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(If we end up with a separate board for Dark Gothic, this can certainly be moved there, but for now, I'm placing it here under the general AToE discussion thread.)

My copy of Dark Gothic arrived last night, and my housemate and I played a quick game. I really enjoyed it a great deal.

There are three classes of villains; you get a random villain from each class, staging up as you go, and you don't know the stage 2 or stage 3 villain at the start of the game. Setup takes a little while, but it will get faster with practice. There are several stacks of cards, all with the same backs, which are used in different ways:

Starting cards, which give you a resource of combat (red), of cunning (green), or of spirit (blue) each. Your character tells you how many of each you have to start with. Once those have been used to create a deck, set them aside; you will not need them at all in the game going forward.

Honor cards, which also are in the starting deck, but should be left out; there are certain effects which let you put more into your deck. Honor gives 1 resource which can be used for any one color.

Training cards, which cost 3 of any single color of resource. These are critical to making your deck more powerful and able to handle more threats.

Dark Secrets, which get put in your deck from time to time; you don't want them. When you draw them, the card is removed from your deck, and you draw a Shocking Discovery (which is mostly bad, but at least once was actually really awesome for me).

Shocking Discoveries aren't mixed into your deck. They have a different back, and just play once and are done.

All the other cards are put into the main deck. Allies, gears, events, locations, and minions.

There's also a single unique card of "Hungry Dead" which is always in play as a possible target. It requires 1 of each color resource to defeat.

There are always 6 cards from the main deck on the "center line". These are the cards which people can interact with, and potentially draw into their deck. Some cards have a "Mystery" effect; the moment they enter the center line, that effect comes into play as a one-time effect. Other cards (mostly Minions, I believe) have a "Fight" effect; when you defeat this card, this "Fight" effect occurs as a one-time effect.

You have a hand of 6 cards at a time. On your turn, you play your resources and other cards and see what you can accomplish. The six cards in the center line have different costs associated with each; alternately, you can spend 3 of a single resource to acquire training (which is a card which provides 2 of a single resource, placed into your discard pile), or you can spend one of each of the three resources to battle and defeat the Hungry Dead; defeating the Hungry Dead allows you to either permanently destroy a card in your hand (so it won't return to your deck or discard pile), or destroy a card on the center line (allowing it to be replaced by something else). You can buy as many things as your resources allow, and, like most deck-building games such as Dominion, any used resources are put into your discard pile and are shuffled to become a new deck whenever your deck empties.

The center line has cards that players of AToE will recognize, such as Town Elders, allies, or even a few hero cards as Allies, locations, minions, equipment, and so on. If you can pay the resource cost, the card is put into your discard pile, to appear in your deck next time you shuffle. Lord Hanbrook, for example, costs 2 of each resource, and when you acquire him, you also gain a Dark Secret card, but next time you draw him, he is worth 3 of any single color of resource, each time you draw him. The flintlock pistol requires 2 combat to acquire, but is worth either 1 combat or 1 cunning every time you draw it. The windmill requires 2 cunning and 2 of any one color resource; when you draw it, it will remain in play, providing an extra cunning for you every turn.

After someone defeats the stage 1 villain (which is not added to your deck, but does give you some cool benefits and victory points), the stage 2 villain is immediately revealed. After the stage 2 villain is revealed, the stage 3 villain is immediately revealed.

Certain cards will add cards from the main deck to the Shadow stack. If there are ever 10 cards in the Shadow stack, everyone loses and the monsters win.

Otherwise, the game ends when the stage 3 villain is defeated. Every card in your deck has a victory point cost in the bottom corner, with starting cards all giving 0 victory points, most cards having a 1 or 2, with occasional 3 or 4s, and villains being worth anywhere from 6 to 11 points, depending on their stage and difficulty. The most victory points wins.

Last night, Katarina Clark and Karl Harrison fought the Bog Fiend (killed by Karl), followed by the Gargoyle (killed by Katarina), followed by the Spectral Horseman. At the end of the game, there were 8 cards in the Shadow stack, but Karl took out the Horseman (at the sad cost of the loyal hound Franklin). Still, counting up the victory points at the end of the game, we discovered that Katarina was, overall, the more impressive hunter, with 80 points -- to Karl's 75 points. It was a close game, and I really enjoyed it.

I enjoyed it a great deal, and I'm looking forward to further expansions (with, hopefully, my wife's favorite character of Anne Marie as a hero). I'm thinking I may want to get a few smaller card-boxes to hold each type of card within the game box (so all the starting cards and training cards are nicely divvied up to make set-up easier). I'm looking forward to trying out the cooperative play version soon, too.
Great Run down, I'm not really into Card Games but you make it sound Tempting.

OD
A couple added notes: setup is much, much faster now that I know what I'm doing. As in... a couple minutes, max.

And I tried the co-op version of the game, and it was CLOSE. The Vampire was the final villain, and he kept getting more and more powerful due to Shocking Discoveries. (It started off rough, because one of the first cards placed FIVE cards into the shadow stack, so on the first turn, the villains were halfway to winning already.) We were sure we were only going to survive one or two more turns, because there were now 9 cards in the shadows, and one more would mean we'd lose. Then someone got a lucky draw, and had JUST enough of EXACTLY the right types of resources to defeat the vampire. We discovered, though, that the very next card on the draw pile would have added another card to the Darkness. It was literally the last possible moment to defeat the vampire.

I think that, for once, I have a mild preference for the competitive version, but I still enjoyed the co-op version.
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