Archive for Andreas Propst
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
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Good news everyone!
You can now download, print and play a free Demo version of Bioemchanic Dino Battles at
http://www.biomechanicdinobattles.com/BDB_PnP.pdf
It is basically a complete game for up to 4 players, but with a limited number of cards - one prebuilt setup. If you are a DIY Gamer / PnP enthusiast and are curious about the game do give it a try!
Thanks and cheers,
Andi
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
-
Hello everyone!
Our crafty programmers and web designers worked night and day so we can now proudly present you with the new Biomechanic Dino Battles Website!
Have a look at it at www.biomechanicdinobattles.com !
There is also a forum in which you are more than welcome to post and contribute!
Many thanks to Francesc and Lluis for the great web design job!
Cheers,
Andi
Thu Mar 15, 2012 10:06 pm
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
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After quite a long while (I have been busy with illustrating and other game-related side-projects), BDB hit the table once again. I had my good old gaming buddy Berni over - we played one game which lasted about 70 minutes.
We played with the following (semi-random) setup:
Dinos:
Coelophysis
Dilophosaurus
Struthiomimus
Polacanthus
Diplodocus
Triceratops
Strategies:
Pacify
Sacrifice
Energize
Repair
Strategize
Fury
Data Rush
Quick Strike
Items:
Flamethrower
Deflectaporter
Notes:
- The Dinos were picked at random. The Strategies and Items were selected.
- This setup is a very defensive one with cards like Pacify and Repair. - It is also very Evade and Defend heavy, with only two Strategies/Items requiring Attack to buy (and use): Fury and Flamethrower.
- The Dinos are very Evade-heavy with Coelophysis (cost: E), Dilophosaurus (EE) and Struthiomimus (EEE).
- I removed two must-buy cards from the setup, namely Charge (+1 Draw, +1 Attach. +1 Combat) and Pincer (+1 Draw, +2 Strategy) and replaced them with Energize (+1 Attach, search your deck for a Combat Card and put it into your hand) and Strategize (+2 Strategy, +1 Buy).
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How the game went:
I wanted to try an Evade-based strategy this time, buying Coelophysis (which has 16 EVA)as my first Dino, while Berni bought a Polacanthus.
While Berni grabbed some Pacifies, I aimed for an engine revolving around Strategize, Energize (see above for a description what they do) and Data Rush (+3 Draw).
As a backup I bought Diplodocus which has a whooping 70 Hit Points and a devastating attack (Tail Swipe (cost AED): 30 damage, 5 damage to each benched Dino the opponent controls). Later in the game, through various Strategizes and Energizes I was able to perform that attack on each turn, but alas Berni always had an Evade or Defend card handy to fend off my costly attack.
Before I sent Diplodocus into battle I bought a Struthiomimus which has two great attacks and was a nice fit for my Evade-centered strategy.
Have a look at it (This is the card preview announced in the title of this post  ):
Having 14 Evade, Struthio has a great attack in Swift Strike that is bound to hit against most Dinos. Combined with multiple Energizes pulling off Swift Strike every turn plus saving one Evade card for evading opponent attacks is possible each turn. In theory. In this game I was able to do it once... The other times Berni evaded with his Coelophysis, the only Dino that exceeds Struthio's Evade-value with 16. As there was no card in the setup that gave +1 Combat, I was never able to get through with Struthio's Swift Strike...
At some point Berni started buying Flamethrowers and through an extremely lucky draw in mid-late game, was able to knock out my Struthio (which has only 30 HP) by first "pacifying" the single Evade card I had attached to it and then using two Flamethrowers (each deals 15 damage to the active Dino, and 5 to all benched). In hindsight, I think that one lucky move cost me the game.
I tried to turn the table with Diplodocus using its Tail Swipe Attack, which became increasingly difficult for me as Berni had bought all the available Defend cards. That posed another problem: Having only 2 DEF cards left in my deck, I had no means of defending Berni's Flamethrowers. Maybe I should have invested in Deflectaporters (An Item which can redirect targeted effects)...
So in the end I succumbed to Berni's neverending barrage of Flamethrowers.
Bottom line: A very interesting experience playing without must-buy cards like Megalomania, Charge and Pincer (Strategize became the new must-buy card with this setup - each of us bought 5 of them). The game was tense, nobody knew who was going to win until the very end. Also I want to note that all Combat Cards were gone by mid-game...
