Battleground: Fantasy Warfare Review

Battleground: Fantasy Warfare is a miniatures wargame with a difference. A big difference. Instead of buying scores of expensive miniatures along with paints and other materials with which to prepare your armies, you simply invest in the decks of cards that you need - each Starter deck contains enough 'units' (which are represented by cards rather than miniatures) to create two 1500-point armies of the same faction along with a command card deck, basic rules and reference cards. This is enough for two people to play (therefore a very minimal investment is required to actually get started with the game), but for a more interesting game each player should have at least a different Starter deck each. There are currently three factions available - Men of Hawkshold, Orc Army and Undead Army - with each one represented by a Starter deck and a Reinforcement deck. Reinforcement decks contain fifty unit cards and an advanced rule book. The only extra materials that are required are six-sided dice (and lots of them!), as well as the previously mentioned dry erase markers.

It's very easy to get started with Battleground - the basic rules contained with each Starter deck also contain quick start rules which can be learned in minutes, and these handily teach the basic mechanics of the game in order to get you started. Once these become familiar, it is then much easier to move on to and learn the basic rules. Advanced rules contain rules for playing scenarios, multiplayer (ie more than 2 players), terrain and more. This means that the game can be played with whatever level of complexity the players choose - which is a very welcome feature.

Players first take turns to build their armies to a point total that they both agree on - 1500 points is used for a standard game. Each unit has a point cost, and players are free to create any single faction army that they want as long as they do not exceed the agreed point total. Unit cards, when face up, show a bird's eye view of the relevant units as well as a damage bar and all necessary details such as power, defence, courage, speed and so on. The other side of the unit cards details important information about bonuses and penalties to attack rolls or defence, as well as the card's point cost. Command cards can also be purchased (up to 150 points worth) at 25 points each. These cards are drawn during the next phase - deployment.

Units are then deployed and standing orders are issued. These are written in the command circle on the card - it is advisable to use a dry erase marker as these commands do change, and dry erase marker wipes off very easily. Also, place each card in a protective sleeve - even though it would be ok to write directly on the cards, they will eventually wear out. Placing them in sleeves not only protects them from this, but also from general wear and tear during play. Dry erase markers write on and wipe off just as easily on the sleeves as on the card itself. You can find the correct sized sleeves here – make sure to specify clear sleeves, as important information is also on the rear of the cards and is needed during play.

Once commands are issued, players then take turns to move their units one by one according to their standing orders. During this phase - Movement & Command - players can use command actions, which offer many extra options, some faction-exclusive (for example, the Undead Army can use the 'reanimate' action to give health back to their units). Players have one command action for every five hundred points used during army construction – so in a 1500-point game, players will have three command actions available to use during this phase.

When units meet or move within range of an enemy unit, combat ensues during the combat phase. Combat is pretty simple and involves a few quick dice rolls, although working out bonuses and penalties can take a little getting used to. Damage is marked off on the cards – each unit has a damage bar to keep track of how many hits they have taken. When the damage bar is full, the unit is destroyed. Rout checks must sometimes be made, and these can sometimes result in a unit being destroyed as they disband in terror – but more often than not this causes the unit to run away from battle! In a basic scenario, when a player destroys all of his opponents units, he wins the game.

Despite it’s appearance, Battleground is not a ‘light’ wargame – that is to say, it is as complex and involving as a full miniatures-based game. While it is easy to learn the basics, it is still a far more complex game than a German-style game or an average board game, in keeping with its wargame-style tactical depth. It is definitely a lot quicker to play than the average wargame too (unless of course you play with 5,000-point armies!), which is great for those of us with time constraints. It’s very satisfying to build an army and watch your plans unfold on the battlefield, and there are many different options available every turn. As with the most involving games, there are always too few actions and too many options, causing agonizing decisions every turn about how best to organise movement and attack of each unit. The command card and command point systems are very well implemented, and combat is very clean and easy to resolve. All movement in the game is measured in card lengths (various multiples of short and long lengths of the card sides), which makes measuring distances very simple indeed.

