demon award-worthy, but 10 years ago it would have taken me 8-12 hours per mini to get them looking this good and frankly, I don’t think I could get them looking this good without contrast paint, I simply lack the talent. Contrast paints don’t require talent, simply learning a very basic technique. Its….magic.

Painting miniatures is no longer a roadblock to creating those amazing-looking scenes we see in magazines on your tabletop. I’m here to tell you that quite literally anyone with two functioning hands and eyeballs can create an army that looks like a professional artist put it together for you. I can’t even tell you how many people look at what I paint and question whether I did it myself and when I tell them, hey that took me 15 minutes to do, they assume I’m lying because it seems like it should be impossible. It’s not, contrast paints are basically, magic.

Is it all Perfect?

By no stretch of the imagination, there are still quite a few issues in the world of Games Workshop miniature games but I would say most of the issues can be quantified as common problems with miniature games in general, rather than anything uniquely problematic with Warhammer 40k specifically. More importantly, there is more myth and propaganda than reality about the miniature gaming hobby propagated by jaded players who have been unwilling to accept the realities of the modern gaming markets.

The Cost To Play

Warhammer 40k like all miniature war games and the hobby as a whole is probably the single most expensive gaming thing you can do. I participate in just about everything from CCG’s, board games, PC and Video games, you name something gaming-related and I’m doing it and there is no question in my mind that the miniature war gaming hobby is the single most expensive thing I do and by a considerable margin. Nothing comes even close, a single miniature army typically costs more than my entire board game collection put together. It’s crazy expensive!

Between collecting the miniatures to form armies, the supplies needed to get them to the table looking good and the amount of time spent getting everything ready, it’s a financial undertaking that overshadows anything else I can think of.

I love A Songs of Ice and Fire miniature game, it’s fantastic but to claim it’s cheaper than Warhammer 40k is outlandish. It can be, if you are willing to live with limited list-building options, the equivalent of collecting 500 points of Warhammer 40k and stopping, but realistically most players will collect the shit out of it and the result is the same as any mini-game… a cash drop to make you blush.

Still, GW has always had this reputation of being overly expensive as a company compared to other miniature war games and as a guy that participates in several, I don’t believe this reputation is deserved or even remotely accurate. Yes, it’s expensive, but no, it’s not more expensive than other games.

Take for example getting started in 40k with a combat patrol which clocks in at about 1140 Swedish crowns (110 dollars). Compare that to say a Songs of Ice and Fire Targaryen starter set which comes in at 1299 Swedish Crowns (125 dollars). Both give you a basic army to start with but not enough to play the full game. A typical expansion for Tyranids like something big and awesome like a Hive Tyrant costs 450 Swedish Crowns (43 dollars) compared to say The Targaryen Mother of Dragons which comes in at 499 SEK (48 dollars).

Point is that actually when you get right down to it and you do some price comparisons, GW comes in lower most of the time. A Starter Star Wars Armada core set comes in at 1250 Swedish crowns and a Bolt Action Japanese Banzai Starter Army comes in at 1119 Swedish Crowns.

Considering that GW products are far superior quality in every measurable way and by a pretty big margin, you get a lot more bang for your buck from them. It’s true that ultimately a typical Warhammer 40k army will cost you more than say a full Songs of Ice and Fire army, but that really boils down to what you consider a “full army”. These definitions get pretty tricky when you start looking at army building and competitive meta’s. I promise you that if you want to keep up with Songs of Ice and Fire meta you will not see any savings between 40k and AsoiaF. My Soiaf Targaryan collection is worth roughly 650 dollars and I’m still missing quite a few releases for it. Anyone who claims playing something like Songs of Ice and Fire, Bolt Action or Star Wars Armada is cheaper than 40k is full of shit.

Suffice to say it is expensive either way, miniature war gaming is not for dabblers and while I would argue there are miniature games you can get into that can be cheaper if you can live with certain limitations than others, in the end, you are counting your investment in hundreds if not thousands of dollars to fully participate in this hobby regardless of which game you choose.

You may as well choose the game that produces the highest quality product and there isn’t a miniature gamer on Gods-Green-Earth who could claim that there is a higher quality miniature produced out there than those produced by Games Workshop with a straight face. Miniatures GW produced 10 years ago are of superior quality than anything any company out there is even capable of producing today, let alone the stuff they are making today. No one can compete with GW when it comes to miniatures, no one comes even close.

Edition Changes & Army Degradation

One thing that is unique with Warhammer 40k and most Games Workshop games is that they do pretty regular edition changes, typically we get a new edition every 3rd year. The result is that there is a sort of degradation of your forces and books you have purchased.

What this really means is that some units get replaced, some simply are no longer part of your army codex and over time you will end up with parts of your army you have collected and painted no longer being part of the new edition. The codex itself will also expire as will the core rulebooks and other content purchased that is connected to the current edition. This takes time to happen, usually, something you bought in one edition will still be viable and usable in the next for a while, but throughout several editions, certain parts of your army will simply no longer be part of the modern version of the game and the books will all be essentially made obsolete.

Many find this cycler process frustrating and understandably so. Imagine spending hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hobby-craft hours to put something together, only to have the company that sold you that stuff, tell you “Hey, all that stuff you have, it’s now obsolete, throw it in the garbage!”

Conclusion

I’m a veteran gamer, you would be hard-pressed to name anything tabletop or digital gaming-related that I don’t know about and most of it I will have some level of expertise in. I scuff at complexity, but I’m conscious of it and the reality is that Warhammer 40k, when it’s all said and done while approachable, is a fairly complex game. Not just as a game but as a hobby in general. Its expensive, time-consuming and pretty elaborate on all fronts.

There are much easier, far more approachable and truth be told, far better-designed miniature games than Warhammer 40k out there. In fact, off the top of my head, I could easily name 10 miniature war games I know are objectively better game designs and I doubt you would find people who would disagree with me, even the most adamant 40k fans. Like it’s not some sort of contested idea or controversial statement, most people know and understand this.

That said I think what Warhammer 40k does well and in a sense does right is that they don’t make the game experience about the rules, but rather they make the game about the atmosphere and all of the connected elements to that game which combine to make it THE most popular miniature game on the market today and for the past 50+ years.

It’s a combination of crazy good miniature quality, amazing lore, flexible game modes and epic event-level feel that combine to create a far more robust gaming experience than anything I can think of. Comparing 40k to other miniature games is a bit like comparing car brands. We can argue till the cows come home which car company makes the best cars, but driving a 40k is the equivalent of driving a fuck you looking, Ferrari. Is it a good car? I have no idea, probably not, hell it’s not even practical but you can’t help but smile and imagine what it would be like to have one.

40k is not the best game, but it’s a game that lives in excess, it’s the 1st class of games, it is crystAl on ice, and it is the one everyone hates because it demands way too much. At the end of the day, all miniature gaming fans that feast their eyes on a fully painted 3,000 point army know.. they wish they had one. That is what 40k is… its excess, plain and simple and frankly, if you can afford it, its fun to live in excess when it comes to your hobby. That is effectively what a hobby is, doing something that is clearly a waste of time and money, but its fun.

Gaming Articles, On The Table, What Makes It Tick

Songs of Ice and Fire: Season 4 – Targaryan Tactics Deck

Some of the long-time readers of this blog may know that I’m a big fan of The Songs of Ice and Fire miniature game and that I play the Targaryan faction. For quite a while this was a high-profile game in my local gaming group to the point that I was writing strategy articles on this site for the game. Unfortunately, the game sort of died a while back for us because frankly most of us felt like that while the core game was great, the balancing of the game in too many areas was atrocious. To such an extreme that it sort of sucked up all our desire and energy to keep playing.

