I am showing a bit of the play details from Mage Knight the board game. I had organised a two player game but the second player fell through so this turned into a solo game that worked really well!
Setup
Given that I was playing at work (my Saturday work is in a service (or Gas for our American friends) station serving cars) I was interrupted a bit from customers. Setup took around 10 minutes or so.
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The Game
I used the solo conquest rules to play out the game. I used the elven Mage Knight called Norowas and implemented the character I normally play (Tovak Wyrmstalker) as the dummy player. Prior to this I had watched season 2 of +Ricky Royal‘s playthroughs for the game and leapt into it realising that I was certainly in need of building myself up for the end game.
Norowas turned out to be a very influential character which was cool and I spent a good deal of time building up units in the first half of the game. As a warrior though I never seemed to get the cards I needed, though I took out a good deal of the rampaging enemies as I moved through the board. I also got to place a shield token on a mage tower and a keep before the half point of the game was reached which meant I had some great units up my sleeve as I hit night of the second day, the half way point!
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| Map at the half-way point |
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| Units at the halfway point |
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| Tokens in the Dummy Player at half way |
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| The offers at half way |
By the end of the second night I had revealed both the cities for me to take over but also put myself in an awkward position to conquer them. I was still feeling a little confident though at this point and was ready for the final day of play to lead me on to victory.
Fight on I did and I actually managed to score a win. I was elated as this was the first time that I had tried any style of game apart from the walk through!
Mistakes I Made and Other Reflections
OK, as I was packing it all up I realised that I had made a couple of mistakes. The most benign of those mistakes was I forgot to handle an ice attack as such and blocked its effects with a normal blocker. I laughed at this because +Ricky Royal does the same in his video. The second mistake though made the game a much easier win.
I had prepared for this game to be a two player game and in that version of the conquest game both cities that come out are treated as level 4 cities. That gives each about three defenders. But the solo variant of this game actually causes the first city to be a level 5 city and the next city to be a level 8 or 12 can’t remember which. That would have made the second city much harder to take over and it is possible I would not have won. I treated them both as level 4 cities and the final city was a bit of a walk over in reality. I will need to play this again and properly to see if I am made of sterner stuff 🙂
The game flows really well and there is not a lot to remember as a player which I like. You can also customise your character somewhat as you make your way through the game. At the final bell Norowas was commanding 4 level 3 units and had made his way through most of the game on influence rather than the strength of his sword arm. I did destroy a monastery in the end just so I could get my hands on an artifact and loved the battle that occurred before it.
There are a lot of pieces in the game and cards and tokens, not to mention dice but it is at its heart fairly simple. I like the exploratory nature of the game and the differing effects of terrain and creature types. I was too chicken to hit an adventuring site though so i may go with a more combat oriented character next time and go dungeon delving. I tell you though, anyone that braves an ancient ruin or a monster spawning site has got rocks in their head!
I had prepared for this game to be a two player game and in that version of the conquest game both cities that come out are treated as level 4 cities. That gives each about three defenders. But the solo variant of this game actually causes the first city to be a level 5 city and the next city to be a level 8 or 12 can’t remember which. That would have made the second city much harder to take over and it is possible I would not have won. I treated them both as level 4 cities and the final city was a bit of a walk over in reality. I will need to play this again and properly to see if I am made of sterner stuff 🙂
The game flows really well and there is not a lot to remember as a player which I like. You can also customise your character somewhat as you make your way through the game. At the final bell Norowas was commanding 4 level 3 units and had made his way through most of the game on influence rather than the strength of his sword arm. I did destroy a monastery in the end just so I could get my hands on an artifact and loved the battle that occurred before it.
There are a lot of pieces in the game and cards and tokens, not to mention dice but it is at its heart fairly simple. I like the exploratory nature of the game and the differing effects of terrain and creature types. I was too chicken to hit an adventuring site though so i may go with a more combat oriented character next time and go dungeon delving. I tell you though, anyone that braves an ancient ruin or a monster spawning site has got rocks in their head!
Anyhow, I hope this encourages a few people to buy and play this game, it is totally worth it. Until next time, keep rolling!
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| Other photos through the game |
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| A stunning victory from ambush! |
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| My ranged attacks come to the rescue! |