battle of westeros

[soundguy]

played battle of westeros last night.. took about 1.5 hours to punch out al the high quality cardboard chits, and attach bases to the 138 figures.

tip.. game says some figures don't fit the bases securely.. actually.. NONE do.. I dabbed each fig base peg in a bit of pva white glue and pushed it into the bas with a pair of nippers that I kept handy for trimming excess sprue mould pieces. glue sets fast and works good.

game play is a hair dry.. but as a combat simulator.. I guess.. what do you expect.

IMHO.. one side can be heavilly overballanced based upon the fact that you get 'resorurces' based on dice at the beginning of each turn ( command chits ).. and also command card. dice are rolled and cards drawn.. so it's a double random to base what you can do.

3 unit levels/ranks red, blue, green. the dice had red, blue, green marks, as well as valor and moral marks. if you have all blue and green units, as some of the scenerio's do.. and you roll all reds.. no command tokens there are a couple card that let you use a red command token to block the other player from playing a tactic card.. but imho.. not worth YOU not moving, for lack of resources. I also noticed there seemed to be an overabundance of 'move 3 units' for one sides cards, vs ;move 2 units' on the other side.

movement in this game is ke.. ie.. getting your troops into place.. add to that .. the cads only move units near a commander/lord.. so if you don't have the command chits rolled up to keep a group together.. you get cut off units fast.

lotsa rules.. system does work... you just might want to have a military background with a couple years of west point under your belt concerning cavalry and footman combat IMHO

oh yeah.. and being able to see into the future, and influence dice rolls and card pics would help.

I lost the first game when I rolled half or less of the resources that the other player was rolling, EACH TURN.. if he rolled all 4 resources.. I rolled 2.. if he rolled 2.. I got 1. then his cards were all move 3.. I got a couple move 2 and sometimes got cards that only prepped my troops to move ( rally ).. but no actual points to move them once prepped.

game gives a bonus to the player with the most resources each turn ( called momentum ).. IE.. the player with the most command poitns has 'momentum' in battle.

seems a tad unfair as it serves to keep the guy that is ahead... on top.

go figure.

too random for me...

I'm glad it came with good detailed 138 mini's.. and I got it on sale / clearanced so payed no where near retail.

I see they have an expansion out.. 33 or so more minis plus cards and whatnot for 22$.. I might grab it just for the mini's again.

ps.. I'm an avid combat boardgamer.. and have played many epic and squad level games such as all the warhammer epic and 40k stuff, as well as axis and allies.. just about every version and expansion they've ever had.

soundguy

[Old Dwarf]

I like BoW & think it's a good improvement over BattleLore.
It does require the FFG F&Q to get the play right.

I just based up Brotherhood w/o Banners the latest
expansion & the best as far as figs fitting in the bases.
I always clip off the nubs on the figs base & then glue.

I finally started painting the figs around Thanksgiving ,
& have the Stark Core set done & Wardens of the North.
I got two Wardens of the North Expansions so I could
convert the figs to some additional Houses.(Gotta,
Have Roose Bolton & some Dreadfort Units).

Right now I'm painting up Tribes of the Vale but not
as the Tribes but as Northern Clans for Stark
(2 sets again).

We use FFG A Game of Thrones-Storm of Swords
Expansion to provide a background to generate
battles so I hope FFG next expansion finally
gives us another great House(s).

There are 5 Expansions out all in the $20 range
(Wardens North,Wardens of the West,Tribes of the Vale,
Lords of the River & Brotherhood w/o Banners)

If you got the Core set which have the clunky heavy
Card Banners & thick plastic holders(which look like
crap (IMO) FFG now have Banner packs for under $10
that gives you much better looking plastic banners.
1 pack will cover the Core Game figs.

The Expansions (I believe starting with Tribes of the Vale)
all come with the plastic banners.

OD

[soundguy]

yep.. core set has the huge cardboard banners.

am considdering getting the expansions.. if only for the mini's they look decent and if nothing else.. can use them in other games.

hands still tired from painting hundreds of zeds for some other zombie games. ho hum