Mike Cooper
United States
Flower Mound
Texas
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Had an opportunity to playtest this, this weekend. Remember that this was a playtest, so the experience I had may not reflect the final product. Also, some of the "Deception" expansion may have been included.
The tested expansion consisted of two new types of mercenaries to hire, ten Leader roles, four types of buildings, and three bonus cards. I'll talk about each individually.
Leaders:
Each player is dealt two leader cards at the beginning of the game, of which they must choose one. Each leader has an advantage and a disadvantage that the player gets to use. ie. You can build buildings for one card less, but you get a -1 to your dig count. We only got to look through a handful and several changes were made during and after the game, so I can't speak in more detail.
Mercenaries:
The two new types are the Medic and the Architect.
Medic: The Medic helps alleviate some of the issues with having to dig through the junkyard in order to find meds, since the Medic will always have one for use. He also can be used to draw additional cards and, in the skirmish, counteracts the sniper.
Architect: The Architect allows you to dig through the building deck (same option as the junkyard) and choose one building to build.
Buildings:
There are four different buildings, the Armory, Pharmacy (which I think needs to be renamed the Dispensary), Hydroponics, and the Bunker. Each building has multiples that can be built and a different cost and volume associated with each. Usually, a building allows you to store cards that you want to use later. To build a building, you place cards from your draw deck face down on it and remove a card each round until it's built. If you wish to cut down on the building time, you can spend a card from your later hands to remove cards from the building.
Bonus Cards:
There are three cards that represent "gangs" that are worth 5VP at the end of the game. They are given out to the player who has the most Meds, Tools, or Buildings.
It may have been because some of us were concentrating on the expansion possibilities, but the Contested Resources weren't really fought over, and we even had one go into the Junkyard after nobody bothered to fight for it. There did seem to be quite a bit of AP, but again, I think that was due to everyone sussing out the possibilities.
I see potential in the leader cards and the medic, but the buildings and architect are definitely going to need some more work. I'm also not sure the bonus cards are absolutely necessary, but further playtesting may change or bear that out.
Questions/Comments we had:
When is a card retrievable from a building?
We figured that if the card is going to be used in the skirmish, that it had to be pulled before the cards are revealed. Otherwise, it can be used anytime during your turn.
We discovered that one of the leader cards we had in play was waaaay overpowered, and another was basically useless.
Of course, none of this is set in stone and will probably change later, but I felt there is some potential hidden here. I'm looking forward to the next playtest.
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Neuro Gamer
United States
Grand Prairie
Texas
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Michael,
Thanks for your take on the expansion playtest - the game as is is just fine and if nothing were to added to it I could see 50 plays or more. We played back-to-back games last night at the Hulen at I-30 Borders and I won them both 
We rarely if ever play a game more than once in an evening!
If the balance is maintained leader roles sounds like a nice addition; I'm not so sure if the building/architect mechanism will add much. No CR fighting is sure a departure from the games I've played.
In any event, I'm confident Kyle will get it right whichever way it comes out.
Michael
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Robert K Gabhart
United States
Keller
Texas
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Thosw wrote: Of course, none of this is set in stone and will probably change later, but I felt there is some potential hidden here. I'm looking forward to the next playtest.
Hehe...yep. Quite a few changes coming in play mechanics, but the bulk of what Mike lays out here will, in fact, be in the expansion. More details coming soon...
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Posted Mon Jun 8, 2009 12:32 pm