Berni enjoyed it a lot again ("Best game ever"  ) and we made Monday our BDB-day. So expect another session report in a week. At the latest...
As always, thank you for reading!
Cheers,
Andi
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
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Yesterday I had the opportunity to play BDB again after quite a break with my good old gaming buddy Berni.
We played two games with the following setup:
Dinos:
Tyrannosaurus
Triceratops
Ankylosaurus
Polacanthus
Velociraptor
Dilophosaurus
Strategies:
Pacify
Repair
Pincer
Data Rush
Sacrifice
Fury
Charge
Quick Strike
Items:
Flamethrower
Deflectaporter
Notes:
- A lot of high-cost Dinos like Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops
- Pacify as the only means of getting extra buys
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Game 1:
I was able to inflict some early Wounds with Velociraptor's "Claw Slice" attack (cost: E, 10 damage, inflict 1 Wound) but Berni started to fight back soon with Polacanthus, using the tried and tested Charge (+1 Draw, +1 Attach, +1 Combat) + Pincer (+1 Draw, +2 Strategy) + Tackle Strategy.
While I inflicted some minor damage with the Quick Strike Strategy card (Let's you perform a free attack for 5 damage) and bought a Dilophosaurus, I was planning on getting a T-Rex. As it costs four Attack cards to buy, I bought some Attacks. Meanwhile Berni, upon my advice, purchased an Ankylosaurus, which is one of my favorite Dinos due to it's useful and versatile attacks (I wrote about him in an earlier post).
I inflicted some Poison on Berni until I could finally buy T-Rex. Alas my plans where foiled by Berni who had been buying a ton of Pacify cards (Discard an attached card from a Dino, +1 Draw, +1 Buy) which he used to make it nearly impossible for me to pull off T-Rex's costly attacks (For example "Tyrant's Maw" costs an incredible AAAA).
By the time I knocked out Berni's first Dino with T-Rex, he had attached 6 (!) Combat Cards to his Ankylosaurus, as you can see below, which he then moved to the fore.
Through the Charge Strategy card, Berni was able to knock out my T-Rex in one fell swoop performing two "Club Blow" attacks with Ankylo on one turn. Left with just one already wounded Velociraptor (The littel guy has only 30 HP to begin with) on my bench, I conceded.
The game took us about 75 minuts.
Notes:
- We wondered if Quick Strike was too weak. At five damage it may seem so, but at 10 it would be obviously overpowered. We pondered about adding +1 Strategy so you could play multiples, but then again it would be quite broken as you could build your deck around it and deal something between 20 and 30 damage for free each turn...
- Nobody ever buys Fury (Strategy, cost: A, +1 Attach, target Dino gets +5 ATK)
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On to Game 2:
In game two Berni and I somewhat switched places strategy-wise. He bought a Velociraptor and I bought Polacanthus for our first Dinos. With the power of the Charge Strategy card I was able to inflict a total of 30 damage to Velo by turn 3, knocking it out already.
Somewhat later in the game Berni bought a Triceratops just for the fun of it. Have a look at the beast:
As you see it has quite impressive attacks (especially Berserk can get quite ugly). However the cost a lot to pull off, so I in turn did the same as Berni did in game 1 and invested in some Pacifies.
I won't go into further detail as for game two. Only so much:
Berni bought a Polacanthus of his own, while Triceratops was neglected on the bench and never sent into battle  , and performed some awesome combos with the aid of the all-powerful pincer.
He finished off my last Dino, a Polacanthus with 30 of 40 HP left with the following Combo:
Pincer (+2 Strategy, +1 Draw), Data Rush (+3 Draw), Pincer, Charge (+1 Draw, +1 Attach, +1 Combat), Charge again. Then he attached and discarded three Attack cards to his own Polacanthus to give mine the rest dealing 30 damage in one fell swoop.
So despite Berni won again, we had some very interesting situations during the game, and that is what counts for me! 
Note:
Somehow I ended up with an incredibly big deck at 39 cards. I still wonder why and how...
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Well that is our latest playtest session for you!
As always, thanks for reading!
Cheers,
Andi
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
-
So this very morning my good friend and favorite neighbor
paid me a visit to play another game of BDB. It was his second game and we played with the same "Semi-Random" setup I used in my last games with Berni (See previous post).
