I have to give props for Chip Theory Games dedication to a nice table presence that is NOT accomplished simply by throwing a lot of plastic minis onto the table. Known for using nice poker chips and custom dice throughout their games, this year is no different with the area-control Wroth and various Elder Scrolls expansions (now with cheese!).
However, they have been expanding into slightly more modest card-based games like this year’s location battle Fight 5, and another three decks added to their “20-dice and a bunch of cards” game line, 20 Strong. In the 20 Strong Tanglewoods line players navigating the fairytales of Goldilocks, Red Ridinghood, and Snow White.
If you like crowdfunding, hop to the end to see why Chip Theory had all their backers send in their best pet photos for a recent campaign.
Fight 5
Released at Gen Con, Fight 5 is a 2-5 player game of playing cards to locations, with the highest total claiming the cards. Each player has the same deck of 25 cards – duplicates of 2 to 13 and one star card. The game is available in a standard and a deluxe, foiled card version. The game is always set up so that players compete in five areas, two spots directly their right and left hand opponents and one spot in the middle where everyone plays.
Each location also has its own deck (with similar values to a player deck) and is called a Clash. Players draw five cards and simultaneously play them out to their five Clash locations.
To win a location, a player must have a number greater than their opponent(s) and greater than the number of the face-up Clash card. The winner claims all three cards (more if its the center clash.) The star cards are treated as the highest card in the deck, but if two stars are in a Clash, they bump and cancel each other out.
Once all cards are played, players score their collected cards. The player with the most cards (of any type) earns 15 points. Any 2 digit card (10 to 13) is worth 5 points while star cards are worth 10 points. The game continues until a player earns 200 points or three rounds are played.
Wroth
If you’re looking for an asymmetric area control game bathed in neon colors, look no further than Wroth. A 1-4 player game with five available factions, Wroth can be played in a competitive or a cooperative mode by flipping a faction board to its backside to provide a solo (or co-op) opponent.
The game revolves around players taking control of locations on the game map. Control of a location will grant points, some locations worth more than others, but may also grant bonus actions or abilities. Note that the areas are evaluated in a specific sequence so controlling an early-evaluated area can offer the chance to mess with areas evaluated later in the sequence.
At the start of each round each player rolls an All-Seeing Die which grants them a bonus/free action to take during their turn. Then the main action dice are rolled (1 + 2/person) and players take turns drafting them, dictating what actions they can perform this round. The options include deploying or moving 2 armies (on 2 faces), attacking an adjacent or occupied territory to do 1 damage (on 2 faces), earn a corra (= monies), or add two armies where you already have dudes present (normally armies come in from one’s non-point-granting home base.) The All-Seeing Die has similar but slightly more powerful effects than the regular action dice.
There are five asymmetric factions in the base game (elves, rogues, druid-ish, zombie-orc-ish, and dwarves) with two available in their own expansions. The witch coven can resurrect their troops back while the paladin/warrior ladies have a strong defense, mobility (horses), and can self-heal. Factions will have slightly different starting game conditions, a special feat card, and their own unique elite units. These units are represented by the traditional Chip Theory dice (albeit very neon here) with faces used to mark the units health. Rather than change up monetary costs, the more annoying units will tend to simply have fewer hit points. For example, the druids can put out traps which, when encountered, steal one enemy action. Regarding feat cards, each faction has three options. Two of which are one use per game abilities and the third some sort of persistent ability. Players select one of the three to use in any given game.
The bits and bobs of the game are the typical Chip Theory premium things. The regular game comes with nice neon-colored game mats for the main board and neon colored player mats for each faction. The action dice and elite units are all represented by brightly colored neon dice, even the scoring track is its own neon-colored mat.
Like all dudes-on-a-map style games, look for plenty of chances for alliances, ganging up on the leader, and all those other shenanigans. However, it is still a point-based game so a player doesn’t need to fight all the time to win the game. Wise use of player powers and location-based abilities are just as important as combat. Oh, one more thing, surprisingly, there are no blacklights included in the base game – perhaps a stretch goal in a future campaign?
20 Strong – Tanglewoods
20 Strong is a series of games from Chip Theory that use the same set of twenty dice of several different colors. These dice are then used to play any number of different games. In this way, Chip Theory can release a brand new game, using only a new deck of cards but still using the base game’s 20 dice. Three of the dice are typically number trackers while the others contain greater or fewer numbers of special symbols, depending on the color of the die. Thus, some dice are more likely to roll symbols than others, and managing the available dice in one’s pool is a key feature for almost every game. Most of the games involve some sort of rolling dice to combat creature or encounter cards while the three tracker dice are used for heath and two other (usually dice-focused) statistics.