Fast forward to 2024 and at the start of the year Season 4 of SOIAF has started with all new updates to all the factions, with lots of balancing and fine-tuning of the game. A perfect opportunity (hopefully) to get back into the game we know and love.

It’s a pretty big update and I thought it would be fun to revive articles on this blog that focus on strategy, tactics, list building, and the game as a whole.

Now mind you I’m not a competitive player, I play miniature games for fun, but I enjoy theory crafting and writing articles about my hobby so consider these articles to be from a guy who just likes playing games, less so a serious tournament player. I would imagine most competitive players would have a lot more to say, but I think most people who play this game are going to be more like me, excited fans rather than hardcore competitive players.

Today we are going to get very specific and talk about the base Targaryan Tactics Deck. The tactics deck is a key element of every army, a foundational advantage that dictates a lot of the very specialized things you can do and drives the strategy of your army. It’s, in a word, a key element of an army and to understand the strengths and weaknesses of any given unit you need to understand how that interacts with the tactics deck.

If you’re a Targaryen player, this article is for you! Let’s get into it.

Overrun

Overrun is a pretty niche card that plays well into the Targaryan army general strategic core which is driven by highly mobile units, especially calvary that outflank opponents to devastating effect.

In short, as a Targaryan player, you should always be the one doing the charging, not the other way around. In a way you know that you have learned to use the army well when you no longer find your mobile units getting charged in all but the rarest of circumstances.

Overrun plays off the assumption that you will be successful and in the event you wipe a unit off the table (hopefully a frequent occurrence), this card allows you to either make a second charge or perform a big march move to get yourself into position for a future charge.

If you have the horse NCU spot (which you should and will prioritize most of the time), you get the bonus of this card of being able to re-roll your charge dice allowing you to improve your odds of taking a riskier (longer-range) charge.

This card falls into the category of niche, but powerful. It’s niche because it requires a lot of very clever setup and a bit of luck to pull off. You can’t control the dice, so you’re never going to know for sure if your charge is going to yield the condition (wiping a unit) you need to play the card. Not only must you first destroy a unit to play this card, triggering a surge forth, but you have to have the opportunity for another charge or be facing in the direction you would want to march and be in a position where making a charge or marching somewhere is a good idea. All circumstances are difficult to control and very conditional on what is happening on the table.

My experience with this card is that the conditions to pull it off don’t come up that often and unlike many cards in the deck, you have considerably less control over creating the right conditions.

This means that this card is unlikely to be useful early in the game, turn 1 and 2, you will rarely kill any units outright, making this a turn 3+ card. Additionally, this card does not have any alternative effects like some of the cards do which means that after you draw it, to use it you need to create the rare circumstances to be able to play it and while setting that up which may take a couple of rounds, you are occupying that all-important card slot in your hand of cards.

This is a really good card don’t get me wrong but in my experience, the chances of you getting to use it to good effect that will have the strong impact it suggests is very slim. It’s a rarely played card and most of the time you are chucking it hoping to replace it with something more immediately useful. One of the core concepts of the tactics deck is that you should be going through it during the game. Holding on to cards is not a good strategy ever, you want to be smoking your hand and drawing a new one every round.

What is worse is that only one of the two calvary commanders gets this card in their deck (Khal Drago), as it is excluded from Jorah Mormont (Westerosi Tactician Cavalry) and it is for Calvary units that you want to play this card for as they are your best offensive weapons. Add injury to insult, The Mother of Dragons also loses this card, which sucks for those dragon lists.

Verdict: 3 out of 5 stars

While very strong when you get the opportunity to use it, its niche requirements are difficult to set up making this one of the weaker cards in the Targaryan tactics deck overall. The fact that you can’t combo it with key commanders makes it that much less useful.

That said I’m glad it’s in the deck. It’s kind of a strange circumstance because while you rarely get to use it, when you do, it can be a game-changing moment. I wish this had a draw card replacement effect so that you can chuck it when table conditions aren’t ripe for it. Suffice it to say I have won games on a single play of this card, so the impact when executed is very strong.

Good, but hard to use card.

Sudden Retreat

One of the tactical cores of the Targaryen army is that you are really strong on the charge, but not great when it comes to battles of attrition. Targaryans are well-equipped to outflank, so after you flank-charge, a card that lets you escape once you have done your thing is very welcome in the deck and that is exactly what Sudden Retreat lets you do.

With this card you will never need to take more than one attack if you don’t want to once you get into a melee.

It’s a pretty easy card to use which is really great and especially effective thanks to the high mobility of calvary units which are usually who you will save this card for.

Unfortunately this card, like overrun, is the elimination card for one of two of your cavalry commanders. It particularly sucks that Jorah Mormont is the one that keeps it and it’s Khal Drago that loses it. It is in fact Khal Drago that would most benefit from this card as this is the best calvary commander at least currently for the Targaryans.

Fortunately this card combos well with other units in the Targaryen army, it’s fantastic on Pikemen, especially when comboed with Unsullied Officers for example who love to be charged, so you want to get them out of combat.

Verdict: 4 out of 5 stars

It’s a good card, but its purpose is escape, which doesn’t make it a power play thing, more of a utility thing. The fact that one of the two cavalry commanders (your best commander) loses it is a bummer but unlike overrun, it’s easy to use and useful in a lot of situations.

I like to keep this card when drawn in the early rounds and setup a situation to use it as post retreat you are often in a position an opponent did not expect you to be and most armies are not as mobile as yours.

Swift Reposition

This card can be extremely useful in a lot of circumstances, but in a Targaryen army very often it’s redundant thanks to your already amazing mobility. Frankly getting an extra 2-3 inches of movement is pretty amazing in a game where inches matter as much as they do in ASIOAF, I would imagine almost game-breaking in a lot of armies, but in a Targaryen army it’s handy, but not quite as impactful.

It can come in handy for getting that extra range for when you want to get archers into a better position or make a charge somewhere your opponent thinks you’re out of range to attempt or sliding onto an objective, or slipping out of the way of the line of sight. Lots of fun utilities that can create very nasty surprises. The problem is that you usually don’t have issues pulling things like that off with the Targaryen units anyway. You are already crazy mobile.

I find I use this card more often on infantry units, it’s particularly nasty on Unsullied Swordsmen. Most of the time I wind up using this card to slip into objectives

Verdict: 4 out of 5 stars

Even though Targaryans don’t need even more mobility options most of the time, this is an exceedingly useful card that your opponents are going to hate because it makes pre-measuring carefully and trying to avoid Targaryan charges and being outflanked that much more difficult.

It’s quite devastating against slow-moving armies and especially effective in lists where you out-activate your opponent.

Fire and Blood

I love cards with options, the flexibility to adapt a card to a situation rather than trying to create a situation for a card is so much more useful.

Fire and Blood is a straight-up “I get some extra shit” card that is focused on letting you do more damage, so it’s great. The fact that you get a bonus for horses plays into what you are going to be doing anyway, so most of the time getting the double benefit is pretty easy to setup.

Sundering and Vicious I think are the two best benefits you can have on a charge, especially when you are usually already outflanking opponents.

This card when used on a flank charge of a calvary unit with the horses is devastating, it all but guarantees the destruction of multiple ranks.

