ISS Vanguard

Let’s touch on a topic that I talked about at the end. Is this a good solo game?

My answer is yes, I do think that this is a good solo board game. But I suspect that it might be a better with more players. There are a few reasons for it, mainly surrounding the idea that it’s a pretty big concept game and story. So I think that more minds keeping track of everything will hold the story better.

I also wonder about controlling more things. This reminds me a bit of Tainted Grail or Gloomhaven. I think both are good solo, but I prefer them multiplayer. Why, because there is just enough upkeep that it helps to have more people. Running the ship book, dealing with the planets, all of those things will be slightly easier with more people.

The difference with that is how supplies are used up on the ships. You play with more total dice in play so you can split up and get more done faster that way. But to travel distances, that spends dice and requires refreshing of dice. There are ways around it, but I think you’d get more done, but might have less ability to all swarm locations, if that makes sense.

So, ISS Vanguard is a game I would consider playing with four people. Not always the case with campaign games. I also would play three or two player and probably play two handed if we had two to make sure all four characters are in use. It’d change the same some, but I think in a good way.

Upcoming Streams

So next Wednesday that is going ot be up in the air. I potentially will be starting Isofarian Guard, that’s likely my next campaign game. But there is also a strong chance I won’t have a chance to learn the rules yet for Isofarian Guard over this weekend. If that’s the case, it might be the time where I actually open up the Pokemon cards. Or I might be playing a game, I’ll try and get that figured out by the time I stream on Monday.

And Monday is going to be more My City Roll and Build, and yes I did mess up my scoring at the end there. But I’ll be playing more of that. It’ll be continuing where we left off. And I’m excited to play My City Roll and Build. So join me on Malts and Meeples at 8:30 PM Central time for that gaming.

And, again, if you want to know when I go live or a new video goes up (it’s basically always live), please consider subscribing. You can do that here. And click that notification bell on the channel and you’ll always know when I go live.

Send an Email
Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

Unfortunately I can’t drop in anything more than I link, like I do with Kickstarter for the page, you can find it here.

Pros

• Space Theme
• Great Track record
• Exploration period
• Campaign Game
• Leveling, upgrading
• Ship and planet parts of game
• Aesthetic/Graphic Design

Cons

• Cost & shipping

Page

This is Awaken Realms, and this is their own crowdfunding site, it is going to look good. They know what to throw up to get people to check it out, and they’ve been advertising this a ton. I think it’s important to note that, because it’s been launched for all of an hour and 5 minutes on their own platform and it is at $467,000. Now that’s a lot of money, this game is going to make a ton of money for them, but it’s a risk because I’d guess this would be over a million or near that, if it was on Kickstarter.

But besides that little note, Awaken Realms really knows how to create a great looking game and a great looking page. Tainted Grail had a nice dark moody look to it that matches the game, this page gives you that sense of excitement and largeness of the game and space. And while certainly, from some of the playthroughs if you check them out, things can go wrong, this game looks like it’s less dark and more about the massiveness of space, exploration and adventure.

I also like that with this new layout the pledge levels aren’t off to the side, you can see what you’re pledging when you go through the whole process and the page has bookmarks/navigation along the side for more than just risks. This whole page looks really nice and functional for what I need. And now, I will say, the playing section, that part as I always say, I want it higher and more, but Awaken Realms generally has done a great job with games, so I don’t need as much from them, they have done a great job with getting playthroughs out.

The Game

This game has a lot of things that attract me to it. There is dice rolling, which isn’t one of them. I don’t’ mind dice rolling, but the fact that you’re rolling dice and that’s a bit part of the game on the planets doesn’t have me super excited. Now, I don’t think that it’s going to be a bad part of the game, but I like a lot of mitigation of the dice rolls, or better yet card play, but there also seems to be some of that as well, or planning that comes with it.

I do really like how the game is split into two phases, there is the ship phase. You’re doing things around the ship, playing through that book so that you can get ready for the next planet that you decide to go to, and you have a wide variety of planets to go to that you can pick form. You can upgrade the crew, the lander, the ship itself, you can do a lot of different things, heal up, whatever it might be, and that’s a big part of this big game, so I do get my euro piece to it which apparently I want.

