Catch up here:

Rogue Angels Mission 1, Mission 2, Mission 3, Mission 4

Rogue Angels – New Cards and Companions

This whole mission was about getting new cards to play with and then a new companion. The companion is in Part 6 versus the getting the cards in Part 5. But either way, it’s two new elements of Rogue Angels for us to talk about.

These are not legacy elements of the game. They are campaign elements but not legacy. Nothing about them is destructive in terms of a Pandemic Legacy or Risk Legacy. You just pick a group of cards that you get, and you don’t end up with the other. The same for the companion. Though, I suspect with the companion, you get them either direction that they go. They are a simple addition to a mission.

The tech cards versus the weapon cards can help shape your group. Now some of them, one, can be used as a very effective weapon. But it works with a character at a cost. You spend one of your tokens. Now Tarira is heavily focused on damage so it’s going to be a great option for her. But it’s still a strong card for it’s basic ability. So I’m excited to see it in a mission and see what it can do.

I also like that with the cards it limits how many you can have. I might never get beyond two tech cards per player added. So it might be a moot point. But as the game goes on, you’ll unlock additional cards. And those cards are going to make you make choices. 7 starting cards plus two more cards is all that you can have. If you play with four players you’ll have more opportunities to bring more cards, but at two, I’m already maxing out both characters hands.

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I stream at 9 PM Central. That is sometimes a bit hit or miss, but that’s the goal. And I do small solo game plays. The schedule is, right now, going to look like gaming every other Monday. A chance to see people in person came up for Monday and as much as I like streaming, it’s good to socialize as well.

On Wednesdays, well, I said that I plan to play at least 10 games of Rogue Angels. This is going to continue how I play my solo campaign games on the channel. My goal, play four different campaigns 10 times each. It’s tricky, but I think that I can do it. That is at 8 PM Central time for the campaign games.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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Rogue Angels – The Characters

Let’s talk about the characters and how they differ in this game. It’s another area where I think the game can shine. You see me play with two characters in the game, but there are so many more. There are 16 different heroes that you can play as. And I like that variety in the game because right now I have two pretty different types of heroes.

Taria is my tank of a character. She is best at attacking and can hit from a long distance. Even her movement card that’s stronger is about her moving into range and doing damage. She also has an area affect damage that she can do which makes her better when she finds herself surrounded.

Gia on the other hand, they are more on the stealth and tactical side of the game. Yes, Gia can dish out some damage when need be, but their cloaking and their ability to interact with objects at range really sets them up to be the one who infiltrates areas.

Now, those show two of them like I said before. And right now I’m just playing with two because it makes it easier on me. In the prototype box there are a total of four characters to play. And you might see some or one of them later on. Why, because Rogue Angels is about getting attached and roll playing your characters. But survival is not guaranteed. When you die, you pick a new character. So the campaign continues just with someone new for you.

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I stream at 9 PM Central. That is sometimes a bit hit or miss, but that’s the goal. And I do small solo game plays. That is going to be interspersed with learning to paint. I am not going to be teaching you how to paint, I’m going to be learning myself. So join me on Monday for solo gaming or painting.

On Wednesdays, well, I said that I plan to play at least 10 games of Rogue Angels. This is going to continue how I play my solo campaign games on the channel. My goal, play four different campaigns 10 times each. It’s tricky, but I think that I can do it. That is at 8 PM Central time for the campaign games. The next part of Rogue Angels can be found coming up here.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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Join me as I play Rogue Angels. I plan on playing it around 8 PM Central time every week, at least 10 weeks, over on Malts and Meeples YouTube. What story will I find, how will the characters I play progress in this prototype of Rogue Angels. Thanks to Emil Larson for sending it my way and I’m excited to show it off.

Rogue Angels

Well, I have ten weeks to talk about this, which means that I’m going to be hitting on different aspects each week. And I love Rogue Angels. I’ve played it on Table Top Simulator a few times. And now I get to play it in real life. Even though this is only a prototype, it is a game that will be in my Top 100 next year. My rule is that I need to play a game in person, or with a physical copy, and I have now.

So let’s preview some of what is going to be coming up that I’ll talk about over the next handful of weeks.

• Character Stories
• Campaign Story
• Card Play System
• Enemy AI System
• Maps and Set-up System
• And More

Today I want to start by talking about the campaign story. I know, it likely would make more sense to do characters first, because that is the one I had at the top. But I want to explore that more with you as I play, the campaign story, I’ve seen more of.

