Claustrophobia

[Old Dwarf]

Claustrophobia is a Board Game (Duengon crawl)
from Asmodée Editions @$50

Set in the world of the skirmish game Hell Dorado.
The background is that during the 30 Years War
the brutality & carnage that Europe inflicted on
itself resulted in portals to Hell begining to opened up.

These entrances to Hell mainly appeared in cities
after the usual sieges/sacks/pillage/rape was over.
Humanity was so brutalized by the constant fighting
that rather than being appalled they saw Hell
as a new area to be colonized & the waring
nations of Europe backed by their religious
Missionaries & Jesuits moved to conquor the new
lands.The Demons who controled the levels of Hell
of course resisted.

This game is for two players, one plays the demons and the other the human Westerners. The two camps are found in the middle of labyrinthine sewers.

The board is built during the course of the game.
Claustrophobia is scenario based, resulting in a high replay value, especially as each camp is played differently…

For the Westerners it is a question of surviving the increasingly violent attacks of the demons. While the light sources are reduced progressively, the demonic troglodytes become increasingly stronger and return in ever increasing numbers!

Of course the human player has to organize their figurines to keep them protected, while using their equipment as well as possible in order to win the scenario!

The Game includes pre painted plastic for both
the Westerners(Europeans) & the Demonic Forces.

content

17 PPP miniatures, as follows:

- 1 Brother
- 2 Brutes
- 2 Blades

VS

- 1 Major Demon
- 11 Lesser Demons

other:

- 36 tiles (rooms and corridors)
- 5 status receptacles to track the humans stats and health
- 25 damage tokens (pins)
- 1 control panel for the Demon player
- 7 reference cards for the Demons
- 20 Lurking tokens
- 10 damage markers (flat)
- 3 tunnel markers
- 2 Tough breed markers
- 1 Courage marker
- 1 Support marker
- 4 Treasure markers
- 3 Seal of Protection markers
- 6 Aura cards
- 6 Item cards
- 15 Advantage cards
- 16 Event cards
- 1 10 sided dice (for timing)
- 12 6 sided dice
- 1 rule booklet with 6 scenarios

Ok its a weird theme Game but the board tiles are
beautiful & I'm a sucker for modular tile games.

The Game World it's set in is the same as Hell Dorado
the Skirmish Game which came out a couple of years ago
but was mainly limited to France.It was never really
made available in the US so although I was interested
there wasn't much point in trying to get into it.Plus
I don't really need to pick another Skirmish Game
which I need to paint figs for.

Claustrophobia however offers a much cheaper
way to invade Hell & The figs are the same size as
the Hell Dorado metal Skirmish Game ones so the
door is open for Home Brew expansions using
other Factions.Hell Dorado has just been sold
off to a US Game company & production will soon start
in the US which will take the hassle out of obtaining
figs.

Again like AToE it offers an historical time period
setting in this case the 1600's which I really
like.

Oh-yes I ordered it.

OD

[Old Dwarf]

TheGame has it's own Blog Site & they release
"official"Scenarios.The latest is called "Infection"
& Human Warriors get turned into ZOMBIES & switch
sides.

http://www.claustrophobia-theboardgame.com/en/?p=116

OD

[deadrabbit]

ive had my eyes on both this and hell d for a while now, the minis for hell d are great, and very creative but as you said the language difference is makes it hard to get into the game. id love to get this new game but im not one to make a blind purchase. if you could write a review after you get it that would be great. thanks by the way, ive been waiting for someone i know to get this.

[Old Dwarf]

dr..GET THIS GAME:P.Mine came a couple od days ago
& I've started playing "Stop Invasion Scenario"

Here's a quicr Rewiew:

Setting New Jerusalem from the HD World.Not really
much in the way of background Fluff.1 page written as a
journal about the demon Problems & some missions
undertaken.Thats it ! I was curious about New Jerusalem
but getting real info in English is a pain.I asked over
on the English Section of the HD Official French Site &
a kind Frenchman took pity & gave me this:

"Hi OD,
New Jerusalem is simply located in Hell near the main portal that opened from Germany. It's a big above 'ground' town, but it does have some tunnels underneath where the new Claustrophobia game is located.
The main European countries take a break from the 30 year war reportedly because of the threat, but really to make as much money as possible from the resources found in Hell. That's how you can get both Protestants and Catholics in the same company, the old enemies being the new allies in Hell (which is not extraordinary as in Europe everyone has been at war then allied then at war ... with everyone else at one point or another in history)."So thanks Corto

The Game Scenarios (6 included + 2 on the Web)do
provide the necessary setting fluff.IMO the Game has
great tool box potential to create your own Scenarios
or even use it as underground tunnels under a certain
small town with Zombie Problems.

So a quick run down

I.Set Up-choose a Scenario.This gives you the Human
Warriors,the Gifts the Reedemer has,# of Advantage
Cards (basically 1 off thinks that can help the Humans)
and Items the Humans may have .The main Demon
is given(there are 7),the # of Threat Points they have
to start.The basic Demon Force Type are the Troglodytes
(Trogs.)

This also includes the background for the Mission,
V ictory conditions &how to prepare the Tile Deck
for the Game.

The cool thing IMO is that eventhough there are the
same figs used in each Scenario their # may vary
so that your playing without a Reedemer or 1 of the
condemed types or no major Demon is in the Game .
Basically each Scenario is one off & their is no
character building.