There are a few minor negative points that I should raise though. The rulebook is tiny, and it is reasonably difficult to locate clarifications of rules when you most need them. Some of the rules are also a little unclear or badly explained, such as the explanation of reducing movement categories when taking direct control of units. Also, the reference cards that are included with the starter decks do include all of the information you need when changing a unit’s movement or applying modifiers to combat situations, but it is hard, especially for the first few games, to remember what all of the terms mean. Even after the first few games, it is still tough to remember everything that you need to know as there are so many situations where these modifiers will apply. There is also a rather glaring omission from the reference cards that would have assisted greatly in learning the game – a turn summary.

These minor points don’t detract from the enjoyment that can be gleaned from Battleground though. It could have ended up being incredibly gimmicky – the unique selling point, after all, is the fact that it is a cheap wargame played with cards instead of miniatures - but the designers have not taken the easy way out. It’s an absolutely superb recreation of the classic miniatures style wargaming experience, made much more affordable and both easy to set up and take down again. As the decks fit in standard playing-card sized boxes, it's also much easier to find space for than boxes of miniatures. Battleground is a highly compelling and endlessly replayable game, perfect for players without the time or inclination to paint and assemble miniatures as well as spend huge amounts of money in order to afford an army of them. It’s an easy game to learn, but players looking for more complexity are free to use any advanced rules as they see fit - it's a brilliantly scalable system. Battleground deserves to be a huge hit – it’s easily one of the best games that I have played for a long time, and comes highly recommended for all players looking to scratch that wargame itch in a convenient and affordable format.

Summary

Presentation: Basically just decks of cards - cardstock is average, but the cards are well illustrated. The various modifiers and damage trackers are well laid out and do not obscure the view of the units. 7.5/10

Clarity of Rules: The rules are printed on a tiny and surprisingly thick book, and could definitely have been presented in a more easy to read manner. There is quite a bit to keep track of, and some useful information - such as turn summaries - appears only in the book, not on the reference cards. 7.0/10

Game Length: Games typically last around 1 1/2 hours but this can depend on the scenario played. The length of the game is adaptable to suit the needs of the players. 8.8/10

Value: Superb - you'd have a hard time buying a single army in a normal miniatures game for the price of all six Battleground decks. 9.5/10

Overall: An excellent concept, brilliantly implemented. A very affordable miniatures-style game without any of the hassle or expense. 9.2/10 (not an average)

Review by Jason M. Brown

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Robo Rally Review

Robo Rally a game of racing robot madness for 2-8 players from Avalon Hill. The aim is to race your robot across a factory floor, reaching a series of checkpoints before your opponents do.

Before the game starts a factory layout has to be chosen. There are about 30 different ones in the rule book and it is easy to make your own by selecting boards and checkpoint locations all players agree with.

Each player takes a robot record card, which tracks lives, damage, programmed moves and whether or not the robot is going to power down next turn. Robots, are then placed on the starting board, which connects to the main floor area and you are ready to go!

Each turn players are dealt a hand of nine cards (or less if their robot is damaged) with which to programme their robot. Each card represents a simple action such as moving forward 1-3 spaces, moving backward one space, rotating left or right 90 degrees or performing a U-Turn. From their random cards, players select five and place them face down on their robot record card in the order in which they are to be performed. As an added incentive to be quick, once the penultimate player has finished, a 30-second egg-timer is turned over. Failure to complete programming in this time results in any empty slots being filled at random!

Once all players are done they turn over the first card and perform the action upon it. If two or more robots would cross paths, moves are conducted in order of the initiative number printed on the card. This is important as robots can push each other, thereby wrecking a perfectly laid out plan! This process is then repeated for the remaining four cards, at which point the turn ends.