Campaign Story

I think how Emil handles the story is an interesting way. I know the first time that I played with him and talked with him, one of the big things was how the story was meant to be interspersed like cut scenes. So it isn’t a big block of text and then some third person dialog at you. It’s just dialog with a little bit of description thrown in so you know the setting. But the setting and all of that, that is mainly on the board.

Compared this to other games, let’s go with Gloomhaven and Frosthaven, when you go on a mission, get into a scenario there, it’s a lot of text up front. Frosthaven does a better job of mixing in more story throughout, but most of the heavy lifting is information up front. Rogue Angels it’s just dialog. You see what you need to see because of the scenario.

What does this do for the game? Well, I think that it helps keep you immersed in the game and setting. Both do in their own way, but Rogue Angels is more about that action, that interaction. And you see that with a lot of faction specific stuff. When you interact with talking to people and making decisions off of groups that it going to determine things like your favor more so.

Is one better than the other, I’m not sure. I like how both do it, but I think that it’s worth talking about how Rogue Angels is different. And it plays into the type of game that it is or I expect it to be. I already have come across character choices and more personal choices on who you like, than in Gloomhaven. So it’s probably more like Role Player Adventures that way.

Upcoming Streams

It’ll be tomorrow where I breakdown what is going to be happening on Mondays. To checkout the article that comes out there. But I do plan to keep streaming at 9 PM Central time. And most of it is going to be playing solo games that are one offs, or opening cards like it has been.

On Wednesdays, well, I said that I plan to play at least 10 games of Rogue Angels. This is going to continue how I play my solo campaign games on the channel. We’ll see if I am able to get four different campaigns played at least 10 games this year. It’s tricky, but I think that I can do it. That is at 8 PM Central time for the campaign games. The next part of Rogue Angels can be found coming up here.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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Top 5 2023 Gamefound Campaigns

5. Vampire: The Masquerade – Milan Uprising

I want to be more excited about this one and I am excited about a lot of it. The part that I’m less excited about is that it uses the Teburu system. Now that technology I think is interesting and I likely will get it, eventually. But it’s not out yet and my rule of thumb is don’t buy the first generation of a tech project. This is the second campaign for a game for it, and I’m excited to see them adding more games. But while the game, a cooperative 1-4 player game set in the World of Darkness setting, the technology, I want to see an iteration or two of it first.

4. DANTE: The Invasion of Hell

What puts this one on my radar is that it’s from the same company as Chronicles of Drunagor. A game that I want to play more of, but I think it’s a group campaign game. I want to know if DANTE: The Invasion of Hell works better solo? And it does have a solo mode, plus, I like their other game, so this is going to be really interesting. And my guess is that this is going to be another big game. Campaign games are a weakness of mine, so DANTE also hit on that, if it looks like a good game to play on Malts and Meeples it is going to make it even more tempting to play.

3. Thorgal: The Board Game

Based off of a video game that I don’t really know, this is a cooperative storybook adventure game, much like my #4. This one looks much smaller which I appreciate. And I’m curious to know more about it. It’s from Portal games. I don’t always gravitate towards everything Portal does, but I’m also interested to see what they are going to try next. And Thorgal, this one is interesting me. Again it’s that cooperative adventure game that can be played solo, and we know I like games like that.

2. Witchbound

I really didn’t know anything about Witchbound going in, and now it is towards the top of my list overall. I’m going to do a list like that at the end of this post for Top 5-7 games. But it’s a solo story driven game about becoming the first witch in over 100 years. That is exactly my sort of game. I like the theme of the game, I love the artwork that I’m seeing, and overall, I think I’d really enjoy it.

Plus it seems like a shorter play time which if it’s a bunch of little bites of game play over several sessions, that’s great and what I’m looking for often versus the two hours of some of the bigger campaign games that can be played solo.

1. Elder Scrolls

This one is pretty easy to pick because it’s based off of a system that I like, Too Many Bones, with a theme that I find interesting, and a company I really like. This is going to be a premium game with an IP so I expect a big price tag for it, but I’m going to likely back it, just to see if it’s for me. Chip Theory really doesn’t disappoint and they always have a strong fan base, so I’m excited for this game.

And I’m excited to see how they can bring as big a world as Elder Scrolls into a board game. It seems like it’ll be a campaign game, but one where you can mix and match different campaign elements together or go through different shorter stories, so not a massive campaign.

I find it interesting that with the five games from Gamefound all of them are cooperative games that have caught my eye. Really, it shouldn’t be a surprise, I love cooperative story driven games that can be played solo. All of these fall into that category, some of them are very big, and others less so, but at least I’m consistent.

