FFG Games (And What if They Take Over Shadowrun/Battetech)

[Zinegata]

At souran's prodding I'm making a seperate thread regarding FFG... since they might get some of Catalyst's properties. I'm gonna list the games I've played and some comments on them since I'm apparently the resident FFG fanboy

1) Twilight Imperium - it's long, pretty clunky, and the victory conditions are horribly disjointed. And it's pretty badly imbalanced - not just because of the random mapboard but also because the races range from really good to really bad. But the pieces are pretty and there really aren't any other space conquest games out there with fucking Death Stars. With a bit of streamlining and quicker playtime this would be a classic.

2) Battlelore/C&C - it's honestly a beginner's war game and nothing more. It's hard to even consider it a historical game because it's so heavily abstracted (in C&C's case). The special dice are unnecessary. And both Battlelore and C&C have confusing pieces that slows down setup. That being said the system is simple and fast to get into. Memoir '44 is the best variant - the German/Allied pieces are very distinct and there are only minor system tweaks. Not bad overall, but for an experienced gamer it's quite sucky.

3) Android - Suffers from bad marketing. It's supposed to be a murder-mystery turned "frame a suspect" with "conspiracy theory" and "journey of self-discovery" thrown in. Terribly disjointed flavor. I hated it. Especially because it had the fiddliest movement mechanic ever.

4) Arkham Horror - Best simulation of an RPG in one sitting. Can get very fiddly but otherwise hugely fun. Unlike Android, all your objectives are related. Pretty imbalanced characters though, and the expansions are dizzying.

5) Battlestar Galactica - No game simulates is source material so well. This is the Batman: Arkham Asylum of Boardgames. The key is the fantastic "traitor" mechanic coupled with a battlemap that exactly captures the feel of the series. The expansion is a bit disjointed, but even its disjointment mirrors how batshit insane most of the characters became in Season 3.

6) Chaos in the Old World - the game is honestly Acquire with some combat retooled for the Warhammer world. Yet it works. Fantastically. The Gods play like they should in fluff, and it's a fast simple 2 hour game to get into. So far my game group hasn't detected major imbalances either. The only downside is that it must really be played with 4 people.

7) Game of Thrones - A pretty good Diplomacy variant. The mechanics are well streamlined and the playing pieces are good. I liked it.

8) War of the Ring - Okay, I lied. This game also simulates its source material like no other, but "good vs evil" is kinda easier than "paranoid space survival". The brillance of this game is that it combines a Risk-style war game (Gondor & Rohan & others vs the Armies of Sauron), with a hide-and-seek style adventure (featuring the Fellowship). Plus, it has a gorgeous Collector's Edition.

9) Doom - Despite people groaning upon seeing the box, it actually played well. It actually felt a lot like Space Hulk. The main thing going against it is the fact that your dudes respawn when they die (like in the video game) which feels kinda weird in a boardgame, and the setup is painful. The wacky dice, personally speaking, actually work well for this game.

10) Descent - A lot like Doom, but more close range hack and slash. Suffers from many of the same problems as Doom. While Doom is mediocre bordering on good... Descent tends to be mediocre bordering on bad for me. Largely due to a lot of fiddly new rules on top of the Doom engine.

11) Age of Conan - The pieces are pretty. The main game itself is an okay Empire-building game with Risk elements. But Conan himself is limited to being an NPC who runs around and kills random stuff. Disappointing, but not a bad game per se.

12) Starcraft - Fiddly as hell (especially combat), long play time, and imbalances due to the maps make it a little hard to recommend. But the pieces are nice, the order system is interesting, and the three race interaction is preserved. With a bit more polish this would have been great.

13) Runewars - I was honestly tempted to dismiss this game as it has a similar combat resolution mechanic as Starcraft (fiddly cards! Why not dice?!) but the game won me over. It's basically what the Starcraft boardgame should have been... albeit this one is set in a fantasy setting.

14) Ad Astra - Settlers of Catan in space. With less annoying trading. Fantastic game!

And now I tire and will rest

[RobbyPants]

I haven't played Arkham Horror, but I've heard really good things aside from the balance issues. If my wife and I weren't into Dominion as much as we are right now, I'd consider buying it.

