Needless to say, that’s a lot of different ones. And that doesn’t even include games like My City, Pandemic Legacy Seasons 1 and 2, Risk Legacy, Charterstone, and I’m pretty sure I’m missing one or two. But why play a campaign game? Why play a game that has a story that when you’re done you can’t really play again?

The Case Against A Campaign Game

1. A Campaign Can Only Be Played Once
2. It Takes A Long Time To Play
3. They Are Hard to Get A Group For

A Campaign Can Only Be Played Once

Once you’ve played a campaign game you can’t play it again? You might be marking up a board or you might not be, tearing up cards, but you might not be. In either case, though, you play the story once and you know the story of the campaign, is there really that much difference? And why would I want a game that limits my game plays?

It Takes A Long Time To Play

You want to play the same game over and over again? What happens if you have a break and need to pick it up again, will you remember where you left the story? Do you leave the game set-up so that you aren’t doing the set-up and teardown every time?

They Are Hard To Get A Group For

And with that play time, how do you find a group who is up for that. What sort of plan do you come up to play with? We all have lives, so how do you get it to the table consistently?

The Campaign Game Rebuttal

A Campaign Can Only Be Played Once

This is not fully true. For some games it is a bit more and very much so for Legacy games. Though with a Legacy game often, Risk Legacy, My City, and Charterstone, they can be played after. But even in the case with a legacy game if you can’t, it is still a great experience. It is a story that can’t be told in a normal game.

And this is true for all campaign games. It tells a story that might not exist anywhere else. If you do only play it once, you still get an experience that is different than most games. Even your favorite games you might play five times a year, or maybe that’s just games that you like pretty well. So if you do get through a whole campaign, you end up getting your money’s worth from it.

Finally, not all campaign games can’t be replayed. While I am not sure I could go back and play Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game again, at least not without everyone else being new. There is still plenty in that game that I never saw. Gloomhaven has more scenarios and classes that I never played. Tainted Grail has tons of story and plot lines that I never went down. So yes, you can replay them, you just might know some.

It Times A Long Time To Play

Yes, this is true, but that is also part of the experience of an unfolding narrative in a game. In a shorter game, there might be a narrative that emerges, but by nature of the shorter experience and desire to be replayable, it’ll be less impactful.

So if you want to experience a whole narrative, campaign games are a great way to go. And while some can have one person running the game, most, as compared to an RPG which also matches up with a lot of these criteria, are fully cooperative. That means that everyone is playing the same game and doing the same things.

They Are Hard To Get A Group For

It is not much harder than getting a game group together. I play campaigns with two different groups, both offshoots of my game group. But expectations do need to be set when it comes to a campaign. I had one group fall apart because of life reasons, but still am maintaining the other two.

Start with letting them know the commitment. A campaign game is a commitments and they should know that. Also discuss frequency of play. A lot of times groups will fall apart because they are not frequent enough or too frequent. If they aren’t frequent enough, people forget how to play. Too frequent and it becomes a burden to play it. Know what schedule works for your group and try and stick to it.

Why Play A Campaign Game?

So we’ve looked at some reasons why you might or might not want to. And I do think that game group can be a valid reason if no one is interested in playing a campaign game. However, I think more people are than a lot of gamers might think. But why do I play them?

1. The Narrative Experience
2. Consistent Gaming
3. The Epic Scope
4. Digging Into A Game

The Narrative Experience

I talk about this a lot. I love games that give you story that you can explore. You’ve seen me play Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, some and Sleeping Gods. Even Pandemic Legacy Season 1 gave story to delve into. And I love when a game gives you story like that.

It is interesting, because the ones that I really love give me flexibility in that story. Gloomhaven more so in how you build and play your character. But Tainted Grail and Sleeping Gods allow you to branch out into the world and see more of what is happening. And they don’t tell you how you need to play it, yes, there are targets you go for, but there is always more to explore.

Compare that to regular Pandemic, or a lot of other one off games, they don’t offer the same story. Now, there is story that emerges in those games from the choices that you make as a player. Which is the same for a campaign game. But the players need to bring a lot more of the narrative to the game.

Consistent Gaming

This is also kind of a rebuttal to it being long and finding a group. For myself and other gamers, consistently gaming is amazing. So often it is hard to set aside time to play games, but with a campaign game, it forces you to do so. Like I said, it’s about that developing that rhythm. And a good campaign game will draw you in with the story it provides so you want to keep coming back to it.

It is a knock, actually, that I have against Gloomhaven. The story is less compelling than the game play. I love the mechanics, but the story could and should be better. But the game play kept me coming back over and over again. That cycle of playing cards and figuring out the strategy for a scenario is amazing. But a campaign game helps hook you to come back for consistent gaming.

The Epic Scope

A campaign game also can have much more epic scope to it. I own other games that have epic scope, The Reckoners or Atlantis Rising are two examples. Pandemic, even, with trying to save the world from diseases. But while you play, those games, that scope is just smaller than what you can get in a campaign game.