Top 3 2023 Backerkit Campaigns

3. Leder Games Project

So like I said, it’s a bit thin on Backerkit. That means that we get from them. And one of them is this Leder Games project. It’s on the list because when Leder Games puts out a game, I am interested in it. Even if it isn’t going to be for me. I’m not that interested in trying Vast, but the game itself sounds interesting. And that means that I’m going to check out what this is when they announce it officially.

I think I’ve heard rumors, and I might be off on this, but an easier to get to the table Oath style game was in the works. But honestly, I might be making that up, there’s a lot of news and I’m just doing it off of memory. If it is, it’s maybe one that I’d pass on, but it could also catch my fancy if it’s easier to table.

2. Wild Gardens

One of the few out there that has any information on it. I’d probably have the Leder Games project above this one if I knew more about it. But Wild Gardens looks like a pretty game of resource collection and completing goals. I’m not sure what else is going on in it. But looking at the cover, it’s a pretty game, and the artwork throughout the game looks great as well. I hope that the game play matches the artwork and is a nice relaxing game to play.

1. Gloomhaven Minis and RPG

Easily my Top 1 over there. You know that I love Gloomhaven and I will say right now, I am not backing the minis. You can hold me to that, but I do not need the minis nor would I really  have use for a lot of them. It’d just make Gloomhaven and Frosthaven harder to play. But I want to know more about the RPG.

I haven’t looked into it too much yet. I know that it is built around card play, or can be, like you have in Gloomhaven. And I’m hoping that they give you tactical opportunities for combat and then a lot of theater of the mind and opportunities to role play as well. If it’s just mainly combat focused with a bit of role playing thrown on top, I’m less interested. But I’ll definitely be looking into this one more.

Top 5 2023 Kickstarter Campaigns

5. Crown of Ash

This is one that I keep on seeing advertisements for on Facebook and is one that definitely interests me. Crown of Ash is an area control and worker placement game. But it isn’t a game that is stuffed full of big minis or things like that, it looks like a more reasonably sized game. I’m not sure it’s one for me, but I want to learn more about it. The cover is striking and overall, if it’s a good area control game and the worker placement makes sense, it might be one that I want to play. Area control and in your face isn’t my normal style, but I am curious about it.

4. Rove

So there was a fan expansion that I want to get for Gloomhaven, The Crimson Scales. It’s something that was created, with the blessing of Isaac Childres to work with his system. And it sounds really cool. Rove is from that designer who is now branching out and making his own game. It’s a big box 1-4 player cooperative fantasy RPG in a box. I’m interested in that. No shock to anyone there.

And I want to know what someone who has done work related to Gloomhaven can come up with. Because I fully expect this isn’t going to be a dice chucking giant campaign like Sword & Sorcery, so how are the lessons learned from The Crimson Scales going to build into this new game?

3. Stonesaga

It helps to put this on the list having played it. And I believe the beta playtesting is going on right now, if people want to check it out. But this is a cooperative game where you are playing as cave dwellers who are advancing their society, building up, and well, dealing with giant monsters that are a threat to the board.

This is a legacy game, which is fun, and one that has story and campaign on it, but it reminds me more of the level of story of a My City or Charterstone. The story matters, and they integrate missions better and story challenges better, but it only matters so much. Plus the artwork on this one is just great and when OOMM Games puts something out I’m interested.

2. Marvel United Multiverse

Should this be number one? I don’t know. I don’t need more of the game. But Marvel United is such an easy game to get to the table that I definitely want more of the game. I love the IP with Marvel, it works well for the type of game it is. And it’s a good cooperative game that I can pull out and play with almost anyone. It isn’t too light for gamers because the game is fast. And it isn’t too heavy for non-gamers.

Plus it doesn’t matter if Groot is your favorite character, Wolverine, Iron Man, or whomever, you can sit down and play as your favorite Marvel character. And I think that’s great about it, this is just going to be even more. Like I said, I don ‘t need more, but it doesn’t make the game harder to table, which is great.

1. Rogue Angels

Again, this one hopefully will be coming back to Kickstarter or some crowdfunding platform in 2023. I put it here, I just got to play another scenario and I still love the game. The characters are so much fun, and while similar, different in what they can handle. We lost part of the scenario I played on Sunday but were able to be the overall mission. You fail forward into the story versus redoing a scenario over and over and over again.

And the game play, every time that I sit down and play it, I can pick it back up again, which is great. All of that while having a lot of story, being cooperative, you know I’m in. I think it’s one that would work well for Malts and Meeples as well. It’s a big campaign, but it isn’t a sprawling table hog like some big campaigns.

