First Playthrough:

[gavindowning]

So I did my first playthrough this evening with my housemate. We played the basic scenario (though we played with the advanced game rules). I greatly enjoyed the game. It was close -- in the end, my martian strategy proved superior to the circus folks.

Later, when my wife and a friend joined us, my housemate and I played the martians, while the new newcomers played the heroes trying to protect the crowds from martian slaughter. This game, the heroes kept the crowds alive -- not a single crowd got killed, as the heroes had the superior strategy this time.

So far, I really enjoy the game. The martians play totally differently from the zombies, which I really enjoy. As a result, while the gameplay is very similar, the feel is remarkably different as both sides must use totally new strategies to be successful. I particularly like the way that the spawning points -- flying saucers -- can move about the board, and occasionally attack targets.

The heroes seem well-balanced, and all appear to be a bunch of fun (though JoJo is still my favorite). The only one who hasn't gotten play yet is Angelica, and I hope to see her in use in the next session. Everyone got a chance to use their special power at least once, and none of them felt "generic" in any way. They played like they felt they should.

Over all, I enjoyed the game a great deal. I will eventually be looking at mixing and matching options, but at this point, I think I still need to play a couple more segregated games before I feel comfortable enough knowing what I'm doing to combine them.

Anyone else play it yet? Any thoughts?

[mqstout]

I just got home from a play through of the basic game. It was a lot of fun. The martians won with 2 turns remaining, and the heroes only needed to kill about 4 more martians.

I have to say right away I like that the Heroes having a default win condition ("if at any time there are no martians on the board") in all scenarios is a very welcomed change from LNOE! IFOS feels, as you said, like a 'lighter', more 'just for fun' game. There's less odd strategizing on both sides (no Hunger to abuse, etc) -- but it's still fun while you do so.

Note, it's much easier for the heroes to wound/kill martians and each martian is weaker in combat. BUT it's FAR easier to land new martians. For the "roll to land new martians" phase, you have to roll higher than the number of martian PACKs, not all martians. (Each Martian pack is a space with up to three martians in it that move/fight as one stronger unit.)

[pyrrhus]

Thanks for sharing!

[mqstout]

We totally got into the mood for the game!

[Old Dwarf]

LoL....

OD