Tainted Grail, yes, you are trying to save Avalon, how is that different than Pandemic and saving the world? Well, it is different because what you need to do builds and changes as the game progresses. It might be finding the grail, but now you need to complete a ritual or more in the game. It just keeps building and building until you reach an epic finale to the game.

Digging Into A Game

And now, this is one that is very much for Gloomhaven, but it allows you to dig further and further into the game. And with that, you get to explore and understand the mechanics of the game and the character(s) that you are playing so well.

In Gloomhaven it is that card loop of playing two cards to do the top action on one and the bottom on the other. It just makes for a fascinating puzzle that then you can augment and optimize with items and figure out what is going to work best for you.

Final Thoughts on a Campaign Game

The scope and epic nature of the experience really pull me in. And they are some of the best stories I’ve found in a game. Now, the experience won’t be for everyone. And I think the biggest reason is that sometimes they are just harder to get to the table. If you’ve watched Malts and Meeples, you know I like to play them there. But without a gaming table, I have one now, it is a lot of work to set-up and tear down every time for one to two hours of gaming.

But if you can find a group, I believe that they are worth checking out. And there are so many themes out there. I look at what I have coming in, Frosthaven another game in the Gloomhaven world. Then HEL: The Last Saga a fantastical Viking mythological game. ISS Vanguard is an epic space exploration adventure. Rogue Angels when that comes out is going to be a more boots on the ground dungeon crawl space game. So there is likely a theme for everyone out there, including lighter fantasy like Adventure Tactics or Cora Quest for the whole family.

What is your favorite campaign game?

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Player Count: 3-4 Player
Game Length: 30 Minutes Per Player
Age: 13+
Theme: Steam-Punk/Fantasy
Game Type: Area Control
Game Mechanics: Area Control, Combat, Variable Player Powers
Link: Aldarra Campaign – February 22nd

Disclaimer: Aldarra was sent to me to preview/review as a prototype copy. This is an unpaid preview.

Aldarra Game Play Highlights

Let’s talk real quick about how this game works. It is an area control game where you build up your fleet, spread out, get resources, and then build out more. All the while, you bump into the other factions, fighting over land areas that are the most tempting and trying to stop your opponents from collecting more than you can.

You can see video of the game play here below. Note the video gives you an idea of how the game works and if it might be right for you. Arcane Minis reached out to me to do this preview for them, but they have someone else doing a rules video that will teach you how to play. Check that out on the Kickstarter. My video is to show you how the game works.

The two rules we messed up were that the Syndicate only captures when they attack. And that you need an engineer when you build an outpost. The second one might have changed the game slightly, but I’ve had a chance to explore it mor since, and the recording needed to get scheduled when I could.

Exploration

While Aldarra is mainly an area control game, there are some pieces that stand out outside of the norm. I’ll talk a bit more about what it compares to later. One of the things that everyone I played with really liked was the exploration. It is an action that you want to do if you can, and you might even plan ways to do it, if you aren’t getting into a fight.

At the end of your turn, you can explore an area that hasn’t been explored, marking that it is now explored. And the exploration might give you money, it might give you a choice, roll a die and get a ship or lose a ship. There are ones that you keep in your hand that force enemies to come attack you on your turn, getting you an extra combat.

But, every time that you flip over one of these cards, it feels special. It feels like you are getting something that no one else has. And yes, there are repeats on the exploration cards. And I wouldn’t mind seeing a few more and a bit of wording cleaned up, but it felt good every time you explored.

Secondary Objectives

Similar to Exploration, Secondary Objectives add to the feeling of difference in the game. When I get a secondary objective, it means that I get a goal that no one else has. Yes, again, there are repeats, but with how many you see in the game, I didn’t feel like it was too many of them.

I also like when a game gives you secondary objectives like this because that gives me, as a player, some direction. If I need to get two frigates onto slip streams, now I know what to build for my next turn. Maybe I need to win a combat with only frigates, I can do that. If I need to start a combat with less troops than you have, I can do that. And all of these objectives give you more points. And getting to twenty points and past to trigger the end is the name of the game.

Disciplines

So, this is another thing that makes you feel different. And I think that is one real strong suit of this game making you feel different. It’s kind of in the vein of something like Blood Rage where you become more variable in what you can do as you go along in the game. But in Aldarra, you start with variable player powers, and then become more unique as you go.

And disciplines are the way that you do that. I really like how the different ones work, some of them just let you upgrade a ship. And those are amazing and very important for the game. But others give you different bonuses. Like enemies must attack a building first. Might sound odd, but it means I can pummel them more with my ships that way.

The Scale of the Game

If you checked out the video, you probably saw how massive the game was on the table. We really couldn’t show off the player boards, and that was with my camera up as high as possible. This is a massive game. And I think that helps it out. Now, it might not help the price point of the game, but you are getting a lot of massive minis which look amazing.

But, I will say, the scale of the game, the size of the board and size of the minis, it’s great. It makes the game feel that much more epic. And while it makes the board very full, it isn’t too busy. Again, the size of the minis I think helps. It makes it really easy to see what ships are what. Though, sometimes the frigates can hide behind bigger ships.

