Michael M
Sweden
Unspecified
Unspecified
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Can you play Fantasy Flight Games reprint Collosal Arena with 2 players? You could play Titan: the Arena with 2 players if I'm not mistaken..
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Kevin Wilson
United States
Roseville
Minnesota
The Nicholas Cage of games! Oh god, not the beeeeeesssss!
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
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Re:Collosal Arena for 2 players? (and some news from FFG)
Michael_M (#45619),
Sure, you can play Colossal Arena with 2-5. There may have been a typo or two in the early press for it, but it is almost entirely the same game as Titan: the Arena, barring the 4 new creatures and the small rule tweaks that Reiner wanted us to make. And to head off that question, here are the changes that I can remember...
And bear in mind, the original rules are still available here on BGG. If you don't like any of the changes, the old rules are perfectly usable with the new cards.
-The creatures largely changed names, both for legal reasons and because we were sharing art with the French edition of the game. So, there's an Ettin instead of a Hydra now, for example, but this doesn't otherwise change gameplay, as their abilities are the same.
-When the last card is drawn from the deck, the game ends immediately and there can be more than 3 remaining creatures. Reiner didn't like the original endgame rules for running out of cards, so he suggested this change.
-You can no longer retrieve cards from the discard pile, only from play. Reiner did not like that players had to be careful about what order they discarded cards in, as it wasn't intended to be a major element of the game.
-The first player is now selected at random, rather than with a combat card 'auction'. The auction was hard to explain, and Reiner agreed that it didn't add anything significant enough to the game to bother with.
-The combat card attached to a secret bet is discarded after being revealed instead of being left to float in play for powers to affect. The bet token is placed above the respective creature card to show where the bet was made. This goes along with the discard pile change, to keep the play area tidy and the unexpected effects of actions to a minimum.
-Play now proceeds vertically, with each round of cards being placed below the previous row, rather than to the right. This just seemed way more intuitive, and everyone I've seen play the game does it this way anyhow.
Other than that, I think the game is pretty much unchanged. The card mix is the same aside from the new creatures and their combat cards, which can be swapped in to replace one or more of the original 8 creatures. I think the rules are much more understandable now, but I'm biased, having spent a month here and there rewriting them.
One thing that may be seen as a change by some but was actually a clarification of the old rules is the spectators and their Void Power ability. Since they aren't combat/strength cards, they can't activate a creature's special power, but more importantly, a combat card played directly on top of a spectator card can't activate a creature's special power either. This seemed to me, according to my reading of the rules and from various posts I found online, to be a huge point of confusion in the previous edition.
Component-wise, if you've seen the cards in Runebound, then you know the quality of the cards in Colossal Arena, as they are the same type. The betting tokens are similar to the plastic tokens found in our Loco! card game. The rulebook is a 4-page full color affair, and the artwork is very attractive and done in a consistant style throughout. Each player also receives a turn summary card and a bet value reference card for ease of play. Overall, I'm extremely proud of the way this edition has come together and I'm glad to have been a part of bringing this classic game back into print.
We should have advance copies at Gencon Indy, and it will be in stores shortly thereafter.
-Kevin Wilson
Fantasy Flight Games
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Todd
United States
Cleveland
Tennessee
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Re:Collosal Arena for 2 players? (and some news from FFG)
KevinW (#45724),
Alright now, gen-con is long over were are our games (pre-ordered Colossal Arena and War of the Rings and am desperatly waiting for them to get here)
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Kevin Wilson
United States
Roseville
Minnesota
The Nicholas Cage of games! Oh god, not the beeeeeesssss!
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
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Re:Collosal Arena for 2 players? (and some news from FFG)
grimstuff (#53683),
The games have arrived as of Thursday, so they'll be in stores next week. Good luck bringing through your bets!
-Kevin Wilson
Fantasy Flight Games
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Robert Grainger
United Kingdom
Unspecified
Hampshire
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Re:Collosal Arena for 2 players? (and some news from FFG)
This game is in shops in the UK now... got mine on Wednesday (8 September). 
It's a superb game - only played it two players so far, and it works well. I can imagine it's even better with more - should be able to try this out with our group fairly soon.
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david karasick
United States
Gladwyne
Pennsylvania
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Re:Collosal Arena for 2 players? (and some news from FFG)
Grainger (#53963),how long does a two and 3 player game last?
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Alex Carr
United States
Reno
Nevada
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Re:Collosal Arena for 2 players? (and some news from FFG)
skeletodoc (#54278),
When will this hit online retailers?
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Robert Grainger
United Kingdom
Unspecified
Hampshire
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Re:Collosal Arena for 2 players? (and some news from FFG)
skeletodoc wrote:
Grainger (#53963),how long does a two and 3 player game last?
Not sure - I just got engrossed in it and didn't notice the time passing! I've just spoken to my partner, with whom I've played all of my games so far (two of them 2-player and two of them 3-player). We guess about an hour for 2 or 3 players - maybe an hour and a half.
I don't think the number of players will greatly change the playing time in this one (it will all come down to increased down-time between turns with more players), as there is a limited number of cards that are likely to be played each round, and a fixed number of rounds.
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JC Connors
United States
Redmond
Washington
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Re:Collosal Arena for 2 players? (and some news from FFG)
KevinW wrote:
-Play now proceeds vertically, with each round of cards being placed below the previous row, rather than to the right. This just seemed way more intuitive, and everyone I've seen play the game does it this way anyhow.
Huh, when we played the game when we were developing it an Avalon Hill, it was always played vertically. I didn't realize anyone played it horizontally!
I was sad to see that Don Greenwood didn't get co-designer credit on this one. While the base mechanics were derived from Grand National Derby, the inclusion of creature powers, as well as all of the original powers - a large portion of the game - came from Don and Mark Hall, another developer at AH.
Still, good to see this one back in print!
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Eric O. LEBIGOT
France
Versailles
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A follow-up to Kevin's post:
It looks like the power of the Unicorn has changed between both versions: from what I found on the web, the Unicorn in Titan: the Arena can exchange strength cards (combat, referee), whereas the Unicorn in Colossal Arena can only exchange combat cards. Are the rules I found on the web for Titan correct? is this a change requested by Knizia?
Does anybody have an opinion about which rule for the Unicorn is more interesting to use?
Any thought would be much appreciated!
EOL
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