Fallen: Coming To Kickstarter in June

Fallen is Oregon gaming company Watchtower Games' debut product and is scheduled to hit Kickstarter sometime in the month of June.  I don't know if my pocket can afford it, but this is another project that I plan to support.  Read on and maybe you'll join me in supporting what appears to be a great game.

Fallen is a two-player dungeon exploration game.  One player chooses his hero from three available characters.  The other player is the Dungeon Lord.  The premise is simple enough.  The hero delves deeper into the dungeon, in search of the dungeon's ultimate evil.  The Dungeon Lord throws traps and monsters in the hero's path in an attempt to foil the hero's plan.  If the hero can overcome the traps and monsters, the game culminates in an epic battle between the hero and the Dungeon Lord.  A battle that only one of them will survive.

The dungeon is randomly generated and made up of Story Cards.  Each Story Card is a scenario that the hero must complete in order to keep moving deeper into the dungeon.  Each Story Card or scenario contains ten challenges that branch into ten different directions that the hero can take.  This ensures that no two dungeons are the same.  Challenges can have the hero attempting to jump over chasms, solving ancient puzzles and fighting terrible monsters, among many other different challenges.

There are three heroes: the Pit Fighter, the Thief and the Sorceress.  At first glance, it would appear that the availability of only three heroes will quickly cause the game to grow stale.  However, appearances can be deceiving.  Each hero comes with 9 unique skills that allow you to build your character your way.  For example, you can build a Pit Fighter that has monstrous strength or one that has a tactical advantage during combat; a classic sorceress that calls forth devastating spells of power, or a swordmage capable of fighting toe to toe with spell and sword.  Besides the 9 unique skills, there are 10 specialized power cards and custom starting equipment.  This should provide plenty of different ways to explore the random dungeons.  The system is also set up in such a way that expansions should be plenty and prompt in coming.

There is equal diversity to the role of the Dungeon Lord.  The Dungeon Lord can choose from the Archivist of Souls, the Forge Master, and Krogarn the Ogre King.  Each Dungeon Lord has 10 unique power cards that range from necromantic spells to deadly traps.  This makes the Dungeon Lord's mission of giving hell to the hero a lot of fun.  For example, a Story Card challenge may require that the player decipher ancient runes in a sarcophagus.  The Dungeon Lord can make turn this mundane challenge into a living nightmare by sending a Shadow Fiend screaming into the room.  Each time the hero is defeated, the Dungeon Lord grows in power.  This allows leveling up of summoned creatures to give them greater strength and new abilities.  Defeat the hero enough times and the Omen card enters into play, giving the Dungeon Lord a deadly trick to play whenever the hero is at his weakest.

Four different challenges must be faced in each Story Card.  Each challenge moves the hero deeper into the dungeon and sets the stakes and type of dice to be rolled.  In this example, the hero player finds himself in the midst of a "Bloody Melee", fighting thieves in an old hall.  With his back against the wall, the thieves press their advantage causing the hero to sustain 1 point of damage (the single blood drop).  The treasure symbol informs that success in this challenge will earn the hero a valuable treasure card.  The arm inside the red circle tells the player that this is a strength challenge.

The Dungeon Lord chooses a Creature card to use for the challenge. Each Creature card shows the type of dice rolled. The Dungeon Lord rolls the dice, plays any special abilities from Power cards, and counts the total number of swords rolled on the dice. The Hero then rolls the type of dice based on their strength, agility, or intelligence. The Hero rolls the dice, plays Power cards, and counts the total number of swords rolled. Equipment such as the Iron Sword, Storm Flail, or Mana Ring can be used to help win the challenge. If the Hero rolls the most swords, then he is victorious gaining treasures, experience, and new abilities. However, if the Dungeon Lord wins the challenge, then the summoned monsters grow stronger and the dungeon becomes even more perilous.

The adventure culminates in an epic battle between the hero and the Dungeon Lord with only one player left standing.  Here, at the bottom of the dungeon, surrounded by minions and dark spells, the evil Dungeon Lord faces off against the hero.  With the skills and magical artifacts recovered from the dungeon, the Hero must rise to the challenge to finally bring an end to the Dungeon Lord.  One final battle to return the world to the light or plunge it back into darkness.  

Nazgȗl, Or... 'Kill Those Hobbits!'

Maybe you are like me.  You loved The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings when you read it.  You still enjoyed it when you read them for the third time.  Then...  came the movies.

You still liked the movies but you found that Frodo's frailty may have been exaggerated...  a lot.  That Sam seemed way too needy of Frodo, and that Frodo seemed way too comfortable with that neediness.

In fact, by the the time The Return of the King hit the theaters, you outwardly wished for the success of Frodo and his friends, but inwardly...  silently growing somewhere inside a small dark corner in your heart...  was the hope that Peter Jackson had prepared a surprise ending that deviated, oh, so little, from the original story...  a surprise ending where those two little walking mounds of frailty and neediness became Nazgȗl feed...

If so, on May 30, 2013, Fantasy Flight will be releasing the board game that you - and I - have been waiting for:

"The dark lord Sauron is pleased that you have... chosen... to champion the true destiny of Middle-earth. Some prefer the hopeless cause of men and their miserable allies. Theirs is a fool's choice! You show no affinity for such delusions. You seek glory for Sauron, and your rewards shall be great!

You are one of Sauron's most powerful minions: a Nazgul! You must work together with the other Nazgul to stop the cursed hobbits and destroy the resistance of men. But at the same time, you must strive to prove your own worth to the dark lord. After all, there are rumors that even the Witch-king can be killed, and Sauron may soon need a new leader for the Nazgul. 

In The Lord of the Rings: Nazgul Board Game, you are faced with three Campaigns that you must conquer before the Ring-bearer carries The One Ring to Mount Doom. If you cannot complete them in time, all players lose! Along the way, you will earn Victory Points; and if the group succeeds in its duty, the player with the most VPs wins!"

Expansion Packs for Star Trek: Attack Wing

In March, WizKids announced plans for Star Trek: Attack Wing, a new board game in its Star Trek Heroclix line.  Expected to be released in August during Gen Con Indy, the game uses miniatures and the same FlightPath maneuver system as the Star Wars X-Wing game from Fantasy Flight Games.

Games will be played on Star Trek space maps distributed via an organized play program and will be sold in non-blind configurations with three-ship starter box sets. However, despite sharing the same mechanics system, the Star Trek: Attack Wing game is not compatible with Star Wars X-Wing.

Just this past Monday, WizKids announced eight single-ship expansion packs for Star Trek: Attack Wing.  The first expansion packs for the game are:

1. Federation U.S.S. Reliant Expansion Pack.
2. Federation U.S.S. Enterprise Expansion Pack.
3. Romulan I.R.W. Valdore Expansion Pack.
4. Romulan I.R.S. Apnex Expansion Pack.
5. Klingon I.K.S. Gr'oth Expansion Pack.
6. Klingon I.K.S. Negh'var Expansion Pack.
7. Dominion Kraxon Expansion Pack.
8. Dominion Gor Portas Expansion Pack.