Top 5 Upcoming Crowdfunding Campaigns

Let’s face it, these are mainly going to be cooperative adventure driven games. But out of the 13 that I have, sorry Backerkit we couldn’t get to 5. Which ones are the ones that I am most interested in.

1. Rogue Angels
2. Elder Scrolls
3. Marvel United Multiverse
4. Stonesaga
5. Witchbound

What Crowdfunding Campaigns Are You Most Interested In?

Let me know which ones interest you the most? Are there any crossover, do you want to get all the minis for Gloomhaven, it would be awesome, or is that just too much? Are there any that I missed. I was trying to find everything that I could, but I won’t lie, it’s tricky.

And even some of them, like Crown of Ash is one that was supposed, I believe, to come out in 2022. Rogue Angels did, but then needed to relaunch. So it’ll be interesting to see what comes up and where everything lands. Checkout other creators, like BoardGameCo I think does a quarterly list of things, though might be doing a yearly list of Top 10 he’s most excited for across everything. So let me know what I missed that you think I might like.

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This really gives you an idea of how the combat works in the game. It does have less to do with some of the other things in the game, like skill checks. I talk about the game in more details on my Crowdfunding Preview which you can find here.

But I like that this is more combat focused this time. It shows off for myself, as a player, how the game can do a lot of different things. And Emil and I talked after about playing more and looking at some scenarios in there that aren’t so combat focused to help show off the system.

Rogue Angels After A Break

I do want to talk about a bit of my experience coming back to Rogue Angels after now playing it since October. Mainly about how accessible the game is. For me that’s a question for any campaign style game. When I play it and then the holidays happen, maybe someone is sick, it goes a month or a month and a half without a session, is the game easy to play.

And I thought it was pretty easy to get back into. Now, I did have the designer which certainly helps with getting back into the swing of things. But the basic mechanics are easy to get back into. What you will see is that my memory with how taking damage works is a bit fuzzier. And even at the end as I talk about scars, I was getting it wrong.

Rogue Angels, though, feels easier to get back to the table than something like Gloomhaven would if I played a session and then just let it sit. When playing through Gloomhaven I did have a couple of longer breaks in there, and I was able to pick it up again easily, just for a reference, but that was while we mid campaign. Rogue Angels is definitely going to be easier.

Live Stream

Let me know your thoughts on this live stream. It is definitely something that I’d love to do more. Work with more designers or other content creators, play games over TTS. Or maybe even dive into a Gloomhaven video game campaign as well? Is this content that was fun to watch?

I know it came together at the last second. We were planning on going live on Discord and just sharing a screen that way. But I set-up my sharing quickly, so let me know if it worked. I’m sure that I could navigate TTS a little bit better. But is seeing content like this useful for you? Did it give you an idea of how the game, Rogue Angels, will play, even without having a physical copy to see played?

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Introduction To Previews

Before I dive in, let’s talk about a few things, what is a Crowdfunding Preview? I think that for a lot of gamers, they want to learn about games that are coming to Crowdfunding, but I haven’t had many chances to preview anything before. So, I wrote up some of what my plans for doing previews are, and what you can expect from them, here.

The big thing is that I want to let you know about a game, I am not going to tell you to buy it or not. I am not going to do a review on the game, if I do review a game I have previewed, that is separate from the preview. And I will let you know if a game is a paid preview or not, in the case of Rogue Angels this is not a paid preview, but the designer reached out to me asking me if I’d do a preview on the game.

Rogue Angels: Legacy of the Burning Suns

Adventure in a sci-fi world where your decisions really matter. Rogue Angels: Legacy of the Burning Suns (Rogue Angels from here on) is a legacy game where you, either solo or cooperatively, take characters through a journey of exploration, battle, and story. The choices you make will affect your relationships with different groups. They branch out, cutting off some choices and opening up others. Will you survive or will you perish and a new crew member join your ship?

Player Counter: 1-4
Game Length: 60-120 Minutes (per scenario)
Audience Age: 16+
Theme: Sci-Fi Adventure
Game Type: Campaign (Legacy)
Game Mechanics: Action Management, Story, Dice Combat, Combat/Tactical

Crowdfunding: Kickstarter
Launch Date: February 2022 (currently)
Price Point: $100 + shipping

Game Play Highlights

Story

Each scenario, I believe, is going to kick off with story to get you into the scenario. The whole game has narrative throughout each scenario that will give you decisions and progress what your missions on. This is one of the main mechanics of the game, in that the story unfolds as you go along. Compared to other games that contain a grid or hex based movement and scenarios, this limits how much you know about objectives, and those objectives change over time.