This game was quite interesting. Luki bought a Velociraptor, inflicting some early wounds through its "Claw Slice" Attack (Cost: E, 5 damage, 1 Wound) and I was lucky enough to get my hands on Carnotaurus (A huge 55 HP predator with some very powerful, but costly, attacks).
Soon I retreated my Carno and sent Polacanthus into battle. Luki did the same, switching Velo for a Pola of his own. Both of us, Luki and I, bought lots of Pincers (One of the most underrated cards in my first few games) and Charges to pull off multiple attacks a turn and Pacifies for two reasons: To hamper opponent attacks and to get additional buys. In this setup Pacify was the only card to give +1 Buy.
Before his Polacanthus went KO, I recommended buying Ankylosaurus. Luki did that and when his Pola was gone, he sent Ankylo into battle. It turned out that Ankylo, especially in combination with cards like Charge, that let you perform multiple Attaches and Combat Moves, was a real beast. Have a look at it:
Once Luki was able to pull off both attacks, Club Blow and Smash, on one turn. Either of these attacks are very powerful as you may see on the above card image. Luki had me purge all my 3 initial Attack cards (So i had to spend my precious buys on purchasing additional Attack cards ) and inflicted 2 Paralyze cards to boot.
Ankylo soon killed my lone Polacanthus, which allowed my to push my benched Carnotaurus to the front and (powered by multiple Charges) pull off a deadly and unexpected "Double Horn" Attack (Cost: AAE, 30 damage, 2 Wounds) knocking out that pesky Ankylosaurus of Luki's. As all Dinos were gone from the Offering, it was all or nothing for me. Carno was my last Dino and Luki had a (poisonous) Dilophosaurus and a swift Velociraptor on his bench.
At that point each of us had scored 2 KOs. Luki picked Dilophosaurus as his new active Dino, who was then pitted against my fully healed (I had bought a couple of "Repairs" mid-game) 55 HP Carnotaurus. Luki tried in vain to pull off the only damage-dealing attack Dilopho has, Poison Bite, which costs AEE, deals 20 damage and inflicts one Poison Card.
Alas that plan was foiled by my Pacifies (which let you discard a Combat Card attached to a Dinosaur) and after some turns Luki - in good sportsmanship - conceded...
The game took us about 75 minutes and it was very exciting till the very end. If Luki had purchased another Dino than Dilophosaurus in time (Dilopho is often quite useless in late game) I think he would have won the game.
Overall we enjoyed it a lot, pondered whether or not Ankylo was overpowered (It sure has some unique attacks and maybe "Smash" should discard the Combat Card rather than purging it...) and are looking forward to more games of BDB...
Thanks for reading!
Yours,
Andi
Thu Feb 16, 2012 12:57 pm
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
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It's been a while since I last posted and since I had my last game of BDB. Last weekend I was glad to have my good-old gamer buddy Berni over to get some games in.
We played 2 games with a semi-random setup (meaning I picked cards at random but made some changes to make things more interesting), one taking somewhat short of an hour, the other one and a half hours, which couldn't have been much more different from each other.
Before I get to how the games went, I want to share the setup we used:
Random Setup #2:
Dinosaurs:
Tyrannosaurus
Carnotaurus
Dilophosaurus
Velociraptor
Polacanthus
Ankylosaurus
Strategies:
Pacify
Sacrifice
Repair
Fury
Double Strike
Charge
Pincer
Data Rush
Items:
Deflectaporter
Blinding Grenade
Ok that is it. On to the games:
Game 1:
Game 1 was played fast and furious, with everyone tuning their decks to the max. My goal was to get Tyrannosaurus as soon as possible and start to deal some serious damage with it. A few turns into the game it became evident that Berni was pursueing the very same goal.
So in order to get this 4-Attack-Card-costing Beast as soon as possible, preferably before the other can get a hold of it, the both of us made heavy use of "Sacrifice" purging all kinds of useless cards from our hands and bought a lot of Attack cards.
Berni knocked out my initial Dino (the paralyzing Ankylosaurus) with his Carnotaurus, but a lucky draw allowed me to buy a Tyrannosaurus to replace it just in time!