Of course, there is much more to the game than this, which is where the selection of track comes into it. Each board (there are 4, each double sided) depicts a section of factory floor filled with all manner of dangers which the robots have to navigate. Fast and slow conveyers, lasers, pits and rotating cogs are just some of the hazards to be overcome. Once each player has moved their robot according to the programme card, each element on the factory floor activates in order. Conveyers move you either one or two spaces depending if they are fast or slow, cogs rotate you 90 degrees and lasers cause damage if you are caught in their beam. Robots also have a laser which shoots out the front of them at the end of each turn and causes damage just like the factory lasers. Should you be unfortunate enough to get destroyed, your robot ‘regenerates’ at the last checkpoint or repair space you landed on. But each robot only has 3 lives before they are destroyed for good.

And this is where the game gains a great deal of its appeal. There is a great deal of skill in taking a hand of random cards, figuring how far you can get by using five of them, and working out the implications of landing on any of the obstacles in your path. The use of a timer keeps things ticking along nicely, otherwise players could be tempted to take all day plotting a single move, there is so much to take into account.

Damage can be crippling for your robot. Each point taken means you draw one less card, severely limiting your options. When you take more than four, your programme cards start to become locked in place, meaning you cannot change them until you are repaired. Fortunately a ‘Power Down’ option allows you to heal your robot fully, but doing so costs you a valuable turn. If you are near one and plot your move well, you could end up on a special repair space which allows you to remove one point of damage. Some of the repair spaces permit a player to draw from an upgrade deck, containing many items designed to give your robot a little edge. Fortunately, none of these are powerful enough to hugely unbalance the game, but they can tip things in your favour.

Unfortunately, the components let the game down slightly. The factory floor boards are nice enough, with their double sided nature giving scope for plenty of variety. The robot record sheets and reference cards, however, are printed on very thin card, meaning care has to be taken to prevent them being accidentally bent. A couple of robot models also look quite similar, which can lead to confusion during a game. One of the biggest drawbacks, I feel, is that the programme card deck is shuffled at the start of every turn. While this may not be an immediately obvious problem, the cards soon pick up little nicks, showing up clearly due to having black borders, and marks after a handful of games. If you want to play this game regularly, or just keep the frequently shuffled cards in good condition, I would recommend picking up some protective card sleeves. There are 81 programme cards and 26 upgrade cards. Suitable sleeves can be found here.

This aside, the game is tremendous fun and something most people will enjoy, given the opportunity, making it an excellent introduction to the world of hobby board games.

8/10

Review by Chris Walkley

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Fearsome Floors Review

Fearsome Floors is a humorous, horror boardgame for 2-7 players in which the aim is to guide as many of your counters out of a large hall before darkness falls or they are eaten by the monster which roams within.

During each turn, players alternate in moving one of their characters a number of squares up to the value indicated on the character token face. The token is then flipped over to reveal the other side, which has a different value. The sum of both faces is seven and each player has four characters marked 1/6, 3/4, 4/3 and 2/5. So characters will move slower on one turn and faster the next, meaning a little bit of forethought is required in planning moves.

Once all the players have moved their tokens it is the monster’s turn. The movement of the monster is controlled by a deck of cards, each of which has either a number or one or two crosses on it. The number indicates how many spaces (between 5 and 10) the monster will move, whereas the cross tiles cause him to move up to 20 spaces or until he has eaten one or two characters. The actual movement is handled by the game. Before he moves, the monster ‘looks’ left, right and straight forward to see where the closest player token is, then takes a step towards them. This happens for every step he takes, so clever planning can lure him towards your opponents… or a wrong step can lead to disaster! The movement deck contains 8 cards, only 7 of which are drawn before it is reshuffled. The game lasts for two runs through the deck (14 turns). If a piece is ‘eaten’ during the first 7 moves, it can be brought back into play. If it is eaten during the second 7 turns, it is out of the game for good.