Then you get down to the planet, and there’s a ton of story, you’re exploring, looking for things, trying to complete missions, fight aliens and monsters and ideally not die, but let’s be honest, it’s an Awaken Realms game, you’ll die at least 4 times. And you can go back to planets again, but whatever state you left that planet in is what it’ll be like when you get back there again, which I think is really interesting and makes the game feel even more epic than it would have otherwise.

Back or Brick

Not going to draw this out, this was an instant back for me. I signed up for the notification when this was put up on Gamefound right away when they announced that they were going to do their own crowdfunding site. And the question I had for myself was minis or not. I did end up going with the minis because they look amazing, Awaken Realms did minis before board games, but they feel like they’ll add more to the immersive experience of the game.

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

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

For me, this is a short campaign, not a big massive game, but something that you can play when you want to play a horror based game for a little bit. You could certainly put this towards the end of a longer campaign, basically, survive this and meet the final boss, but you’d have to make whatever is causing the issue not play in the normal rules of the game, because you’ll probably have some higher level spell casters.

This game is about one last run, one last mission for a group of mid level characters, 5-12 range, where they know that they are doing, they aren’t experts, but they aren’t bad, and they, for a hook, have been brought in for a big score, one dangerous mission, Hell’s Run.

Hell’s Run is a shipping run up the coast of the continent, through an area where the veil between worlds is thinner and strange things happen. But the score of this mission is going to be worth it, it’s a retirement mission for everyone on the ship, including the captain of the ship, and have the players create the captain. Give them the parameters that this is someone that they all know and care about and let them create them and create a back story for them.

Immediately on the voyage things needs to start going wrong. Food spoils that shouldn’t have spoiled because it was packed wrong, a crew member becomes sick while another goes crazy, weird things are happening before they even get to Hell’s Run. But nothing so bad that they can’t complete the mission, this is still a driving factor for the Captain and for most of the crew, though some will want to mutiny, if they can do it, again, it’s retirement and fame. As they get further along, the disease should crop up again on a few crew members and something or someone, probably the first mate, should end up going overboard in the night and be lost at see, even though they are a veteran sailor and the weather was fine.

That first whole part is about building suspense and you can go as fast or as slow through it as you’d want. I’d recommend this being a couple sessions, that should build tension and kind of build in a claustrophobia. Have the players do things to try and cleanse or stop whatever is happening, and still have stuff happen. Have the crewmen say odd things and the Captain start to slowly and subtly change on them.

Then we get to Hell’s Run. It’s called that, obviously, because some malevolent force is on the other side of that veil, probably brought there to protect whatever the players are after by creating this treacherous sea lane.

This is where you get to have fun with it, it should be fairly obvious by now that there’s someone who is sabotaging the ship, and have that ramp up big time and make it even more obvious. More crew members getting sick, and while it doesn’t kill fast, it’s basically always fatal, and start rolling at the end of each session to see if a player character gets sick. If one does, just let that player know with a few details of how to play it and when to start showing it. And have the Captain go insane and possibly someone become possessed, as the DM, this is one of those times where it’s you against the players, kind of, you won’t shoot down a crazy idea still, but you’re going to make it hard for them and who knows if all of them will survive.

Now, have some fun with the horror elements. I’m not thinking, for the most part, of using random ghosts or stuff the players can fully fight. If there’s some tragedy in a backstory of a player, dead parents, whatever it might be, play with that for the horror elements. Give them things to fight that then disappear, give them monsters that make no sense, visions and the ship changing on them so one day the sails are white the next they’re read. All the potatoes turn into turnips that bleed, which might just be beets, but as much as it’s meant to be horrific, make it crazy and disturbing as well, all the while, slowly whittle down the crew, have them die in various ways, and do a lot of it off screen. Have the players find the weird stuff that leads them to a dead crew member, not witness it themselves.

Then when a player gets sick, see what the players can figure out. See how they react to the situation, see how they search for a solution. If they have someone who can cure a disease, let them, but this is a game taking place on a ship where things are going missing and being destroyed, healing a disease will work for some time, but eventually they’ll run out of components needed, unless there’s a Paladin, where, maybe play around with the rules of the disease, make it a curse instead or an alien entity in the body that needs a living host to survive.