While I made heavy use of the "Pincer" (+1 Draw, +2 Strategy) plus "Charge" (+1 Draw, +1 Attach, +1 Combat) strategy, Berni bought "Pacifies" in order to disrupt me in accumulating enough Combat Cards to make use of T-Rex's very costly attacks.
Somehow, through a combination of Pincers and Charges (a combination that works just awesome as we discovered), I was able to pull off T-Rex's "Tyrant's Maw", which costs 4 Attack cards and deals an impressive 40 damage while inflicting 3 wound cards to boot, two times in a row, killing off Berni's first and second Carnotaurus.
Berni used a third Carnotaurus to knock out my T-Rex. Wisely enough, I had bought a backup Dino (Polacanthus) earlier on, as we were all out of Dinos by that time. Pola was pefect for defending (Carno has 10 ATK and Pola 10 DEF) and dealing little but steady damage.
In the end, Berni's third Carnotaurus had 20 Hit Points left and my Polacanthus even only 10. Then, in one fell swoop, I played a Pincer and two Charges, attacking with Pola's Tackle twice, which allowed me to score my 3rd KO.
The game was very close again. If Berni had had just one more turn, I would have been toast...
On to Game 2:
We used the same setup as in game 1.
As I mentioned before, game 2 couldnt have been more different from game one. It was like a test of endurance, with great combos being played, seeminlgy endless chains of "Pincer-powered" Strategies (Almost like in Dominion)...
...a lot of back and forth and very large decks instead of small, highly-tuned ones as in the first game. In the end both our decks consistet of about 30 cards each.
The "Repairs" (which heal dino Hit Points) were the first cards that ran out. Especially Berni made heavy use of those which elongated the game to an insane extent. Basically I attacked with my lonely Polacanthus and Berni either evaded or defended, and, if he did not have an Evade or Defend card attached, healed all the damage I had dealt during his next turn using multiple "Repairs".
The whole game became a struggle of endurance, me attacking, Berni, who could not attack at all on most of his turns, as I had been so mean to buy all Attack Cards from the Supply, evading, defending, repairing, the both of us playing insane strategy combos (again I would like to emphasize the importance of Pincer - we underestimated the card in the beginning). The game dragged on and on, although, as one might suspect, it was not boring at any point at all. You could not tell who was going to win until the very last turn...
In the end (all Combat Cards were gone, as were all copies of Repair, Charge and Pincer) Berni was triumphant and knocked out my last and lonely Polacanthus, who had been pestering him for countless turns. A well earned victory.
Have a look at the playing field after "battle":
Berni summed it up quite well:
"Game 1 was totally different from game 2. That is what makes this game so interesting for me."
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So that's about all there is to tell about two games of BDB which couldn't have been more different...
As every time, thanks for reading!
Yours,
Andi
Tue Feb 14, 2012 12:39 am
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
-
Today I was glad to have one of my best friends and neighbour Luki
over to finally play a first game of BDB. We never got around to it before since Luki is studying medicine in Vienna, which obviously takes a lot of time - he was either at his flat in Vienna or had to study at home in our small village of Goldberg. So I was really excited to try the game with him at last. Luki is one of my oldest Magic: the Gathering buddies, a frequent victim of my playtesting sessions and plays Dominion and Dominion: Intrigue regularly. So he brought along a good amount of general gaming experience and was quite familiar with the concept of deckbuilding games.
Teaching BDB to Luki was a piece of cake. It took about 10 minutes for me to explain the rules and for Luki to understand everything. The fact that his English is excellent helped a lot there. So unlike in my previous games with my sister and mother the language barrier wasn't an issue at all. So the game could begin...
Luki intutievely went for that "Double Tackle" strategy I talked about being a viable way to victory in some earlier blog posts. His first Dino was dodgy Velociraptor, with which he inflicted some wounds early on. To make the Double Tackle Strategy work, Luki swapped his Velociraptor for a Spinosaurus (Using Velo's "Dart" attack, which allows you to retreat him for free), bought some Megalomanias (+1 Attach, +1 Strategy, +1 Buy and +1 Draw) and Charges (+1 Draw, +1 Attach, +1 Combat) and started to "Megabite" away with his Spino, soon killing the Spino I had bought as my starting Dino.
I bought some Megalomanias and Charges as well, threw in two Pincers (+1 Draw, +2 Strategy) and, as always, purged my Wound cards and also two of my Evades with Sacrifice.