[mean_liar]

Twilight Imperium
I'd say that this is basically crap... without the expansion. With the variant turn actions and revised VP system in the expansion it's fun for what it is. I think the biggest problem is, "what it is": a massive cold war confrontation where the first to blink, loses, which takes a huge time commitment.

It's still a 7 or 8 out of 10 for scifi empire battle madness.


War of the Ring
Favorite 2-player game. Wonderful.


...and no other comments.

[Juton]

I'm more familiar with Battletech than Shadowrun. Battletech's basic mechanics haven't changed since 1985, its body of rules haven't really changed over the last 25 years, but this is a good thing because those rules have generally worked well. There is also a roadmap of where the fiction needs to go to get from the current timeline to the mechwarrior-darkage timeline.

So if FFG can resist the urge to meddle with something that works they could have a winner.

[souran]

I think we may be the only ones who care. Also nothing anybody has said is not something you couldn't find on board game geek. I don't know why but board gamers/wargamers (except for mini's games) usually seem a lot more willing to go "yes, this game is good here but totally sucks at this other thing." Or even say something as simple as "this game is flawed in important ways but I still like it" Its probably because they are not so invested in keeping a player base or have the same time commitment.


Anyway the FFG boardgames I have played

Android: Is not a bad game once you realize that its opposite clue. Also for a game with only 4 players max its long. I actually enjoyed the movement but being one of the players with a "fast" movement is a huge advantage. Also the game is very very busy, there are about 4 ways of resolving a standard players move, assuming nobody players cards or anything. The game is fun though. I would put it in the "convince a friend to buy it" category.

Arkham Horror: The game is LONG. Way to long to play by the rules. Some parts are overly complicated. Others don't seem to actually accomplish anything. Honestly its probably the board game of theirs that I enjoyed the least. However, for all that the game is not a bad alternative to say playing somebodies D&D game on a night when somebody doesn't show or the DM is out of it. Its LONG though, probably takes longer to play than you would have played an rpg with setup and breakdown.


Battelore: An ok wargame that is about playing the special abilities you control and not so importatn to be controlling your troops. Really felt to me like the heir to the old "battlemasters" game. Actually, a revived battlemasters with prepainted figs and 4-6 armies is a game I would support.


Descent: If battle Lore is battle Mastes then Descent is heroquest. Only it is not as much fun as heroquest was for some reason. I think its because it takes so friggan long to set up. Games using the standard dungeon size take about 4 hours + at least 1 hour setup. Games where players try unconventional strategies take even longer. I own every expansion except the pirate themed one. The game is fun to play, but it makes me wish that I had not looted my copy of warhammer quest to put together my orc warhammer army all those years ago. My whole copy of warhammer quest ended up getting played to where it was in shit shape. That was really probably the "best" of the pseudo-rpg dungeon crawlers.


Doom: Like descent except all the heros are the same. Set up is faster but overall we didn't like it compared to descent. Maybe its because running out of ammo seems to happen so constantly as to be stupid.

Fury of Dracula: A really good game, only problem is that sometimes it can feel like the hunters and dracula are not even playing the SAME game. Also its a game where players can get eliminated from the game which sucks.

Lord of the Rings: Only played this at conventions so I cannot really comment on strategy. It seemed like it was overly complex on certain aspects that really didn't need to be that big a deal. Thats why I don't own it.

Runeboond: Runebound is wierd. Basically the players hardly interact with each other at all. The game is more like a race than anything else. The game has a lot of good concepts but nobody I know ever really wants to play it because it kind of sucks to play. Neat ideas bad game.

Tanhauser: Seems really neat but the game boards make the game unplayable. I heard that they fixed a bunch of stuff for it but the original was not functional.

World of Warcraft: Interesting game, doesn't really capture the feel of the computer game at all. Its actually more like a functional version of runebound.

Anyway, I have not had windjammers problems with editing. FFG seems pretty hit and miss to me. Something work others don't but they are the only ones making complex board games besides flying frog (both flying frog games are actually WAY better than the games on this list). As for RPGs... people don't say nice things about WFRP.

[Rathe]

Played both Descent and Arkham Horror and enjoyed both.

They are great games for when noone wants to DM and people can't make up their minds. My annoyances are FFG can't seem to properly write instructions to the games that don't waffle all over the place and they hide information in odd locations. Nothing new to a RPGer, still an index or TOC would typically go a long way. On the other hand, if you go and download the sheets from Boardgamegeek and just follow those (and some of the houserule suggestions) you're golden.

