Gears of War - Board Game Review Part 2!

Hey guys and gals, Snake here.  Since I originally wrote the Gears of War Board Game Review, Part 1, I've had a chance to get my entire gaming crew together to play a full game, which is having four players.

From left to right: Sarge, Crash, Tommy Gunn, and Snake (me)

To keep it simple we played the Emergence mission again.  I chose this time to play at Marcus, Sarge was Cole Train, Crash was Dom, and Tommy Gunn was Baird.  We got through all the setup much easier than the first time and got the map setup.  After setting up the horde and mission specific rules we were ready to start our first turn.

Our brave Gears take to the map and begin to slaughter the horde.  Here's a pic of our first turn:

Our game begins, and the mechanics of the game truly show how the teamwork aspect can really take over.  As I take my turn, I move and play a card which allows me to move and attack.  Tommy Gunn and Sarge play a reaction card that allows them to move with me as to keep the team together.

After my turn, in the Locust activation phase, I draw a card which allows Drones to move up and attack if able.  Before the Locust Grub can even pop out of Cover, Sarge uses his reaction ability to Guard.  Guarding allows him to make an immediate attack again the Locust.  Sarge uses the overkill ability on his Lancer and rolls 3 omen dice and one causing 2 wounds.  The Locust rolls a total of 4 shields.  The 4 shields cancel the 2 wounds, but each omen causes one automatic wound.  The lancers ability of a high rate of fire was more than enough to protect our team from the horde!

Using teamwork, we move together and cut through the horde.

A few turns later, we are rolling through the horde, moving together and guarding each other to protect from being wounded.  The game goes well until I, Snake, feel the urge to go and pickup the weapon pickup in the first area of the map.  I leave my team, thinking everything is under control.  No sooner than I move away do the Horde spawn more Locust, open up a new emergence hole, and go on a massive offensive.

In the fighting, Baird goes down.  Sarge had moved up the board to the next area, while I am desperately trying to get back to my squad.  Crash makes a move to run to Baird to save him.  As we as a team are worrying about being overrun, Crash's comedic timing comes to the rescue.  While picking up Baird, he remembers Dom's character searching for his wife Maria.  Crash takes to doing spot on impressions of Dom, inspiring us and making us laugh, by asking, "Have you seen my Wife?" in a kind of whiny voice.

Dom discards a card, picks up Baird and asks, "Have you seen my Wife?"

After this our teamwork got better, because we knew then teamwork is the only way to win.  Crash kept our spirits up with his impressions.  Tommy Gunn got him the perfect prop, the picture of Dom and Maria, included in the Gears of War 2, fancy edition.   Crash loved using the prop, to ask every Locust if they had seen his wife:

"Have you seen my Wife?"

After a few areas and mission changes of no longer trying to beat the level, we all undertook the task of finding Dom's wife...Our crew was enthralled with the aspect of watching Crash ask everyone if they had seen her:

Not again Crash.....

Before we knew it we were simply slaughtering everyone in our path, as fast as we can to reach the doorway and bust through it.  Once the doorway opened in the Emergence mission and the horde attempts to come through, we made a stand.  Whether it was Crash asking every Locust or the simply amazing 2 separate, omen rolling boomshot rounds we fired into the crowd, the Locust perished quickly and we won the mission.  To celebrate we took a final group shot to commemorate our first successful Gears of War playthrough:

Big thanks again to everyone at Fantasy Flight games for hooking us up with this amazing game.  We look forward to playing again, giving everyone another dose of Sarge, Crash, Tommy Gunn, and Snake, and most of all an accurate representation of the game!