Verdict: 5 out of 5 stars

Versatile, easy to use and powerful with literally no drawbacks. All the good commanders get to keep it. It’s without question a top-tier card for the Targaryans, you will use it in every game. If it has any drawbacks it’s the fact that some of your units already get Sundering or Vicious anyway, but in a way that is also a plus as it means you don’t have to rely in those cases on the horse to get both benefits.

Field Control

This is a multi-use card with a lot of utility and it has a very sneaky bonus effect that isn’t written on the card.

The first part, using the horse NCU yourself effectively makes this an improved version of the horses, both when maneuvering and retreating, with a bonus effect on the retreat. Very useful.

The alternative effect; when an enemy grabs the horse NCU from you, it lets you perform a 3′ shift. The key here is the timing, as this shift takes place after the enemy resolution, so you effectively get to do an extra 3-inch move with a unit prior to taking your turn. This can be used to absolutely devastating effect when timed right.

The sneaky effect of this card is that your opponent is going to want to steal that horse NCU spot from you since you gain so much benefit from it in your tactics deck, it’s a common action taken at the start of a round when your opponent goes first. I find that players often don’t think about the existence of this card, make a very calculated move to position themselves for some future move, and then boom out of nowhere you have a calvary able to do a 3-inch move, then on your turn, that same calvary makes a 6-inch free maneuver and then they can move or march or charge another 6 to 12 inches. You can potentially charge a unit with relative ease up to 15 inches away and march as far as 21 inches!

It’s bonkers and you will find that when an opponent see’s such a move one time they will never feel safe again.

Verdict: 5 out of 5 stars

This card is a combination of an improvement of an NCU spot and a swift reposition built into one card and can even be combined with a swift reposition to get a unit a free 6-inch move before your opponent can do anything thanks to the timing of the card.

When people say the Targaryans are a mobile force, this is what they are talking about!

Unstoppable Advance

This two-part card is sort of the Targaryan middle-of-the-road card.

For the first part of the the card, re-rolling charge distance dice, while nice in niche situations, the truth of the Targaryen armies is that as a general rule, charge distance is not normally a problem. Most of the time you are just trying not to roll a 1 so you don’t lose your bonus and I suppose it helps in that situation. There is some use occasionally for it, especially when using infantry units or neutrals. It’s a luxury item and not really what makes this card pop.

The real juice of the card is the surge forth ability. A +3 to maneuvering is huge but the secondary part, weakening everything in the short range is golden. Not only can you get the unit into the action but you are going to be facing an enemy force full of weakened conditions.

Surge Forth requires you to make a kill, which means it has the same problem as Overrun so not a great card to draw early.

Verdict: 3 out of 5 stars

Decent card, I docked it because the first ability is only marginally useful to Targaryans and the second ability has a pretty specific trigger that you don’t have full control of and doesn’t come up that often. Most of the time when you draw this card you are probably going to toss it unless the table situation has circumstances that might allow you to leverage it.

When executed, it’s devastating much like overrun.

Blood of the Dragon

I love “start of any turn” triggers as they are extremely easy to use and easy to plan your actions around.

This card is great to draw early in the round but tends to be considerably less useful in later rounds, but it comes with two effects and you are almost certain to lose units in every match to collect the bonuses.

An additional attack die is always welcome as is the -1 wound from failing panic tests. It’s a straightforward card, not powerful but not weak, kind of a middle-of-the-road bonus. The only trick to it is to simply get it into play as soon as possible.

It is a shittier version of a tactic card other factions have like Starks which has a kind of “feel bad” to it.

Verdict: 3 out of 5 stars

Decent card that gives you a couple of basic bonuses, a consolation prize for losing a unit. If the bonus is stacked with additional tokens this card would be a lot better, but as is, it’s best described as easy to use with a decent effect. Nothing too extraordinary.

Conclusion

The Targaryen tactics deck has always been universally considered to be one of the weaker, if not THE weakest deck in Songs of Ice and Fire in the past and looking at the updates they have made since launch, I’m fairly sure that is still true in such a comparison.

Looking at the tactics deck cards in isolation, the effects are great and they work well with the general core concepts of the Targaryen army, creating strong synergies and sticking to the theme.

It’s only when you start comparing the Targaryan deck to other factions is when you realize just how weak the effects are comparatively and I think it’s here that the Targ deck’s reputation comes from.

When speaking to the balance of the game as a whole, I’m not sure a comparison of tactics decks is particularly useful however and I have always felt like this reputation, while technically probably true, didn’t really say much about the game.

The Targaryen army is very strong in my opinion and very competitive, but it’s filled with subtle complexity which can be difficult to get your head around. As such I find it performs generally far below its strength when looking at stats as it is a lot less forgiving of mistakes and it’s unique in a lot of ways, meaning usual tactics associated with other armies don’t perform well when applied to Targaryans. They have a very different and very specific way they must be played and the tactics deck is built around that specific playstyle.

The point here is that the Targaryan tactics deck is very strong, in the Targaryen army and while it doesn’t appear as strong when tactic decks are compared, within the Targaryan strategy, these effects are very potent.

I think if you asked any player of any faction what they think about their tactics deck they would all come up with a list of winners and losers in their deck. I think the Targ deck is unique in that there are no outright bad cards. There are cards that are niche and very situational, some cards that can feel redundant some of the time, but generally good all around.

I have my beef with some of the commander tactics cards, but that is for a future article. As far as the Targaryen season 4 tactic deck goes, it gets a nod of approval from me. Well done!

Best of List, Board Game Reviews

Top 10 Gaming Experiences Of 2023

2024 was a great year for gaming for me, but as I started this list originally set to be the best games fo 2023 I realized that a lot of the games that I played weren’t technically games released in 2023. Hence, this year, the list is more about my top 10 gaming experiences rather than the top 10 games of 2023.

I did however create a small section at the end of the article talking about some 2023 releases that I thought where worthy of note.

Ok enough foreplay, let’s get into it!

10. Eclipse: Second Dawn For The Galaxy

I picked up the 2nd edition of Eclipse on a whim, not so much because I felt the 1st edition was so great, quite to the contrary, but because there was so much positive word on this follow-up that I had to try it.

I’m glad I did, 2nd edition Eclipse is a great game, a vast improvement over 1st edition and it hits a sweet spot in the area of science-fiction-based galactic civilization games with an epic feel.

I think to understand what I mean about sweet spot you have to understand that I love my Twilight Imperium when it comes to this genre, it’s my go-to game for science-fiction civilization-building games. This comes with a BIG but, as it is a six to eight-hour game that is pretty difficult to get to the table with a structure that doesn’t exactly speak to my and many other gaming crews universally. In fact in my group we so very rarely play Twilight Imperium at this point, it’s collecting a lot of dust, to such a degree that were it not among my favorite board games of all time I might consider cutting it from my collection.

Twilight Imperium 4th edition without any question in my mind is a much better game than Eclipse, but it’s such a massive all-day event that it is difficult to get to the table. Case in point, it was not played in 2023 at all!

Eclipse 2nd edition on the other hand hits a lot of the same highlights as a game for me but it does it in under 4 hours, or less even if you have a group that knows the rules well.

More than that it’s a game that gets right to the meat of the action from turn 1, there isn’t a whole lot of posturing and political pre-gaming in the game like there is in Twilight Imperium, which means it’s a lot more of a game than an experience. TI4 is very much an event-focused gaming experience but Eclipse manages to be a board game you really can just pull out and play like any other. This puts it in a unique position in my collection.

I still don’t think it’s anywhere close to as good a game as Twilight Imperium is, to me TI4 remains the king of science-fiction-based galactic conquests and civilization-building games, but Eclipse is much easier to get to the table and it is a very fun gaming experience.