[Username17]

FFG's version of Talisman was very faithful to the original. It's fun, but completely unbalanced and the game is batshit crazy. I think thisis the best sample of what the FFG Battletech would be like. Basically a return of the old version, warts and all, with the added benefit of some handsome art and nice plastic pieces.

Runebound is a good game. It's pretty, it's fun. But yeah, it's basically completely non-interactive. You might as well be playing it solo. Needs work.

World of Warcraft is crap. Clearly a licensed product that they shat out in five minutes. If the licenses weren't already table top games, the existence of this abortion would fill me with rage and fear at the prospect of them taking over a license I cared about.

-Username17

[Doom]

Heh, I'm not sure anyone in their right mind would even remotely consider anything about Battlelore historical (goblins and dwarves, after all)...wonder what C&C is.

Anyway, Battlelore, for a $55 investment, is a pretty awesome miniatures game.

I mean, come on, you can easily have 100+ miniatures on a the table, involving archery, infantry and cavalry (and possibly monsters), and a good selection of terrain (forts, river, woods, magic circles, hills, bridges, ets), easily changeable from game to game. You also have wizards and clerics and rogues and warriors (abstracted, admittedly, but they're very noticeable), and a bit of army building in choosing such characters.

That's just the 'basic' set, and I'm leaving stuff out.

And the whole thing comes in a single box. Just one box, and you have a miniatures game with this much in it. I had it set up by my computer, and played every scenario multiple times over the course of 8 months during my down time, and not alot of board games held my attention like that.

Is there any other miniatures game out there that comes so complete for under $60? It's not hard core, true...but it's complete, thorough, highly variable, and fun, and that's pretty good at that price level, for miniatures.


Descent is not without its charms and problems, but the most serious problem is the game CANNOT be played in under 6 hours. Even the very first, starting, scenario, takes more than that, and that's just silly, especially for those of us not willing to devote a table set up for it for the week or more it takes to get 5 people to sit around it twice.

So, it doesn't matter how pretty it is, the knowledge that there's just no way to play it in a day keeps it on the shelf (above and beyond the highly anticlimactic victories).

I haven't played the others, though I've wanted to. Runewars is on my 'to get' list, but the $100 price tag, and a gaming group that wants to play 4e more than boardgames, makes me reluctant to make the investment just yet.

[souran]

FFG's version of Talisman was very faithful to the original. It's fun, but completely unbalanced and the game is batshit crazy. I think thisis the best sample of what the FFG Battletech would be like. Basically a return of the old version, warts and all, with the added benefit of some handsome art and nice plastic pieces.

This seems fairly astute.

Runebound is a good game. It's pretty, it's fun. But yeah, it's basically completely non-interactive. You might as well be playing it solo. Needs work.

Yep, it just needs more something thats for sure. I own the game, 1 expansion and like 4 alternate adventures. None of those fixes a damn thing.

World of Warcraft is crap. Clearly a licensed product that they shat out in five minutes. If the licenses weren't already table top games, the existence of this abortion would fill me with rage and fear at the prospect of them taking over a license I cared about.

There are two world of warcraft board games they produce. One is ok the other is terrible. Neither are good but one is playable. Which one are you talking about?

[Username17]

There are two world of warcraft board games they produce. One is ok the other is terrible. Neither are good but one is playable. Which one are you talking about?

Googly moogly... two of them? Why?

The board game I played involved like three different monsters that came in three different colors. You got three different kinds of dice to fight monsters with that were wildly unbalanced with each other. As I recall one of them did damage, one of them prevented damage, and one of them did damage and prevented damage. These dice were like d8s or something equally retarded.

Then you did quests, which were wandering around the map grinding palette swap versions of each monster over and over again until at the end of the game the players duked it out with a completely arbitrary system that resulted in one team being declared the winner for no discernible reason.

-Username17

[Red Archon]

Sounds fairly much like the actual video game.

[Windjammer]

FFG's version of Talisman was very faithful to the original. It's fun, but completely unbalanced and the game is batshit crazy. I think thisis the best sample of what the FFG Battletech would be like. Basically a return of the old version, warts and all, with the added benefit of some handsome art and nice plastic pieces.