This way we exchanged hits until Luki had scored 2 KOs (I had scored only 1 at that point) and everyone was left with heavily damaged Dinos. As far as I can recall, this has been one of the closest games I had ever played. Luki played like a pro right in his first game (he is quite a smart guy I must admit ) so I had to give my best to score the two KOs that stood between me and victory.
The thing that eventually won me the game was that I purchased two Flamethrowers, which first killed Luki's benched and wounded Velociraptor and then his active Styracosaurus. I won at the very last moment - if Luki would have had one additional turn I would have been done for (see picture of the "final showdown" below).
As you can see (or not, with that blurry photo ) my two Dinos had both only 10 Hit Points left when I played my last, winning Flamethrower...
So that was my first game of BDB with Luki. It took us about 50 minutes or so.
Overall he liked it a lot, wants to play again to discover and explore the tremendous strategic possibilities and when asked for criticism, he couldn't think of any, except that he would have liked to see more Dinos, a broader variety of them (As of the current rules, you play with 6 different types of Dinosaurs in the Dino deck). I offered him to play with a "Random Setup" next time so he could play with other Dinos than in the first game, which was played with my suggested "Starter Setup".
As Luki plays Dominion every once in a while, one question was inevitable: How does BDB compare to Dominion?
Luki mentioned three major things:
1.) The goal of the game, scoring 3 KOs, seems a lot more interesting and intriguing as the rather boring VP collecting in Dominion.
2.) Dominion is easier to play (not rules-wise - as I said before I was able to explain everything in 10 minutes - but rather strategy-wise) and to "control". In Dominion, once you got a good deck running, you are already halfway there on the path to victory. Not so much in BDB, where you have to make hard decisions and adapt to your opponent until the very end.
3.) Although the newer expansions for Dominion introduced more interactivity, BDB is far more interactive and player-vs-player-oriented, as you fight each other directly on the battelfield.
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So that was my first game of BDB with my good gaming buddy Luki. I'd like to seize the opportunity and thank him a ton for taking the time for playing, despite being so busy with studying, and for the nice feedback.
I am looking forward to many more games with my neighbourino, as he proved a worthy and though opponent right on the first game!
As always, thanks for reading!
Cheers,
Andi
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
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OK so today my mother and I finally found some time to have a go at BDB.
Mom has like zero gaming experience, save for some classic and traditional Austrian boardgames (Pachisi, Snakes and Latter, Fox and Hens etc.), one or two games of Dominion (german version) a few years ago, which she cannot remember at all anymore...
Despite that, mom was very eager to play and went about it with a lot of enthusiasm and interest, though there were some major hurdles to overcome for her.
For once my mother speaks no English at all, even less than my sister Nora, and unlike her, mom has a terrible memory, especially when she is faced with a whole flood of information like card stats, card costs, card effects etc (all in English nonetheless).
Furthermore, the small font was a major problem for her, as her sight is already a bit bad and even with glasses she had troubles reading what the cards do. Combine that with no knowledge of English at all and you got a pretty rough condition for mom to learn and play as well as for me to teach.
Also, as mentioned above, my mother has a terrible memory, compared to my sister who had memorized all the cards after one game, and had a very hard time to remember the turn sequence, the meaning of the keywords (like "Draw", "Attach", "Combat", "Buy" etc). We will probably write up a small aid with the most common keywords and what they mean in German to solve that problem.
Despite all these "stumbling blocks", mom did not just cave in and give up, but did her best to get a hang of the game. At first we played with open hands and I basically told her what to do, what to buy and so forth. But as the game went on, she was able to more and more make her own decisions and actually started to like the game.
Amusingly, I lost (not intentional if you were assuming that ) our first game, because I missed to buy a Dino when I should have done so with all the explaining and stuff. So, with the help of the healing "Repair" Strategy card and many a Megalomania, mom was able to score her second KO while I was left with nothing else to do as to concede as there were no more Dinos left to buy in the Dino Offering.
Well at the end of the day mom's final opinion on the game was this:
"While I still need to play more games and still have to learn a lot to play more fluently and without your (my) help, I definitely want to play again. Towards the end I felt I had actually remembered quite a lot of how the game works, I enjoyed it as much as I could and even got a hint of gaming fever so to say. I will have to play some more soon..."