For fans of the genre, I think this discussion is well-known and common. Suffice it to say if you’re a fan of Civ-Builders, this is one of the best ones around as it finds that all-important middle ground that allows it to hit the table without a lot of fuss.

9. Viticulture

Strangely enough, this game was on my shelf in shrink wrap for the better part of 3 years before I got it to the table. This year I finally managed to pull it out, learn how to play and get it to the table.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this one. This is a very solid worker placement game with a lot of variation both in strategy (ways to win) and calculation of moves (planning ahead). The game rules were really clear so even when learning to play on the first pass, you are immediately deep-diving into the possibilities, there was no major learning curve. Almost as if all previous experiences with other worker placement games apply and you’re just playing kind of a different take on the same core principles common in all of these types of games.

That said, it wasn’t boring. There are a lot of really clever combinations, it was a very tight game rather than your typical super point structure where one guy has 200 VP’s at the end of the game and another 350. Everyone in our games was in the running with the winner edging out by 2-3 points typically. The game is available on boardgamearena.com which is a great bonus.

Very competitive and interesting game, didn’t overstay its welcome, in fact, it felt kind of short which adds to the pressure of scoring points as soon as possible as much as possible as you could as you can see way in advance that the game would end in a few turns.

Just a good solid, worker placement game well worth getting with plenty of replayability. Great stuff, highly recommended.

8. Sekigahara: The Unification Of Japan

This one was on my must-try list for a very long time, several years at least. I had heard so many good things about it and it checks all my boxes as I love anything based on Medieval Japan, I love war games, I love two-player games, I love card-driven games and I have for so long wanted to try a block game. I was very excited when the game was finally reprinted and became available and snagged it up.

Sekigahara is a part strategy but mostly a tactical game about positioning and outthinking your opponent with a lot of timing-based master planning built into it. It isn’t just about getting your armies in place, but it’s about making sure you have the right cards, at the right time for the right battle.

It’s one of those games where you need to have a plan for the hand of cards you are dealt and the right strategy for the unit position. It’s not enough to have one or the other, this game is all about timing things perfectly.

The game moves at a neck-breaking pace, which is awesome for a war game as you can sit down and play two or three matches back to back. I would say each game lasts at the most two hours and if you have two players that know the rules, you can finish a match in under an hour.

It has a static start, but the dynamics of the game create a lot of variability as so much of the game is focused on the cards in your hand. There is a kind of veteran learning element to the game, if you know the deck and you know the map you are going to have a big advantage over a novice but by the same token, the learning curve is quite short so it doesn’t take long for you to get to a point where you are dissecting the games core properties.

I would not recommend this game to all gamers universally, I think it’s important that you enjoy competitive war games and have a healthy love for card games, as this game does not apologize for being kind of a straight-to-it card-based war game. It’s that, if that is not your thing, this game does not offer or cater to other aspects of board gaming, if it is, this game is right up your alley.

Definitely one of my favorite new additions to my collection in 2023.

7. Vampire: Prince Of The City

This is a bit of a strange one, as it is a game released back in 2006 and it was a completely random unprompted purchase by a member of my gaming crew which made its debut at our yearly big board gaming weekend.

My gaming crew loves all things Vampire The Masquerade, originally a role-playing game made by a company back in the 90’s called White Wolf. The world of darkness is the setting in which Vampires live and these days there are quite a few new games that have come out for this universe including Vampire: The Masquerade Heritage which came out in 2020, Vampire: The Masquerade Chapters (2023) and Vampire: The Masquerade – Vendetta (2020) just to name a few. All great, modern games, but Vampire: Prince of the City is an older model.

Vampire Vendetta, another game in the world of darkness is a much faster and more mechanically driven take on a similar concept. To date, this remains one of my favorite Vampire The Masquerade-based games.

Vampire: Prince Of The City is a game about controlling a modern-day city from behind the scenes through the manipulation of politics and economics. Vampires don’t play by the rules of course, they indoctrinate their pawns using supernatural methods.

In the game you represent an elder vampire that uses influence to take control of areas on a map and the only other competitors are other elder vampires (other players). Players collect “assets” that help them to do this more efficiently of course, which can range from collecting people, equipment or unique strategy cards.

The game is quite long and has quite a bit of diplomacy between players in which they plot against each other, sometimes working together and sometimes betraying each other. The goal of the game is to come out on top, but the game is structured in a way where if two players decide to gang up on you, things are going to become difficult if not impossible. The driving force is of course that when two players work together, often one of them comes out of it better than the other, leading to the inevitable betrayal and restructuring of alliances.

These politics which remind me a lot of the classic game of Diplomacy, are really what pushes the game forward far more than actual mechanical actions players take which is a style of play that is really right in my gaming crews wheelhouse.

The point is that this is not a game you win on mechanics, it’s a game you win through political and diplomatic manipulation between the players, in a lot of ways, its a game of psychology.

This is a very long game and this is probably the only black mark against it and notably one of the key complaints from most reviewers. Its an event-style game but I would say if you are into games that cause heated debates and player-to-player diplomacy, this one brings that sort of playstyle to the table in spades.

Fantastic game in my humble opinion, with a great theme, but not for the faint of heart. This is a bit of a pig that is going to take some time to get done, but so well worth it in my opinion. Exactly the sort of vampire-focused experience that represents the world of darkness setting on which it’s based.

6. Spirit Island

I say this all the time, I’m not a huge fan of cooperative games typically, except when I am and then I love them. A great example is Lord of the Rings LCG, it’s one of my most played and beloved games that I have collected like a total fanatic.

Spirit Island is warming up to be another exception for me. I have only played a couple of times, but this game is just so well designed, so tight, so difficult, and handles the cooperative element so well.

My biggest problem with cooperative games is that when I play, I often feel like I don’t need the other players to win and/or I need the players to do very specific things under my instruction in order to win, so when they take unoptimized actions that cause us to lose (even when I know better) it annoys me. This covers most cooperative games and it’s why generally, I do not enjoy them.

Spirit Island is different because it is far too complex and has far too many moving parts, not to mention unknowns like other player’s cards to a point where micro-managing each other as players is impossible. You just have to rely on each player to handle their own business and leverage their own strategy and ask for help when they need it.

This means that each player has to create and execute their own approach to the game which is supported by the fact that each spirit in the game is asymmetrical. Everyone must be generally aware of high-level events and be ready to assist others who run into trouble why dealing with the problems on their side of the board.

This setup is quite fantastic in particular in the scope of the game’s very high level of difficulty and increably diverse dynamics. There is so much going on in this game, so many different strategies thanks in large part to the huge diversity of “spirits” players can select. Each spirit has its play style, its special powers and power cards.

It’s a really deep and very long game, a gamer’s game essentially, definitely not for the dabbler. There is a big learning curve both to learn how to play and how to play well. There is also a lot of levels of difficulty so you’re never going to find a way to “beat” the game, its replayability is effectively unlimited.

Fantastic game in my book, definitely deserving of all the awards and praise it has received over the last couple of years since its release. Highly recommended, but only for the truly fanatically hardcore and highly dedicated gamers, this is not something you pull out on family board game night.

5. Lord Of The Rings LCG

My all-time favorite solo and cooperative game.

Like almost every year since I started collecting, Lord of the Rings the LCG has been a central part of my weekly gaming routine. It’s a rare week that I don’t pick up a game or two of LotR LCG, it has been and continues to be one of my favorite games to pull out.