II.Initative Phase-This is different & it's how the
Human get their Stats for the turn.Roll the # of die
= to the # of Humans (some things like Blessed-allow
you to roll extra die & then you can choose the best).
Each Human has a Character Board with his Talent(s)
and 6 Stat Lines giving Movenent,Combat & Defense.
You take one of the die rolled & assigned to a Human
of your choice then repeat with the next Human
until easc is assigned a die (a nice plastic base holds
each Humans Board & has indents to place the
assigned die-it also has small indents to place the plastic wound markers-their shaped like screws!)

Note if a Human is wounded a marker is placed on a
Stat Line of the Human players choice.If you have to
assigned a die to a Stat Line that is closed(has a wound marker) that makes the Hero "Exhausted" for that
turn he defends at Def 3 & can't move or attack
or use Talents.

III.Human Action Phase-The Human player now,
moves ,explores fights-note he is not required
to do any of these.The Human player activates
one of his figs.That fig then takes his actions
when finished the next fig is activated & so on,
he can do this in any order but a fig must complete
all its actions before the next is activated.

Movement-is based on the Stat Line the Fig.Usually
1 or 2 Tiles.There are no hexes/squares you move
from 1 tile to another.You can move & fight or
fight & move but you can't move-fight move.
There are restrictions-certain Special Tiles (there
are 10 types) may restrict or increase the # of figs you
can haveon them(normally 3 for each side)
,effect movement,spring traps,help generate
more Trogs.or have some effect based on the Scenario.
There are also a Blocking rule which stops a fig
from leaving a Tile if his opponent has more figs on
that Tile than he does.A Talent called Evasive gets
around this,so do some Destiny Board results.

Exploration-If a Human moves off a Tile through an
entrace which has no Tile He draws the next Tile &
gives it to the Demon player to place(Note in most
Scenarios the Tiles are in a deck face down)this generates
the Board as you move along.

Combat-Is fairly simple Roll the # of die given for the
attackers Combat value & compare it to the defenders Defensive value ,if its = or over the Defensive the
fig takes a hit.Some items allow for a Human to make
an Attack on an adjacent Tile(Blunderbuss).

Attacks are made individually but all Trogs are considered
1 Target (their small & swarming)Each hit kills 1 Trog.
Humans figs take hits on Stat Lines once all 6 Stat Lines are full he is dead).The Major Demon has a number of wound
points & a marker is placed on his sheet for each hit,
when they + his wound points he be dead.

Note all the Demon figs are recycled during the game
but you can only have 1 Major Deamon in play at a time.

This is getting rathe long so I'll continue on a reply below)

[Old Dwarf]

IV.Threat Phase-The Demons go for it.
The Demon player has a DestinyBoard & he rolls
3 Die & assignes to any of the 10 Destiny
Spaces on the Destiny Board as he wants AND meets
the critera of that space (ie:must place 12 points on
the Trap space to activate).Basically depending
what he assigns the die to he can give Trogs.certain
Talents for this turn only,get Threat Points,draw
Event cards,allow Trogs to be placed in restricted Tiles,
wound a Human fig.Some Destiny Spaces can be
assigned as mant times as you have die that meet the
criteria some are once per Turn.The Demon Player can
spend his Threat Points to bring on his figs (1TP for
a Trog 5 for a Major Deamon).

Note Event Cards can be played or held for future
the Card tells you the Phase it can be used once played they are removed from the Game like the Human
Advantage Cards.

V.Demon Action Phase-The Demon Player can
now can move & fight.

Then repeat II-V until victory or all the Humans are dead.

Thats it I'm enjoying the first 2 moves of the" Stop the
Invasion Scenario".The Game really gives you a lot of choices.
You might think it's easy to keep the Humans together
but it's not.Right now I have my Reedeemer,Brute & Blade on seperate Tiles.In trying to leave the Entrance Tile my
Blade got into a Tight Tunnel which is limited to 1 fig
being it from a side.This ment if I wanted to move
in that direction it would take 2 turns just to get my
Brute & Reedeemer through it.

I decided to move my Brute off through another entrance
& hit a Trap Tile & he tool a wound.I then just held my
Reedemmer in place on the Entrance Tile.

The next turn no Trogs could enter as the 3 Tiles in the Game
were all occupied by Humans,but I still had to get
my Humans headed into the the tunnels to find the
portal tile & blow it up to win.I moved my Reedemer
into the Trap Tile which cause a Trog to enter the Tile
& he could not kill it.The Brute did so I then moved the
Brute out an entrance hoping to get a Tile where I could
safely regroup my forces.Alas it was a dead end.My
Blade was pulled out of the Tight Tunnel back to
the Entrance Tile so as to reunite him with the
Reedeemer (of course this would trigger a Trap but
I needed to get the Humans back together.I got
him pass a Trog that had entered the Tile From the
Entrance Tile & ran into 2 other Trogs on the Entrance Tile,
usually I could get him by them a the Blade had 2 Movement
& is Elusive so the Blocking Rule doesn apply.
However during the Demons Destiny Borad assignments
during the Threat Phase he got Reaistence is Futile ,
which makes all Trogs Elusive & cancels all Human Elusive
for the tirn.So the Blade could not move off the Entrance Tile
as the Demon had more figs there (2) than I did (1).
I did kill 1 Trog.

Oh & all the Trogs seem to be rolling lgold so far my
Reedeemer has 1 wound & my Brute 2 (I had to spend
the Reedemers Blessed Talent to heal a 3rd.)The Trogs wer
able to Spawn 5 Spawn in the Exit Tile & moved 2
to attack the Reedemer & Brute.

So i'm very pleased with my purchase.

OD

[usagi95]

Simple game but not easy. good stuff inside.

[Cimex188]

Got this game a couple of days ago, havent tryed it yet. Perhaps this weekend