FFG's version of Talisman was a re-release of the extant Black Industries' version which came out only two years earlier. FFG didn't touch the Black Industries version beyond replacing the card board stand ups representing the heroes - which I personally consider integral to the original experience of the game - by some left over stock in their Runebound production. Yep, Talisman 4th edition revised (FFG) features Runebound minis. How endearing.

Crediting FFG with good work on Talisman is thus tantamount to crediting them for Dark Heresy. They took over both from Black Industries, and whether the change of hands was for the better (beyond the simple point of keeping the games available) is a matter of dispute.

Runebound is wierd. Basically the players hardly interact with each other at all. The game is more like a race than anything else. The game has a lot of good concepts but nobody I know ever really wants to play it because it kind of sucks to play. Neat ideas bad game.

Runebound is my favourite FFG game, and I say that as someone who owns two copies of everything (except the scenario book) EVER produced for Tide of Iron - which is an awful lot. Truth be told, I love FFG games purely for the components they come with. There's not a single FFG game I didn't see fit to houserule even one hour into playing it. I've had great evenings with friends playing FFG stuff, since we go in expecting to fiddle with and add to the mechanics as we go along, thus making the net experience more rewarding. I've added Dreamblade minis to Arkham Horror, and altered the combat mechanics for Runebound. Runebound, as souran rightly points out, isn't very interactive - until you e.g. delegate the player whose turn it is after you to actively (role)play the monster.

1. Combat-wise, replace the monster's stats with a 2d10 roll plus the static number, minus 11 - e.g. a monster with these stats:

Ranged 12 | Melee 17 | Magic 8

becomes a monster with these bonuses to its 2d10 roll:

Ranged +1 | Melee +6 | Magic -3

These means that in a 3-player game (the best number of players for Runebound), every player will have 2 active turns per round - 1 turn as hero, 1 as monster.

2. Non-combat wise, pick some of the green expansions for some really funny hazards (e.g. those with the merrymen and highway robbers), with the player whose turn it is after yours picking up the hazard card and actually narrating and roleplaying what happens to you.

Seriously, the end result is a very nice experience of a clicheed D&D campaign all rolled into one evening - no minor accomplishment. You need the right friends to pull it off, but then that's true for most (board)games. Most importantly, I think something like 2. is needed to gloss over the awfully boring mechanics behind most FFG games. They start to shine when you render them into a greater experience than they are inherently designed (and thus able) to provide.

[Koumei]

That's the same one I once played, Frank. With a friend and some people I'd never met before, who turned out to be complete stoners (and suffering the chronic kronic stupidity that goes with it). In Goolwa. Which is... okay, so Australia is somewhat shitty? And South Australia is a shitty state of Australia? Well the shittiest part of that is Goolwa. It's like, three houses and a fish and chips shop, and would be vastly improved by irresponsible nuclear waste dumping.

Anyway, the game was almost as fun as trying to remove lipstick with a road drill. Ultimately it was one big glorious combination of so many things I hated:
[*]World of Warcraft
[*]Board games
[*]Goolwa
[*]Stoners
[*]Meeting new people

But as terribad as the game is, it does sound basically like what WoW is.

[souran]

Googly moogly... two of them? Why?

Because anything that says "World of Warcraft" on it makes money. Its a fact. Simply spray paint world of warcraft on the side of something and people will give you money to be associated with that thing.

The board game I played involved like three different monsters that came in three different colors. You got three different kinds of dice to fight monsters with that were wildly unbalanced with each other. As I recall one of them did damage, one of them prevented damage, and one of them did damage and prevented damage. These dice were like d8s or something equally retarded.

Then you did quests, which were wandering around the map grinding palette swap versions of each monster over and over again until at the end of the game the players duked it out with a completely arbitrary system that resulted in one team being declared the winner for no discernible reason.

-Username17

It actually sounds like you played the GOOD game. That game has errata and rules alterations aviable on the forums through FFG to the point where it is now a playable game. Not a great game, but it plays like a wierd runebound expansion now that is on a warcraft map and at the end of it you not only kill a dragon but also the other side.

World of Warcraft adventures is so damn bad that I can't even describe the rules in a way that would allow you to make sense of it as a game. It has cards and tokens and other FFG things with warcraft art on them but its mostly a box of terribad.