Now I normally play this cooperative game solo, but this year I managed to get a few multiplayer games going and like me, my gaming crew enjoys this one as well. Of course, the big fun of this game is getting super into it, building your own decks, creating your own solutions to the countless quests that have been released for this game as well as doing the big campaign. Not everyone gets into the game on that level and frankly, as a dabble it’s okay, but this is a game for fanatics who are ready to do serious deck building and that means collecting. Still, it’s a lot of fun to play on any level and pretty easy to do as this game has a pretty low learning curve.

I have talked about this game so many times on this site, I don’t see any reason to say more, just have a browse, there are plenty of articles about this one. I love it and true love lasts forever!

4. Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul

The card-driven influence control genre which at this point has become quite broad is one of my favorite in board gaming. This includes games like Washingtons War, Twilight Struggle and Imperial Struggle just to name a few.

I have introduced this particular one to several people this year, members of my gaming crew as well as my brother-in-law who is a bit of a board gaming dabbler.

Each time this one comes out, it gets solid reviews across the board from everyone which is more than I can say for all other influence control games that tend to be a bit more niche. Not to say that this is the best of the bunch, in my opinion, it’s not, that honor falls to Imperial Struggle. What I find to be the core reason this one tends to do better is that in Rome vs. Gaul thanks to its dichotomous sides, one being (Rome) far more difficult to play and succeed at and one (Gaul) being much simpler, it works great for introductions.

The end result is that the first-time experience is fun for both players (experienced and novice) and creates a great competitive game. This tends not to be true about most influence control games that have many specialized strategies. Typically when teaching someone something like Twilight Struggle, as an experienced player you are going to crush your opponent the first 5-10 games before they catch on.

That however I don’t think is the only thing that separates Rome Vs. Gaul. I think it has a cool historical theme, looks amazing on the table and has very clear winning conditions that are easy to grasp without a heavy chrome layer of exceptions. It’s just a very intuitive design, a great competitive take on the card-driven influence control genre.

Its main flaw is that once both players become experienced with the game you will find that winning as the Rome player becomes exceedingly difficult, there are just too many almost impossible-to-overcome Gaul strategies so the game tends to be a bit unbalanced when two players of equal skill are playing the game. I find the game needs some house rules to correct this.

That doesn’t change my opinion about it as I find most of the time when I pull it out I’m dealing with a new or less experienced player and this game is great for that purpose.

Highly recommend this one if you are a fan of CDG influence control games like Twilight Struggle and Washington’s War in particular.

3. Great Western Trail

I play a lot of Great Western Trail, mainly because it’s available on Boardgamearena.com. As of this writing, I have played 110 games with 35 victories. That is a lot of Great Western Trail and most of that I did last year which means I was averaging several games a week.

I think a big part of the reason I like Great Western Trail is that each time you play you must be adaptive. There is no winning formula, the circumstances of each game are different and what your opponents are doing matters a lot in this game which is not always, in fact, rarely the case in Euro games like this. This is a game where after 110 games, I can still get completely crushed because of circumstances and risky moves that did not pay off. It’s really what I love about the game, it remains a challenge to win no matter how much I play it.

The interaction between players in Great Western Trail is subtle but profound and I think it does a great job of being simultaneously easy to learn but deep strategically. I think its one of the most unique and intriguing Euro games that has come out this side of the decade.

It’s without a doubt my current favorite, chill back and play game and I find every time I go to boardgameareana.com for a fix, this is the one I reach for. I own the hardcopy as well and every time I pull it out with my friends or family it lands well.

Just a really good all-around board game for all occasions. It’s my go-to Euro game.

2. War Room

The truth is that my gaming group and I play War Room once per year on my birthday since I got it a few years back. It’s become something of a tradition at this point but this one never disappoints. I can remember the details of every game of War Room I have played and it’s always a great time.

This is not a particularly deep game, it is, for the most part, a bit more complex version of RISK or Axis and Allies and while I know some people take it quite seriously as a war game, for me, this is just a good time in a box. For my gaming group it’s more of a fun party game where we play war for the day, roll some dice and come up with new inside jokes that will play out for the rest of the year.

I do love War Room as a game though, I do think it’s a fun strategic puzzle and there are plenty of great/difficult decisions to make and you can in fact get pretty serious with it. Given how long and huge it is, this is not a game you just spring on a group, so I can understand why many group give it this serious treatment. This is an event where you have to arrange food, snacks, and drinks and make a whole thing out of it, because 12 hours is about the average play time. It’s essentially a kind of party war game to me.

I love it, it’s been my favorite board game of all time since I discovered it and I think that will remain to be true for a long time.

1. Empire Of The Sun

Empire of the Sun is a very complex game and is not recommended for the uninitiated.

There is no question that all my really serious and competitive gaming in 2023 was done with Empire Of The Sun. I have completely abandoned any hope of ever getting this one to the table with my local gaming group, it’s just too big of a commitment for them and it’s too niche so this year I went online to search for opponents.

I found plenty and ever since I have had several active games going online over vassal of Empire of the Sun and it has become an absolute obsession for me. This highly complex game with a massive learning curve only works when you have two players completely dedicated to not only learning how to play but enforcing those rules with impunity.

I found exactly such opponents and I have been overthinking this one for the entire year and it’s been an amazing experience.

While War Room is my favorite game of all time, Empire of the Sun is the best game design I have ever run across. Mark Herman is a genius in my book and I have said it before, but this is the Mona Lisa of his career.

In Empire of the Sun you execute World War II in the Pacific Theatre as either Japan or the Allies in extreme detail on an operational level. It boasts an intimidating 50 page rulebook with a ridiculous amount of chrome for what I can only describe to be one of the best simulations you will ever experience.

I do not recommend this to anyone except the most dedicated fan of war games. This is not something you dabble or “learn to play”, this is the equivalent of studying chess as a hobby. You will spend hundreds of hours studying every unit, every detail of the map, and every rule that governs the game and creates endless strategies for you to test. It’s exhilarating if you are into that sort of thing, it’s a complete nightmare of a board game if you are not.

I love it with a deep passion.

2023 releases worth a mention

I’m not the sort of gamer that chases the cult of the new anymore and I find that my gaming selections are more based on what I already love than chasing the dragon. That said there were a few interesting games that came out this year and I think they deserve some mentioning for better or worse.

Hegemony: Lead Your Class To Victory

This one is gaining a lot of momentum in the gaming community, slowly climbing the boardgamegeek ladder and for good reason. Without question one of the most interesting designs on an unusual subject. It’s an asymmetrical game where players work together to develop a functioning society represented by each player acting as a part of the government or social order. Based on politics and economics, this is a game about governing, a combination of cooperation and competition. It made my must-buy list in 2023.

Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game

I know, we need another deckbuilding game like we need a hole in our head, but ever since Star Wars Destiny tragically ended, finding a replacement for it has been something of a desire I suppose. There are a few games actually in the works, but this one made its debut in 2023 and it certainly looks to be the frontrunner.

Great art, simple mechanics with a straight to it approach in the competitive dueling space.

Deck building games of course require the game to have longevity, which is the most difficult element to asses at the start of a games run. Star Wars Destiny for example started out on fire in terms of popularity, but petered out quite quickly and didn’t survive its adolescence. A common problem in the collectable card game space, a fate that may very well be in this games future.

That said, I’m always hopeful and this one certainly has my attention.

Gaming Articles, Role-Player Game Reviews

D&D Theory: Making the 5e CR system work

One of the chief complaints about 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons is the CR (Challenge Rating) system which is used to balance combat encounters for the game.