"Mission accomplished" I would say 
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
-
Hello everyone!
These days not a single day seems to pass without at least a single game of BDB. Today gamer-buddy par excellence Berni paid a visit and two games were played.
One, with my suggested Starter Setup, which is not worth mentioning, besides the fact that Berni won (I think he would insist in at least mentioning that!  )
Here you can see Berni performing the traditional Austrian Victory Dance:
For the second game we tried something completely new and exciting for us. A game with a "Random Setup". We basically made two decks, one consisiting of 1 copy of each Strategy and Item (There are 21 different Strategies and Items in the game) the other consisting of one copy of each different Dino (there are a total of 14 different Dinos in the game). Then we drew 10 cards from the well shuffled Items and Strategy Deck to determine with which Items / Strategies we would play and did the same for the Dino Deck, picking 6 different Dinosaurs at random.
This is what we ended up with:
Random Setup #1:
Dinosaurs:
Struthiomimus
Stegosaurus
Spinosaurus
Styracosaurus
Ankylosaurus
Diplodocus
Strategies:
Pacify
Repair
Quick Strike
Energize
Sacrifice
Charge
Pincer
Double Strike
Items:
Rocket Launcher
Energy Shield
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And this is how the first game with a Random Setup went:
We both, Berni and I, had a rough start, never being able to buy any Dino, because neither of us had the right card combination in hand to buy one. All the Dinos in the Dino Offering required Attack and Defend cards to purchase. However bad luck had it that Berni and I only drew hands with Attacks and Evades, or, equally useless, only Defends or Evades.
Eventually, Berni could get a hold of a Spinosaurus, starting to Megabite away at poor, defenseless me, which resultet in 2 Wound cards each time he hit me for 10 damage through his Megabite Attack.
Not until my 6th turn I was able to buy a Dino of my own - now that is what I call bad luck Eventually I grabbed a Styracosaurus, which is kinda like a weaker version of Berni's Spinosaurus.
We both bought some Rocket Launchers, which cost one Attack to activate and deal 5 damage for each card you discard from your hand, and some Energy Shields to counter opponent Rocket Launcher attacks (One ability of Energy Shield lets you block / negate any Item attack at the mere cost of one Defend card).
Also, in this game we discovered how handy the "Pincer" Strategy card can be (It gives you 2 additional Strategy plays and you draw a card on top of that).
Furthermore the over-powered Megalomania (+1 Draw, +1 Strategy, +1 Attach, +1 Buy) was dearly missed...
Eventually both of us were able to score a KO. Berni pulled his Stegosaurus to the front, and I did likewise with my benched Spinosaurus. My second Dino succumbed to a combination of Rocket Launcher attacks and Stego's attacks, which left me unprotected against direct attacks.
With Stegosaurus, Berni was able to inflict a ton of wounds on me through its "Spiked Blow" Attack, (See card below) which deals 20 damage (so 4 wounds in a direct attack) plus 2 wounds. So each attack by Stego meant 6 additional Wound cards in my deck.
I made a last stand by buying HP-heavy Diplodocus before all Dinos in the Offering were gone, but at some point I realized it was no use in continuing till all Wounds were gone (Which is the secondary end-game condition) and that I was totally screwed, as I drew hands of 6 Wounds (See below) every other turn, so I, in a great display of sportsmanship, conceded...
Above: Andi is totally screwed
In the end I had a total of 32 cards in my deck, and a total of 18 Wounds were inflicted, of which I was able to purge many but not all through the "Sacrifice" Strategy card.
Overall the "Random Setup" game was a pleasant change to the many "Starter Setup" games I played the last few days. While I have the feeling that there are still many viable strategies left to discover in the Starter Setup, both Berni and I were excited to try yet unplayed cards in the Random Setup. We will try to get in more randomly set up games soon and explore the immense possibilities BDB offers in its entirety further...
As always, thanks for reading and until next time!
Yours,
Andi
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
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I know I am an addict. First it was only cigarettes, now I got another, much healthier addiction: Playing BDB.
Earlier this week my sister Nora and I had a first playtest session (see previous blog post) and despite the many hurdles my sister had to overcome (Nora only knows a few words of English for example), she liked the game so much that she wanted to play again soon. So, after having already played a game with Börni earlier today, Nora and I sat down for another game in the evening.