The Tanglewoods set of games is no different. It is the second set of three games for the system based around traditional fairytales. Each box has the player travelling around the forest of Tanglewood, defeating monsters on the way to the story’s end. The Gold box is the story of Goldilocks, Red involves Red Riding Hood, and White is the story of Snow White. With this box set there is also a purple deck that can be used to make an overarching campaign through all three colored decks. The decks are available as individual decks while the Red deck of this release is also available as a “base game” that includes the requisite 20 dice.
Most games have the player take on the role of some sort of thematic hero with a special ability and base statistics like health and some governing how dice work. These values might indicate how many dice they can roll at once, how many dice they get to reroll, how many dice they get back (they are often “used up” after being rolled) after each combat, etc… Some heros are specific to that particular deck due to their special abilities, while others are more general and can be used in any 20 Strong game.
Players fight/encounter cards as they go, managing their dice pool (if you run out you’re out of the game) and trying to become more powerful through the course of the game. This could be in the form of improving one’s statistics but also collecting (or buying with monies) items and other beneficial cards. Every deck has merchant encounters which allow players to purchase items if they’ve saved up the requisite cash. All this is leading to some climatic boss battle of some sort to win the game but there are timer elements (often the slow loss of dice in the dice pool) to make sure players don’t just faff about trying to become as powerful as possible before the climactic battle.
In Gold, the player is using directional cards to explore a field of cards. Players take a direction card and then draw monsters from the monster deck that match the directions on the card. If the card is defeated, it flips over to a more dangerous side and is put back into the direction deck. The merchant in this deck also has bear bait for sale which adds a bear into the encounter deck. Defeat all three bears in the deck to win the game.
The Red deck has players adventure along a branching path, like Slay the Spire if you’re familiar with the videogame, trying to get to grandma’s house. Each location will be a combat, encounter, merchant visit, etc… There are five heroes in this deck and they each have two sides, flipping back and forth as conditions change. Universal heroes from other releases can use a default “Brothers Grimm” card as their equivalent card back.
The White deck uses a grid of cards (4×4 I believe) to represent a journey to the castle. Players make their way from one corner to the opposite, castle corner, encountering cards as they go. Several mechanisms are in play here. First, there is a night/day card that flips and makes everything harder during the night, forcing players to plan out their route with that in mind. Cards in this deck have symbols on their back. When entering an encounter, many monsters check to see what symbols may be adjacent when deciding how they behave. Defeated cards are placed up in the top castle row. The castle row contains cards that also check to see what symbols have been placed in that location. This could make things worse, but possibly better – some might be simply defeated if the right combination of symbols are present. Of course, one doesn’t know which cards are in the castle so one use of game resources allows players to peek into one of the castle spots. Hopefully, the players make it all the way through the castle and defeat the evil stepmother.
I previously mentioned the purple deck. If you wish, you can play all three Tanglewood decks as a series. They are linked together by the merchant in each fairy tale. It turns out to be Baba Yaga and you must deal with her once you’ve completed the previous three adventures.
The 20 Strong brand will continue next year with a tie-in to the Awaken Realms settings of Nemesis, Tainted Grail, and Etherfields.
The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era – Chef Class (& cheese)
At this year’s Gen Con, a small expansion pack to Chip Theory’s massive Elder Scroll game was released, featuring a new class – the Master Chef. This real, but rather tongue-in-cheek release features a new class card and a new type of legendary consumable item, food. Eight new side quests feature food consumption. Also available is Cheeses of Tamriel (which began as an April Fool’s joke) that consists of a bunch of different (but identical game mechanics) cheese wheels that are shuffled into the standard item deck. Also included, one legendary cheese – beware the ghost of lactose intolerance.
Elder Scrolls Expansion
After a discussion of tiny boxes and packs we head to bigger projects: coming this fall to Gamefound is a new Elder Scrolls expansion. It is a fairly big-box type of thing featuring new campaigns involving the areas of Summerset and Elswyr (yes, you pronounced that correctly.) Lots of the expected new stuff like races, skills, and magic. One standout is the possibility of players to become a vampire or werewolf with all its associated advantages and problems.
OK, OK, for you on-the-ball readers, if you’re reading this on Friday the 8th, you still have a few hours to get in on the latest (and last) crowdfunding project for the very cool MOBA-like game, Cloudspire or the Solo adventure game of cards held in your hand that is Dragons of Etchinstone. The former is a large, lengthy game where players prep and send out minions from a hexagonal path between one’s own gate and the opponent. Your opponent does the same while you both also manage heroes and defensive towers. The latter is a small deck of cards you hold in your hand while you play an adventure. Over a series of rounds you attack and upgrade your gear by rotating and flipping your cards, gearing up for one final push against an end boss. You can even get a version of the game with photos of backer’s cats and dogs in “Felines of Fetchin’ Bone.” Designed by the person who brought you Gloomholdin’, it has a very similar feel. You can back it as a physical copy or as a print and play.
If it’s already Saturday the 9th, you’ll have to wait for either of them to come out in retail.