Aldarra feels like a game that I’d take to my local game store, the one that serves food, set it up and play a massive game, taking our time, eating a meal, and having a drink while I play it. Or pull it out at a convention and play it as people walk by to checkout what th is game is. And that just makes Aldarra feel so epic.

Who Is This Game For?

Area control fans, it is going to be great for you. Aldarra forces you to be in each other’s faces, and that is great. This is where I’m going to compare it to a number of games. For me, Aldarra is a mash-up for Cry Havoc, Risk, and Small World. Yes, it’s dudes on a map and rolling dice for combat like risk, but it’s so much more. It has a small board size so you can’t turtle like in Small World, but there is more. And the combat going in different waves and the different faction powers, plus building your hand of cards, all remind me over Cry Havoc.

This is a game where you will get your troops just decimated from time to time. But with how you rebuild you are never out of it. If you made it to the end of the game play, you’ll see that I was behind by a bit. And you’ll see my troops just get destroyed. But, I built back up and had a fairly strong last turn. And if the game went one more round, I would have had an extremely strong follow-up turn. And everyone is fighting everyone. So even in a three player game, ganging up on a single player will never be the best strategy.

Aldarra Initial Impressions

This is a fun massive game that will take a while to play. If you look at the time of the YouTube video, you’ll see that we didn’t make it into the thirty minutes per player range. Now, there are two factors that certainly aided in the length of our game play. Playing on camera always takes longer. You talk through your turns more. And we aren’t that experienced with the game. I could see getting close to 90 minutes for a three player game when you know the game.

I also think that a lot of people will see Aldarra and worry about how complex the game is since it looks so big. While We did think that wording maybe could be clarified on some cards the game play itself, very simple. And not in a bad way, but they lay out everything that you do on the player board. And they lay out what terrain types do. I think it is a game I could not play for a year and still remember mainly how to play it. There aren’t a lot of games this big that is the case.

I do wonder a little bit about the size. Now, the size of the game makes it extremely epic. And honestly, I don’t know that I’d want the game to be any smaller. When I bring five ships into an area and they barely fit, or don’t really all fit onto the area, that feels great. But know that this is a table hog. That was about two-thirds of my gaming table that was covered with it. And I don’t have a small gaming table. But giant air ships fighting, it’s so good.

Final Thoughts

To me this is a fun and accessible area control game. Like I said, I can feel the influence of the area control that has come before. And now Aldarra takes it to the skies in a literally big way. I like area control, but I don’t always have a ton in my collection. Confrontation can be tough, but this one, because there’s no way to not be in everyone’s face like Small World, it feels a lot better.

Aldarra might be too light for some. Though, I think that more people are going to find it a good thing. So if you want a big game with big minis and an epic feel, this game might be the one for you.

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Pros

• Amazing Theme
• Amazing Components
• Cooperative Game
• Can get Base Game as well as Expansion

Cons

• Expansion
• Price

The Page

This is a company that has run successful Kickstarters before, and you can tell that in this page. They have a really nice blurb at the top to kind of sell you on the idea of the game. They show you how it’s played in a video by Watch It Played and Rodney Smith, they have quotes and their BGG rating for the base game listed.

Then they do a good job of showing you what’s in the expansion and the new things that are added to the game. I think this is a pretty standard Kickstarter page, but that means that it sells the game well.

There are a couple of knocks I have on it, they again do most of their text in and on images. This isn’t accessible, and while they do a great job of keeping the font and text fairly large, it doesn’t scale perfectly for phones. I know it might not be graphic design 101 to not have text on images, but it’s web design 101, and this is on a website. The other thing is that while we have a video on how the base game is played, the information on rule additions or changes from the expansion aren’t laid out.

The Game

Let me start out by saying, I have the base game. So for that reason I’m interested in the expansion.

But I do like what the game does. I like the dice rolling to see what actions you can take and even if an action isn’t ideal you have things to do. I like that the actions are extremely thematic to the books. In them you have to research an epic and that’ll make it easier to defeat them. There’s just a lot of the theme that works for me.

From what I know of the base game, it is extremely challenging but generally a lot of fun. I haven’t played my copy yet. And this expansion helps dial that back a little bit by fixing a few of the extremely tough Epics (superheroes) in the game. Plus I like that the expansion is modular so you don’t need to use all of it if you don’t want.

Back or Brick

For me, when I heard about this a few days before the launch, I knew I was going to be very interested in it because of how much I love the book series and for that fact that this isn’t going to hit retail. Now, there will still be opportunities to get the expansion at conventions or directly from the company, but I wanted to get it this way if I could. So for me this is a Back. I think that the stuff it adds, from what I can tell, seems fun and adds more to the game but isn’t necessarily adding more complexity, in fact might make it easier. And I’m really excited for the new bosses to face because there are three in the series and just to deal with them.

How about for you, is this game a back or a brick for you?

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