The specific complaint is that the CR system doesn’t really work to create balanced encounters and using the system as designed results in weak and underpowered encounters. An additional issue is that the CR system assumes multiple encounters per day which is an unrealistic expectation for a standard D&D campaign.

Today we are going to talk about the CR system, specifically the design space, some of its math, the theory behind its design and how and what can be adapted to get different results.

The High Powered Fantasy Is Core

One important concept to embrace about 5th edition as a game design is that all of the architecture is built around the game being a high-powered fantasy RPG. The characters in the game are high-octane heroes with very powerful abilities that grow in power exponentially and its assumed as a design that the heroes always win, essentially. To use a metaphor, they are the Avengers, superheroes that always prevail and only suffer setbacks but are expected to come out victorious in a dramatic fashion.

This is important to understand when working with the CR system as designed as the core design of the game directly affects how the CR is designed to work out mathematically and as a practical application in the game.

The fact that D&D 5th edition is a high-powered fantasy is not a problem, it is a feature and should only be addressed if you actually feel the game lacks challenge in your group. If you find yourself wishing the game was more challenging, there are many approaches, but keeping the adjustments simple, and using a minimalist approach that has maximum impact is key.

In short, the CR math is setup to ensure that the players always feel like high-powered fantasy heroes. The complaint that the CR math results in weak encounters even when they are set to hard or epic is valid, but this is by design and working as intended. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

Gauging Expectations

Given the acceptance of the above, the question is what are the expectations? I think it’s fair to assume that some, perhaps many players want there to be more of a tactical challenge, and more risk involved in the outcome of combat encounters, meaning that while they enjoy the high fantasy as a narrative premise, some at least may feel the game should be more challenging as a whole, in particular in the area of combat encounters.

I think this is fair, while certainly if you want the high-powered fantasy, the CR system and the base out-of-the-box setup for the game has you covered, but for those that wish it produced more challenging encounters, the question is what can be done?

From here, we will assume that players and DM’s want a more challenging tactical experience.

Now one thing you could clearly do is simply toss out the CR system or alter its math but the math behind this system is actually quite good in my opinion and I believe that it can still be applied as is while getting the result we want, a more challenging game, by altering the conditions of the game itself.

I believe the conditions of the game is where the correction should be, not an adaptation of the CR system itself.

The reason for this is monster design. All of the monsters have been quite carefully tailored to their CR rating, there was a lot of attention paid to the math of bound accuracy and the leveling of monster powers vs. character levels and all the mechanical layers of class design.

Mess with the CR math and you mess with a far wider design space of the game’s core. This will and does as many have discovered really mess with the balance of the game in very unexpected ways where some classes remain impossibly strong, while others really struggle, some monsters suddenly become super powerful, while others actually become weaker still. It may seem strange that this happens when you mess with the CR math until you realize that at the heart of the game’s very intricate balance is this system.

In a word adapting the CR system math comes with many unexpected complexities which I won’t get into in this post, instead, I will show you a much easier way.

Adjusting difficulty so the CR math becomes challenging

The best way to adapt D&D in any edition of the game which includes this one is to adjust the core of the games pillars. There are three of them.

Ability Scores, Hit Points and what I call The Alpha Strike empowerment. Reduce these and regardless of class or level, the entire framework of power is reduced and the difficulty of the game increases.

Adjusting ability scores

Ability scores are one of the pillars of D&D, high scores make characters much more powerful and reliable, lower scores make them less so, but if you really push the envelope here and allow characters to have exceptionally poor scores, the games challenge increase dramatically.

The default system uses one of two options. 4d6 drop the lowest and place scores to preference or the point buy system.

In these systems, the average score is going to be 12-13 and you are very likely to have scores of 15-17.

While this character probably didn’t start out quite this strong at the start of the campaign, the benefits of starting with high ability scores and the increases earned through levels end up creating flawless high-octane characters that have no trouble dealing with that pesky CR systems math.

Since you are able to place the scores wherever you like, the end result is that you will have bonus modifiers where it count for your character. For example, a fighter will have good modifiers for strength and constitution ensuring they have it where it counts, accuracy of hitting, bonus to damage and extra hit points.

More importantly, you are unlikely to have scores with negative modifiers, they will at least be few and far between.

By lowering the potential for abilities scores and the control over ability score placement you can dramatically reduce the effectiveness of characters globally across all classes.

If you use 3d6 rolled down the chain with no rerolls, and no control over the scores you reduce the average score to a 10 which results in no modifier and you are almost guaranteed that each character will have 1, 2 or even potentially 3 scores that are in the negative space. Having 1 or 2 scores with a bonus modifier is considered lucky and you are unlikely to have scores as high as 16-18, these will be far and few in-between.

This is the first step of bringing the CR system into alignment as it will not only force hard decisions and create imperfect characters but result in a global reduction of power the players will be able to exert individually and as a team.

Adjusting hit points

Next we address the issue with hit points. 1st level characters start with maximum hit points, plus their constitution modifier. The lowest score possible here is 6 which is quite low, but it’s possible to reach scores of 16 with some classes and a high constitution score.

What you want to do is make the early game a very dangerous proposition, but also ensure that the games hit points always remain a relatively low average.

Start by rolling hit points at 1st level as you would normally do during level-up instead of starting with max hit points.

More importantly, do not create any house rules for re-rolls or exceptions for when players roll low. Let the statistical averages play out.

Players will feel the sting and if you stick to your guns and remain firm on 1 roll no exceptions, characters will always feel squishy and in danger, no matter what level they attain as the average hit points of characters will remain very low.

Adjusting Alpha Strike

The final step is to address the Alpha Strike problem. Lets first describe it.

The Alpha Strike problem is that with all of the combined potential might the players can execute, if they are certain that they don’t have to preserve resources, their power level is always equal to their most powerful abilities in every fight. As such the balance of the game has no swings or averages, they are always at their best.

Now you don’t want to have to make adaptions to the adventure, or create resource drains or force multiple combats in order to tax the players to ensure they can’t do this which is the usual advice given by most.

I personally find this a very meta and unnatural way to approach a solution to this balance issue, in fact, even the CR system itself assumes six to eight fights per day to ensure there is a balance to this core problem but I think there is a much better and more systematic way to do this that does not require you do anything special with the adventures that you run.

The added bonus here is that this is actually an official alternative rule in the game.

It’s called the Gritty Realism rule. This rule essentially changes the definition of a short rest to 8 hours of rest and a long rest to 7 days of rest.

This rule ensures that character resources are finite and they must carefully pick and choose with each encounter what resources they will expend.

Oddly it also supports the premise of how the CR system is balanced across multiple encounters because over the course of 7 in-game days, it’s far more likely that adventures will have the assumed six to eight encounters a day, which in the case of gritty realism is actually 7 adventuring days.

This all but eliminates the concept of the alpha strike, in fact, such things will still happen but only during important and dramatic moments when the players face powerful foes (aka boss fights). The rest of the time they are going to always be conserving their resources, covetting them and only expanding them when it really matters.

Conclusion

With the implementation of this architecture what you will discover is that the CR math suddenly works. Average encounters will feel average, hard encounters will feel hard and deadly encounters will almost certainly kill characters. This balance will remain from 1st level all the way to 20th level, it will never falter, the CR system math will simply work.

Not only this but there are many other side benefits of using this approach as many old-school gamers will attest.

Fear of fights and the danger of fighting becomes real to the players as they will naturally recognize that they are no longer super-powered high fantasy heroes but very much mortal. Other dangers like traps become more vivid, and social encounters in which players seek help from NPC’s will become far more important.