We played two games, the first taking 1 hour straight, the second one even less (45 minutes). Before I go a little more into detail, I have to mention that I was pretty impressed by the fact that Nora had memorized all the rules so well in that first game earlier this week, that I had to explain nothing at all this time and the games went very fluently. I was also amazed how Nora was able to come up with her own strategies, putting up a great fight, and how she adapted to changes in my strategies (I mentioned in my earlier post that she has a slight handicap.)
So, and this may only be of interest for the playtesters, I want to get more into detail how the games went (We used the "Beginner Setup", which I described in an earlier post, again):
Game 1:
Nora bought an early Dilophosaurus, going for a Posion strategy. She combined Dilopho with lots of cards that let you attach multiple Combat Cards during your turn, in order to pull off a Poison Spit attack on every turn (You need an Attack and an Evade card attached to perform Poison Spit).
Meanwhile, I wanted to try what I like to call the "Double-Tackle Strategy" again. See photo below:
I "discovered" it during my earlier game with Börni. You basically buy a Dino with Tackle or Megabite, which both cost just one Attack card to use and deal 10 damage (I chose the cheap Polacanthus), and combine that with Charge, which grants you an additional attach and an additional combat move, while you remove Wounds and unneeded Combat Cards via Sacrifice to streamline your deck.
I bought a second Polacanthus to boost my active one's Defense.
Soon Nora's poisonous Dilopho got knocked out by "Double Tackles" on every turn and she changed her strategy by moving Spinosaurus to the front, which also has an A-cost attack for 10 damage. She purged her unneeded Evade cards and went for a similar strategy like mine, getting a hold of a Charge. Through that she was able to knock out Polacanthus number 1. I bought a third Polacanthus to boost my active one's Defense to 13, which enabled me to defend against the 12 ATK Spinosaurus.
At some point I realized I overdid the tuning my deck, and I had only Attack cards left. At that point I started buying Defend cards and one copy of Flamethrower, to finish off Nora's severly wounded Dinos. While I was able to knock out Nora's Spinosaurus, Nora almost killed Polacanthus # 2 with her new Styracosaurus. It was all thanks to the one Flamethrower I had bought that saved my Pola's life through its Flame Wall ability (an ability that fends of an enemy attack).
Pola #2 had only 5 Hit Points left and, while I kept buying Defend Cards, eventually succumbed to a "Greedy Gore" attack by Nora's Styracosaurus. Now the score was 2:2.
The very next turn I scored my third KO by playing Flamethrower, and a "Charge"-powered "Double-Tackle, dealing 35 damage to Nora's Styraco which knocked it out.
Overall the game was very close and exciting. We both had very small and focussed decks. Again I was pleasantly surprised, even amazed, how good a fight Nora had put up in her second game of BDB.
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Game 2:
In the second game I wanted to try a poison strategy, purchased Dilpho, and Nora got herself a heavy hitter, namely Spinosaurus. After inflicting considerable amounts of poison, while taking a lot of damage, Nora swapped her Spino for Brachiosaurus, an 80 HP beast that is immune to the effects of poison.
With my Dilopho rendered completely useless, I changed my strategy, sent Styracosaurus into battle and had another go at the now tried and tested "Double-Tackle" strategy.
Usually I was able to pull off a 20 damage Greedy Gore Attack plus one 10 damage Tackle per turn, by playing multiple Megalomanias topped by a Charge.
With Nora's dinos all heavily wounded, I decided to end things with a Flamethrower (I had to buy Defend cards to afford one first). So through a combination of "Double Tackles" plus the direct damage from Flamethrower I soon brought down the rest of Nora's dinos in like no time...
Nora put up a last stand with her Dilophosaurus, inflicting some poison before it succumbed to flames and tackles.
Here is my decklist at the end of game 2:
3 x Megalomania
1 x Charge
1 x Sacrifice
1 x Flamethrower
3 x Attack
3 x Evade
3 x Defend
2 x Poison (Inflicted on Nora's last turn)
1 x Wound
Cards in total: 18
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With Nora being a pro already as it seems, I am looking forward to the next "Playing BDB with the family" session on the weekend, when my mother will join my sister and me in a 3 player match. Very curious about how that will go...
Will keep you updated!
Thanks for reading!
Yours,
Andi
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