FFG also has a really bad problem with getting their product into FLGS type locations. FFG never bothers to suspend wholesale buyer accounts for repeated violations of MSRP. That means that unless you are very bad at the internet and or just plain stupid you don't ever pay anything like retail for a FFG product.

On the other hand, it also makes carrying FFG products a non-starter for your FLGS. If some guy with a wholesaler's number for his garrage can buy the games and sell them for shipping + $1 over invoice then a brick and mortar store will never compete.

Larger companies (wizards/white wolf/probably even catalyst) can simply stop doing buisness with wholesalers who remove all the margin from their products for other retailers, who violate street dates, and who otherwise cheat to sell product.

FFG has a reputation of "Not Giving a Flying Fuck." This does make brick and mortar retailers less likely to carry their stuff.

While this might not be terrible for shadowrun, which could be sold online and through companies who don't care like amazon/borders, battletech will get totally screwed if owned by FFG.

Retailers won't sell the mini's, or plastic figs, or other products when they cannot compete against the guy who has a flat of them delivered to his house and sells them online only. When a wargame doesn't have support at gamestores it loses playerbase and dies.[/i]

[Crissa]

The game shop in Frank's home town only bought FFG games to have something pretty on the shelf. They'd replace it if it sold, but it was more a decoration than a profitable shelf.

-Crissa

[PhoneLobster]

The original WoW FFG board game was distinctively recognizable because of its insanely complex combat resolution mechanic.

Which if I recall involved some sort of (fairly complex) Dice pool. And when you were done rolling it you would put a bunch of tokens at the beginning of like a little chart on the side of the game board.

Then you'd like roll more dice pools and shift the tokens along the chart or something. And eventually you would have a result.

My memory is vague because I only played it once years ago. But I'm pretty sure, chart, lots of tokens, lots of dice, multiple phases of rolling. That was for like, one attack action or some junk.

When I played it I was the only one at the table who could figure out WHAT we were supposed to be doing for combat resolution.

And I sure as heck could not determine what a "plus something" would do in terms of impact on chances/degree of success, because while I could DO the resolution I did not FOLLOW the maths of the resolution. It lost me somewhere around the second dice pool roll or whatever it was.

ANYWAY. I disagree somewhat with some of the "review of FFG products" bit in the OP. Partly by opinion, but also partly by the angle some of the items should be viewed in.

Twilight Probably about right, but I'm pretty sure this is an FFG original line (worth noting), is currently rather dated even in it's newest edition, and has handy optional rules available to make map building (the biggest screw you imbalance in the game) more even if you want to.

Battle Lore Is I am pretty sure another whole cloth acquired property. Which is worth noting if you want to talk about FFGs potential to acquire a property whole cloth or not...

Arkham Horror I am pretty sure the core on this was a whole cloth acquired dealio with fancier art and its largely the (extensive) expansions which is their own work. So also worth noting.

Battle Star I hate this game. There is a great deal wrong with it. But hey, it's sure popular. I can't wait for the fad to DIE DIE DIE.

Chaos In The Old World Their own work. Worth noting because they acquired the license for Warhammer setting board games and churned this out pretty much as fast as you might imagine they could possible do so once they did. Again, relevant for discussion of acquiring properties and publishing them...

Doom A generally failed use of a franchise, in the end is basically just the failed and broken prototype for some of the stuff used in Descent.

Descent FFG saw a gap in the market for a Hero Quest game and made one far better than anything with the name Hero Quest ever was (excluding the computer adventure/rpg game later renamed Quest For Glory for legal reasons perhaps).

WoW Games An example of FFG doing their own thing with a license and going horribly horribly wrong. Then coming back fairly quickly once that was clear and trying to exploit the license by chucking the failed attempt and making a new, slightly less failed failed attempt at it.

Talisman Acquired whole cloth, reprinted, then got expansions added/in the works that it may well never have seen without going to FFG.

UFS Collectible card game acquired whole cloth by FFG. Notable because they apparently had some screw ups here and there that offended the community. Then recently they canceled the whole line (along with ALL FFG CCGs now and in future. Apparently their LCG thing is working nicely for them though).

Rogue Trader and Warhammer Fantasy Role Play Acquired whole cloth and reprinted, expansions added, is an actual RPG property. So very relevant to Shadowrun. However UNLIKE shadow run the initial property was acquired early in it's product cycle, just after core book releases that had VERY clearly NOT had large enough print runs to satisfy demand. That probably won't fly with Shadowrun so much.