Play this out for a handful of sessions and then reach the promised land with whatever crew there is left. With the Captain, if he’s still around after going insane and probably making some crew walk the plank or something like that. And I’ll leave it up to you if there’s a return voyage home. Maybe it’s a paradise they find on the other side and they decide to stay. Maybe they just make it through the weird visions and what’s known as Hell’s Run and find themselves on the river Styx and sailing into hell itself. Or they could do a voyage back, I’d probably not do that unless you’re planning on making it go even faster.

This game is meant to be dark, so warn your players ahead of time. I haven’t talked about it much because I tend to play with close friends who I know will let me know if I’ve gone too far, or we tend to keep it quite lighthearted, but there’s a concept known as the “X Card” basically, it’s an agreement that if something at the table, some role play or whatever it might be, is making someone uncomfortable, they can touch the X card (if it’s physical) or just say something like “End Scene” and the scene will end and the it’ll move onto the next thing, no questions asked. For running a horror game, there is some buy-in that things will make you uncomfortable at times, but definitely set-up an “X Card” of some sort for this game so players or DM always can move it along to a new scene, no questions asked.

Would you play in a game like this? Do you like elements of horror or strong horror themes in your games?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

One of the YouTube Channels that I follow, Rolling Solo, is doing a Kickstarter preview for Frosthaven. He’s doing a bigger preview but starting with the component overview. I’m not going to share all of his videos, but definitely worth checking out.

I’m glad I had something to talk about because we have to wait an extra week for it to come out to Kickstarter

I’ll do highlights, but it’s very visual so it’s worth checking out.

• The map looks amazing. The artwork is beautiful for it.
• We have Radiant Forest, Frozen Pass, Imperial Mountains, Frosthaven, Coppernet Mountains, Whitefire Woode, Crystal Fields are areas
• A-R and 1-12 Grid (216 squares)
• He talks about 1 per square in terms of adventures, but Gloomhaven didn’t do that, so I don’t think it’ll have that many more scenarios
• So many buildings in the outpost
• 10 buildings already built, probably another 30 or so that aren’t built
• The outpost artwork is amazing as well, feels like it’s somewhat a Norse and Celtic feel to it
• Characters look great, smallest handsize is 7, which is the Geminite, but it’s two hands of 7, otherwise 10.
• Lowest health is 14 for Deathwalker and Necromancer
• Minis are definitely prototype level, but the sculpts are pretty well polished in terms of general sculpt
• Monsters look the same in terms of the monster card
• Ruined Machine stands out as an interesting character and different
• Punch boards for lands, overlays, and monsters look similar to Gloomhaven
• Looks like a ship location
• Detail is definitely higher than the previous punch boards
• Fairly limited in terms of tiles, but enough to get a good idea
• Have character cards, monster cards, but most interestingly a few loot cards to look at
• In the demo stuff that was sent out, a lot of the monsters are using elemental
• Monster cards are fairly limited, I expect more diversity possibly later
• Loot cards can give you single, two, three, or five coins
• Loot cards will be in a created 20 card deck per scenario
• Loot cards can be herbs and other building supplies
• Art on the loot cards is solid, but not as good as the updated art on the tiles
• Shows Level 1 and Level X cards for each character
• Necromancer can get a lot of shambling skeletons out there
• Focused on getting your summons to attack for the Necromancer
• Geminate has a new symbol on it
• Geminate uses a lot of elements
• Geminate has a state, so ranged or close combat and the new symbol lets you know when you can switch
• Banner Spear is a little more straight forward from the look
• Blink Blade has interesting combo of faster speeds and slower speeds
• Really interesting how the slow and fast works ,including details for it
• Deathwalker has a Shadow keyword
• Shadows seem like they can move
• Deathwalker can teleport
• Shadow seems like it might work somewhat similar to the voids from the Forgotten Circles expansion

There’s a bunch to pull out of here but not a ton that is massively new, but we will get to see a bit of a playthrough of how it works coming up. There are more previews as well from the likes of Quackalope Games, and I believe that Tantrum House is going to have a preview as well. If you’re on the fence, this will certainly be a spot to check it out.

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.