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!

Gears of War - Board Game Review Part 1

Hello everyone!  While at Toy Fair 2012, I ran into Fantasy Flight Games, the leading publisher of board, card, and role playing games.  Most recently they released the Gears of War Board game.  They were super awesome at Toy Fair and let me have a copy of the Gears of War Board Game to review!  So let's get started:

Here's the box as it appears.  As with all FF products, it's sturdy, coated cardboard!

 

Here's all the contents of the box:

 Inside the box you get:
- 4 CoG figures w/ Character Cards
- 28 Grey Locust Figures w/ 10 Enemy Cards
- 35 Locust AI Cards
- 27 Mission Cards
- 54 Order Cards
- 38 Weapon Cards
- 34 Location Cards
- 4 Reference Cards
- 17 Double-Sided Map Tiles
- 2 Door Tokens w/ clear plastic stands
- 23 Wound/Dropped Weapon Tokens
- 8 Emergence Hole/Sealed Tokens
- 36 Ammo and 12 Grenade Tokens
- 1 Mission Reference Sheet
- 9 Dice: 5 Attack and 4 Defense
- 1 Line of Sight Ruler

The models are simply phenomenal!  Best I've seen in a board game!

All of the included cards are very sturdy and of the same material as their Anima card game (Also by FF).  Even though they recommend using sleeves, these cards are more than durable on their own.  The card art is beautiful and true to the GoW universe.

Additionally, the miniatures included are the best I've ever seen in a board game, and among the best of some companies who only make model miniatures.  The figures included in this game are highly detailed and made of what feels like a plastic-resin material.  The models are somewhat flexible, so no breakage will occur.  As a hobby gamer, I will be off to paint my GoW miniatures as soon as I get room on my painting table!

The Cole Train ready to crush some grubs!

The rulebook is highly detailed and covers all questions you can run into.  The rulebook is large, but it uses pictures and visuals to explain all the rules, making learning the game a breeze.  The game play system is based on "Doom"'s engine.  Game play basics work off playing cards in your hand and executing the actions on the cards.  Most cards involve moving and then attacking or some combination of the two.  Other cards allow you to explore areas to pickup dropped weapons or activate map features.  More on the game mechanics later...

The maps are truly unique.  The game comes with 5 missions and horde mode!  Each mission lists the map tiles needed for the game.  Then the map cards and shuffled and the map assembled in that order.  This allows the maps to always be different to create a different game and eliminate monotony in repeating missions.   The missions always have a primary objective, that when completed the second part of the mission is revealed.  This can include kicking down a door to clear a new area, new emergence holes opening or having to fight a boss!

Here's our map setup using the "Emergence" mission.  We move on to the board to start the first turn.

The mission reference sheet with all the cards setup, ready to see our CoG's beat some locust!

As our mission starts, our objective is to get to the last tile with the door and seal the emergence hole.  As we fight through the rooms and the locust unleash their fury on our beloved Gears, my partner gets attacked and takes wounds.  The attacks in this game work off of rolling attack dice as listed on the stat cards vs defense dice which are affected by cover.

This locust got the jump on the Cole Train, but you can't keep the Train down baby!

In this situation shown above, the locust moved up a few areas and attacks Cole Train, who is hanging out in the open.  To see if you have line-of-sight you would take the provided stick and connect the figures.  In this case Cole and Boomer are in the same area and there is no cover.  Therefore Cole, unable to dodge the attack, only gets 1 red defense dice.  The locust Boomer attacks with 4 attack dice.  The player who controls Cole rolls all the dice together and checks the results.  As shown above, Cole does not roll any shields on the defense dice.  However, the Boomer rolls a total of 4 bullets, meaning he causes 4 wounds.  You would take bullets - shields = wounds taken.  Since Cole didn't block any, he takes 4 wounds.  For each wound a CoG takes, the player must discard a card.  Since Cole's controlling player only has 3 cards, Cole is "bleeding out".  Just like the game Cole falls down and must wait for a fellow CoG to revive him.

Cole's controlling player, Crash, is distraught at the Cole Train bleeding out.

After Cole went down, we ran into a spat of trouble and were unable to complete the mission...However, being our first play through, it was a great game.  The dynamics of the board game truly capture the fast paced action of the video game.  The board games cover system is the difference between life and death, just like the games.  We ran into trouble when we were caught in the open.  But in the second review, we get a full team of 4 CoG's to eradicate the locust threat!

Here are the highlights:
PROS:
- Awesome miniatures
- Tiles, counters, and cards are all top quality; sleeves are recommended
- Rules are well laid out, easy to follow and the rulebook uses pictures and diagrams to explain points
- True to GoW story and source material through in-game mechanics
- Easy, no argument Line of Sight and Cover System
- Total customizable missions and horde mode; always a new experience
- Game play is fast-paced and always changing through mission cards (changing objectives, adding new map tiles etc.)
- Single Player, Co-op, and horde never leaves you without a way to play
- Nobody has to be the "game master" or play the bad guy, since you roll all dice pertaining to your character (when attacking and being attacked)

CONS:
- Occasionally enemy activation cards can chain together, giving tons of attacks to locust, to cripple a less than 4 player game
- Without a full game of 4 CoGs, some order cards are useless, but the rules give you a chance to discard them and re-draw new cards
- Sometimes "bleedout" and pickup of characters becomes cumbersome w/ crowding and LoS, but nothing gamebreaking

Stay tuned for Part 2!