Anima RPG Another whole cloth acquired (and translated) RPG franchise. Haven't seen it in person, thought it died in limbo, but FFG is pushing an expansion for it so...

[Zinegata]

Robby->

Arkham needs a lot more investment in time than Dominion, and it works more for lotsa players. So consider it only if you have a regular game group.

Souran->

Oh, right. Forgot about Fury of Dracula. It's a nice rethemed Scotland Yard. However, you can't actually be eliminated in the game. If a Hunter dies he goes to St Muro (the hospital) with all items stripped.

I also hated Runebound. No idea why people like it so much, but the lack of interactivity is murder for a boardgame.

Also, God, you had to endure WoW? Poor man.

Doom314->

Command & Colors (C&C) is the engine for Battlelore. It was originally published by GMT as a "historical" wargame featuring ancient battles.

Except the Carthiginians and Romans had the same number of soldiers at fucking Cannae.

I have no idea why it takes you 6 hours to play Descent (4 is more typical for us). However, Runewars is definitely a good investment. It actually plays reasonably fast and can be completed in 3 hours.

Frank->

There is also the Warcraft boardgame, which is godawful and makes you build towns and such... It simulates the RTS.

Warcraft is fucking cursed for FFG.

PL->

Battlestar is not a fad. It just very smartly uses the traitor/hidden identity mechanic used in a lot of other good games - i.e. Bang, Shadows over Camelot, and that weird Z-man anime game that's a lot like Bang.

[DragonChild]

that weird Z-man anime game that's a lot like Bang.

Shadow Hunters, which is an amazingly awesome game.

[Zinegata]

that weird Z-man anime game that's a lot like Bang.

Shadow Hunters, which is an amazingly awesome game.

Oh yes! That's a good game indeed.

[Leress]

Question: Has FFG fixed the book binding issue? I have Grimm and Dawnforge and the glue for them is ass.

[PhoneLobster]

Battlestar is not a fad.

Yeah sure.

It just very smartly uses the traitor/hidden identity mechanic

From my observations it ISN'T very smart, the resolution mechanics are tedious and only barely interactive and the whole thing is based on a rather BAD modern sci fi series.

used in a lot of other good games - i.e. Bang, Shadows over Camelot, and that weird Z-man anime game that's a lot like Bang.

I sort of hear good things about Bang, but am not familiar with it. Shadows over Camelot however is an insanely bad board game. And as one I have actually very recently "played" I can tell you in a LOT more detail WHY than I can actually present for Battle Star.

But clearly, if you think that Shadows Over Camelot is a "good game" I'm not going to think much of your opinion of battle star.

So really if "Shadows Over Camelot rocks so you will agree Battle Star does for the same reasons!" is your argument you essentially just prove everything I believed about Battle Star and why it is a bad bad board game.

[Zinegata]

Shadows over Camelot is a very limited boardgame, but it's also very good for what it's supposed to do. Honestly, I don't see the mechanic hate outside of you simply not liking having the paranoia.

Moreover, "insanely bad" isn't really a variable that can be evaluated. Elaborate.

[cthulhu]

3) Android - Suffers from bad marketing.

Shit

4) Arkham Horror

Good idea, too easy.

5) Battlestar Galactica

May be the best game ever.

9) Doom - Despite people groaning upon seeing the box, it actually played well. It actually felt a lot like Space Hulk. The main thing going against it is the fact that your dudes respawn when they die (like in the video game) which feels kinda weird in a boardgame, and the setup is painful. The wacky dice, personally speaking, actually work well for this game.

Biggest problem is the retarded difficulty curve. That made it so unfun we've never played it again.

10) Descent - A lot like Doom, but more close range hack and slash. Suffers from many of the same problems as Doom. While Doom is mediocre bordering on good... Descent tends to be mediocre bordering on bad for me. Largely due to a lot of fiddly new rules on top of the Doom engine.

What's with the difficulty curve fail in FFG. My friends play this a lot. I overload mostly. The biggest problem is the compiled errata is literally the size of the rulebook. Which is retarded. Third parties have released new rulebooks with the errata slipstreamed in, and i reocmmend these instead.

[Zinegata]

Argh! Quote tags!

[cthulhu]

Fixed