Combat will become more tactical where players will be encouraged to maximize every inch of their character’s benefits, min-maxing their powers in any way they. The premise of the character build can be given free rein, letting players build their super weapons and manipulate the system to their heart’s content without fear of breaking the balance of the game.

You can be more generous with magic items, let them find stuff that empowers them and you will find that they not only appreciate discoveries of fine treasures far more but they become quite precious to the players. Every potion, every scroll, every ring, every magic sword will be a real treasure.

Even with the implementation of this architecture for your game, characters will still become powerful and they will still eventually face dragons and epic monsters, but the journey will hopefully be fraught with real feelings of danger and excitement, so when they do face that dragon, it’s going to be the epic experience it should be.

When D&D is a challenging experience, the heart and soul of everything players do from role-playing to battles with enemies become more meaningful, they will feel like they earn every inch of their success, where the rewards for hard-fought battles and completion of quests are well deserved and leveling up feels like a real treat.

You will also find that the published adventures for 5th edition that feel far too easy become real challenges where players can actually fail. This will inspire you as a DM and make you feel like you are doing your job without having to constantly try to figure out how to make the game more interesting and challenging. Let the architecture of the game do it for you.

Good luck in your adventures!

Board Game Reviews, Gaming Articles

Lord of the Rings: LCG revisited

Lord of the Rings the Living Card game turned 10 years old not too long ago and as part of that celebration we not only got a new revised edition of the game, but a sort of guarantee that the game will continue to remain in print.

Now so far as Living Card Games go, that makes Lord of the Ring LCG, quite unique, currently one of the oldest of its kind at the moment still in print.

As a super fan of this game with a nearly complete collection barring all the nightmare stuff in which I never found much appeal, this is kind of a big deal. I thought I would throw a few words down for those of you out there considering getting into this one, let’s call it a do’s and don’t list with some pitfalls and suggestions that I can offer.

1st Edition vs. Revised Edition

Just a quick note here because this question comes up all the time. Is there a difference between these two editions? The answer is no, they are exactly, word for word, card for card, the same game. It is just a second printing of the same game and while the core sets have different quantities of card, the Revised Core Set has been revised to have sufficient cards for 4 players, they are for all intense and purposes the same game.

As a rule, you don’t need more than 3 copies of any card as this is all that is legal to put into a deck, but of course, many players support more than their own decks, as such, it’s nice to have more copies of certain key cards. If you already have an original core set, you might still consider getting the new Revised Core Set anyway just for this reason.

Buyers Guide For Newbies

Core Set

If you are fresh and own nothing, the obvious first thing to do is to purchase a core set. Now it’s still possible to get the old core set, but I would advise against it and recommend getting the new revised core set.

The primary reason for this is that the original core set left a lot to be desired when it came to the card list. Many “staple” cards, meaning, cards you will often put into decks don’t come in sets of three in the original core set and this means when you are trying to optimize your deck you often can’t get exactly what you want.

The new revised core set sticks to the minimum 3 cards per card type and it gives you a lot of extras of the more commonly used cards like Gandalf (x8) and Dark Knowledge for example.

The revised core set also comes with the Campaign Mode cards which is the only new thing in the revised edition of the game which really enhances play. It effectively lets you run campaign mode as you do with the Saga sets, but for the core set adventures. It also has sufficient components for 4 players which might not matter to you but with the original core set you barely have enough for two players while the revised set gives you more than enough for 4 players.

In a word, it’s just a better core set. Back in the day most people resolved card shortages in the core set by buying two of them, but with this new revised core set you don’t have to do that.

Initial Expansions

I think most players want to get a good start with their collections and there is a notion that you should start at the begining with the 1st cycle but the reality is that the first 3 full cycles of this game were only so-so and in some cases actually quite bad.

This is evidenced by the fact that when FFG started with re-releases (repackaging) of the original game cycles they started with Angmar Awakened and Dream Chaser cycles. This is because the first three cycles (Shadows of Mirkwood, Dwarrowdelf & Against The Shadows) left a lot to be desired.

Older sets like Heirs of Numenor were extremely difficult to the point of not being fun, but as you become really good at the game, some of these old challenges can actually be fun to go back on. I wouldn’t discourage their collecting, but its good to know what your getting into.

So far as adventures (quests) go, Shadows of Mirkwood is without a doubt the weakest cycle in the game, rather boring to be honest and I would argue can be skipped entirely. Dwarrowdelf is just ok at best and Against The Shadows is horrifically unbalanced, hard to the point of not being fun. Now all these cycles have great player cards and that is reason enough to collect them at some point but the really good (fun) adventure sets start with the Ring Maker cycle and just get better and better with each release afterward and the player cards in the cycles that followed are also a lot more interesting, allowing for far more diverse player deck building possibilities.

I would also avoid buying under the old format (packaging). It has been rather frustrating to try to collect (and complete) each cycle buying the individual packs, in fact even today I have a couple of cycles where I’m missing a pack and can’t it track down. When I say frustrating, I mean it, it annoys me to no end.

The new format allows you to buy the player cards and adventures separately and when you do buy the adventure pack, you get the entire cycle in one go. It’s more expensive than any single pack, but altogether the price is about the same. Player & adventure expansion together is about $115, and buying the separate cycles is about $120, so same stuff, slightly cheaper and with considerably less hassle trying to collect everything.

The fact that they started the repacked cycles with Angmar Awakened and now Dream-chaser is just icing on the cake as these are the first two I would advise you to pick up either way. These adventures (quests) are both fantastic throughout, and the player cards and heroes they come with are far more diverse and interesting than anything you get prior.

Sets like Dream Chaser introduce entirely new sub-mechanics to the game that offer new challenges and call for completely unique ways to build decks. This expansion really shows off the diversity of this game and are really great investments.

I would honestly not try to go back and collect the first three cycles at all unless you can find complete sets in one go and in either case, I would not bother with the first cycle (Shadows of Mirkwood) at all. You can just skip that one, it really was not very good at all and is regarded in the community as the most skippable cycle in the collection.

The Saga Sets

After picking up the two repackaged sets that are available now, you might have your eye on the Saga set. Originally this was broken down into 6 boxes for the Fellowship of the Ring, Two Towers and Return of the King story and two sets for the Hobbit.

In the repackage they are being released in 3 sets covering each book. The price and content is the same, but as of this writing Return of the King is not yet available or even announced, though you can count on it being released sometime in the future while the original releases are still quite readily available.

The Saga expansions are I think, an intrical part of the Lord of the Rings LCG experience, but I would not rush to it. It’s sort of like the end game content, which, if attempted too early, can be quite frustrating, but if done when your ready is pure magic.

The saga’s are really great, they use the campaign format which used to be unique to the Saga sets, but is now available with all of the repacked sets including the revised core sets. It allows for a sort of leveling up of characters and deck improvements as you go through and given the difficulty of the Saga sets, this is actually quite crucial to success.

While these are all fantastic sets, the difficulty of the Saga sets is quite high, in particular when trying to complete the entire Saga in campaign mode. I would only caution getting the Saga sets last simply to avoid having it and being frustrated because you don’t have the card pool needed to successfully complete them.

When I say hard, I mean, super hard. You WILL need a pretty wide collection to complete the Saga set with constant deck adjustments and frankly, without some homebrew rules adaptations I don’t think it’s very solo-able, this is definitely at least a two-player (or double-fisting – 1 player playing two hands). I would argue however this is best with 3-4 players for that epic feel.