Actions

While there are a lot of games out there with stories in them, Rogue Angels also has interesting card play. Each character has a deck of cards. These cards have a “cost” level. When you play down a card, it goes onto a track at it’s cost, or higher. And at the end of your turns, the cards cool down. Some cards have 0 cost, so they come back immediately. While others might cost three, and not be available.

These cards help you do the basic actions in the game. There are attacks that you can, movement to get around the board, but then other much more specialized things. Beyond that, you can also rest to get back cards faster. And while there are basic cards that are similar, each character will have their own special actions or weapons as well.

Dice

The dice are used in a fun way. Cards will allow you to roll dice, and a set number of dice. You can reroll, but some of the cards, rolling the dice will modify the attack or movement so you can move further or deal more damage. What I like is that the dice are never bad, but maybe not what you want. They might give you extra movement, but that might not be useful. It might just modify a number on your card. Or it could give you more defense, which isn’t useful if you don’t need more. So it’s always useful, but it’s not always useful.

You can also push to reroll dice, but that is a limited resource as well. So you can reroll when you are in a high leverage situation, but if you run out of them, it takes actions to get them back, or possibly card play. Either way it is using up what you can do on a turn.

Scaling

Another thing to talk about with Rogue Angels is scaling of the game. The more players you have, the amount of time you have changes in the game. And I believe the number of combatants might change as well. The game is set-up to scale to all the player counts. This isn’t something new, but some of these story driven games expect a certain number of players.

It is a good time to talk about solo game play. This is not a true solo game. By true solo, I mean controlling one character. You need to play with at least two characters when playing solo. I don’t have experience with the solo game, but from my play, I think controlling two characters would not be too difficult. The card play mechanics are simple enough that while it’s an interesting puzzle, you won’t lose what you are doing between turns per character.

Legacy

I think the final thing to talk about with game play is the legacy element of the game. I know for a lot of people, Legacy can be concerning. And for myself, with the game having, I believe, twenty characters, what were the legacy elements? On the cards and character sheets there are spots where you can add in cards. The legacy elements are for the characters only, that means that while you can play with four, you can play it multiple times.

The abilities that you can unlock continue to make your characters more unique as you play. As well as items you find, though those are not legacy in that nothing is done to modify those cards as you get them. The cards all have secondary abilities that can be activated, and that is an area that you can upgrade cards as well.

Who Is This Game For?

I think this game is for people who like games like Mass Effect. Emil Larson uses that as can example of his own as well, and I can definitely get that feel for the game. It progresses through a story, but that story is mature at times. I didn’t run into anything too mature, but there is violence and it is a big in depth story. So if you enjoy that sort of adventure game like Mass Effect, this game might be for you.

Additional Notes

Emil Larson is planning for shipping and production to place in Europe, Germany, if possible. With the current shipping situation, the feeling is that it might alleviate some of that.

Rogue Angels is also not going to have minis. This was done so that using clips and bases health and everything for the combatants would be visible on the standees. It reduces the amount plastic but also the size of the box.

Rogue Angels Initial Impressions

This is an interesting game to me because I like campaign games and I like legacy games. I was very impressed with how the mechanics of the game work, while I’ve seen games do a cool down track to get stuff or to get things back, Star Wars: Rebellion or Oathsworn: Into the Deep Woods. The additional complexity of when you use actions and how you manage that cooldown, though, is an interesting interaction.

I also think that the story was solidly written. I’ve mainly just seen the introductory scenario(s) writing and it is compelling. The story seems to be building and while the start is just getting you into the world, I think that it will develop into something bigger. To me, writing is a question mark, though, most of the time because it depends on taste and style. If you get the chance to try the game on TableTop Simulator, I would recommend at least glancing at the starting story.

The dice, I think, will also give people some hesitation. I do want to reiterate here, and that I liked, that the dice are never bad. They might not give you what you want, but it isn’t a situation where a bad roll can completely stop an attack or movement. Instead, it can just limit how effective it will be. And you have resources to reroll, but they are limited and need to be managed as well.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I think that the play was simple enough to make this game accessible to a lot of people. However, it isn’t so simple that it doesn’t feel like your choices don’t matter. You definitely get to make important decisions and that’s just in using your cards, let alone in the narrative. And the game doesn’t feel lucky, yes, the dice can be lucky, but the dice aren’t the focus. And, the legacy element, for those concerned, doesn’t mean you can only play the game once.

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