I would consider these must have’s for your collection, they are quite fantastic and in a sense really are what the game is about. You want to do the lord of the rings core story and while all of the adventure sets have fun narratives, the nostalgic visit to the original story in card form can’t be beat.

Do’s & Don’ts

Over the years of collecting and playing this game, there are quite a few things I have learned that will do wonders for your experience and your wallet.

Do’s

Always and I mean always with the exception of the core sets, look into the 3rd party market when tracking down cycles/sets. You can find used stuff dirt cheap and often buy a complete collection of a cycle in one fell swoop which even if you have to shell out a few nickles is going to be better than fussing about trying to find a single missing pack.

More importantly, you can often find stuff not available through retail for the game as many adventure packs have been released under the “limited release” tag as part of convention events which you are definitely going to want.

Your collection will grow over time and there is quite a bit to collect, but buying this game at full retail is not only expensive but rarely an option as any given cycle is rarely ever available at the same time. In the 3rd party market its quite easy to find complete sets and in my mind this is the best way to collect.
Do’s

Do pimp out your game. There are lots of really amazing accessories for LotR LCG and they are well worth it. Most notably a good playmat and a good storage solution are quite important. I would also recommend sleeving your decks but not doing so for the rest of your collection as there is a lot of shuffling and handling of cards in this (duh) card game.

Don’ts

Don’t ever pay full retail for anything, even recently released sets. You can always find discounted stuff if your patient and it can make a huge difference. For example, the Revised core set retails at 70 bucks, but if you sniff around a bit, you can pick it up for 10-20% discount on that price. In fact, I don’t recall ever paying full price for anything for this game, you can always find discounts.

Don’ts

Don’t buy the limited edition collectors edition or the online version of this game. It’s the worst deal in Lord of the Rings and people have been trying to make it sound special and expensive, when the reality is that all you get is a shitty mat, a poorly produced MP3 soundtrack that is freely available, a crappy plastic ring, some poorly produced art prints and a two-player limited edition of the game that has less stuff in it than the core set.

This was a raw deal and mostly a money grabbed designed to promote the digital version of the game which quite literarly had absolutetly nothing to do with the paper version. These are two entirely different games, in fact the LCG has more in common with Arkham Horror LCG and Marvel Champions than it does with the digital version. Avoid it like the plague.

More to the point though is that the digital version of LotR LCG is a completely different game, than the paper version. These two games have only the name of the game in common and the entire production of the digital game is just a massive cash grab for what really is one of the shittiest CCG’s anyone ever scraped together. It’s a hard pass.

Don’t

Don’t bother with the nightmare decks. Generally speaking, they don’t really add much to the game and even if you find that you have become so good at the game that you need more challenge there are many free game variants for increased difficulty available that are far more interesting than the nightmare decks.

I’m not saying these are bad, just saying they are not worth it.

You don’t get any new content with the nightmare decks, all it is-is the same cards you already have with slightly higher stats on monsters for the most part. They are not worth the 5-7 bucks you will pay for each one.

Don’t

Don’t bother with the Starter Decks. You are eventually going to collect all of the cards anyway and for 22 bucks for 1 starter deck which is half of the cost of a repackaged expansion player box, it’s about the most expensive way to get these cards you can find. What’s worse, there are repeated cards in these and you don’t always get 3 sets of each card so you end up with an incomplete collection even if you get them all. Worst still is that you are going to collect all the sets most likely anyway so you end up with duplicates of stuff you don’t need. There are no unique cards in these sets, all cards are released in other sets.

If you are just dabbling into the LCG, this can be a great way to get some great cards right out of the gate, but if you plan to collect, this is the most expensive and inefficient way to get these cards available.

As a side note, most of these decks are actually not that great, so far as “good deck building goes” they are also pretty mediocre.

Tips & Tricks

Lord of the Rings LCG can be a pretty frustrating game, you are going to lose… a lot and this can’t really be helped, but there are a few things I always recommend to players to keep themselves engaged.

  1. Fail It Forward
    One thing I really recommend is that you try to complete each quest in a cycle 2, max 3 times and if you can’t beat it, move on to the next one. You can always go back to take a crack at it again, but playing the same adventure over and over again endlessly until you beat it will take a lot of steam out of you and you may end up giving up before continuing. There is no shame in realizing there is a quest here and there you can’t beat, these are future challenges and eventually, you will build better decks as your game improves. Don’t let yourself get stuck.

  2. Easy Mode Recommended
    I would strongly advise new players to make extensive use of easy mode when first starting out. I know that it stings but it takes a fairly long time to get good at the game and when you initially get the game (core set) you won’t have the necessary card pool to beat even the core set quests. In fact, the 3rd quest in the core set is universally considered among the hardest to beat even for veteran players with full collections.

    Easy mode turns the impossible into the possible, as you get better, again, you can always go back on any of these and take a crack at them again.

  3. Find a partner or two
    While LotR LCG is infinitely solo-able and it’s a lot of fun, it’s not balanced for solo play and generally speaking, solo play is kind of for experts as you must build very specialized decks to find any measure of success. Some get around this by playing the game two-handed (called double-fisting) but, naturally, the preference would be to have a partner.

    This game is best played with 2, 3 or 4 players. I would not recommend more than that. 4 player games can be a bit slow, I think 2-3 is the sweet spot.

    More than that though, LotR LCG has a tendency to be a very fun experience as there are so many ghastly failures and triumphant successes, it’s something to be shared in my experience.

Final Words

Lord of the Rings LCG is a great cooperative game, but it’s quite expensive to collect and the producers of the game know the pinch players feel when invested in a game and new content comes out. In the end, the instinct is to collect everything but I can assure you this is neither necessary or worth it.

One thing to keep in mind is that a typical quest (one quest) for 2-3 players is basically an entire evening of entertainment. As such if you collect say a single cycle which has 9 quests, that is enough content to fill 7-9 sessions of gaming. Point here is that you don’t need a lot to keep you going for a long time. I have collected everything released and I estimate it will take me the better part of a decade to get through it all.

You can safely skip some of the old stuff and focus on collecting the new stuff. Sure your collection won’t be complete, but the reality is that 1 good quest is worth 10 bad ones and a lot of the older stuff before the Ring Maker cycle can be safely skipped.

Of all the cycles I have played through there are three that I think stand out. The Dream Chaser, Haradrim and Angmar Awakened cycles. Since these are being re-released in the new re-packaged format there honestly is little reason to look back as it seems everything will be re-released in this new format after the Angmar Awakened cycle.

I would argue the Ring Maker cycle and perhaps some of the special release stuff like Murder At The Prancing Pony are exceptions, but I think as new players coming into the game, it’s best to simply look forward not backward.

Now whether you want to track down some of the older releases, pre-re-release is up to you, but if you are going to do it, I highly recommend pretty much everything after and including The Ring Maker cycle but cautioning that you should be ready to wait to finish collections. Very often you can get one or two things from one or another cycle, but rarely is everything available at the same time and as time passes some of this stuff is going to be harder and harder to find. You may end up not being able to finish any given of the older cycles.

There is some debate among the community whether or not Voice of Isengard is a good expansion or not, FFG seems to think its skippable given they started their re-release schedule with the Angmar cycle but personally I think this is a really good one, worth picking up.

Looking at the production schedule of FFG, there is absolutely nothing coming from the old sets, so what is out there today may be all that will ever be available. They seem to be very focused on the new stuff, which makes sense of course. They might still surprise us but I would always approach collecting with the information you have at hand.

Dedicated To All Things Gaming