Complicating matters are a series of tokens placed randomly across the gridded playing area. These represent obstacles such as pillars (which the monster cannot see through), teleporters (which move him to another space on the board), and large blood smears (which the monster and character tokens slide across when they step upon them!). All of these keep the game varied and add depth and strategy which the game would otherwise be sorely lacking. Another twist is that each edge space has a letter next to it. If the monster is moved off the edge of the board, he reappears at the other space with that letter. Not keeping an eye on this can spell disaster.

Being a German game, the components are all of the highest quality. Player tokens are wooden discs with stickers on which have comic-book style depictions of the character’s heads. Each group has a theme, such as the Addams Family, college students, or sci-fi geeks. The card obstacles and monster movement deck are both durable and pretty to look at. The monster deck cards are all shaped like gravestones, and the numbers on the other side are written in blood, often accompanied by a set of footprints! The artwork is great throughout, with a nice tongue in cheek feel (the box art is a parody of 1950s EC Comics (i.e. Vault of Horror, Tales from the Crypt etc)). One other thing that deserves a mention is that the monster is a 3D model made up of card pieces for arms, feet, body and head. With the game are pieces to make three types, plus a few additional heads and arms, and all the pieces can be mixed-and-matched to create your own beast! It is touches like this which make the game stand out.

Although not the deepest or most strategic game, replayability is high due to the sheer fun of the whole thing. Seeing a cunning move pay off, or groaning when you have failed to anticipate where the monster is going is a great joy.

If a criticism has to be levelled at the game, it is only that it improved significantly with more than two players. The two player game is fine, and still worth playing, but the increase in player tokens on the board when it is played with more makes it a lot more entertaining.

If you are looking for a light, fun, comic-horror themed game, then this comes highly recommended.

9/10

Review by Chris Walkley

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An Introduction to Board Gaming - Part 2 - CCGs

The first part of my introduction to board games focused on German games - an incredibly popular type of game that has spread far beyond Germany and into households across the world. Players without time to play long, drawn out games of conquest that sometimes seem to drag on longer than a Tolstoy novel find themselves able to squeeze in numerous German-style games during a games session. Not only that, but the ease of teaching allows newer players to feel less intimidated when learning these games.

But I digress. That's already been covered here. Obviously German style games aren't for everyone, nor are they necessarily the only type of game that people play. With this week's article, i'm going to focus on the huge phenomenon of Collectable Card Games, or as they are often more simply known as, CCGs.

Collectable Card Games, while not board games (I know, maybe I should be calling this an Introduction to Board and Card Games!), are often a big step up in complexity from normal card games. Not only that, but many use playmats as 'boards', and while these aren't always necessary, they do help to generate an aesthetic atmosphere that is often not present in non-collectable card games. The illustrations on the cards themselves are also instrumental in creating a certain unique feel for the game. Here we will take a look at exactly what CCGs are, and how to get started in the densely populated and often intimidating world of collectable games.

An Introduction to…

CCGs

Basics – Why Collect?

All Collectable Card Games follow the same basic formula - Starter decks (these are often, but not always, 'fixed' decks in which the exact same cards are available in each deck with the same title, much like a traditional deck of cards) are sold, and usually each player will need one of these. Starter decks often contain more than just the main deck of cards that are used for play - playmats, dice and game counters are sometimes also included. Booster packs (these are sold much like traditional packs of trading cards - minus the bubblegum!) can then be bought which allow players to modify the starter decks. Booster packs contain a varying amount of cards depending on the game, but most games tend to have booster packs that contain a large amount of common cards, a smaller amount of uncommon cards and an even smaller number of rare cards. I can almost hear you screaming at me, "But why should I bother buying booster packs when starter decks contain everything I need to play?". The answer isn't necessarily an easy one. The unique selling point of CCGs is that first C - Collectable. Game publishers rely on the booster packs to continue earning revenue from the game, and players continue buying booster packs in order to increase their collection of cards and widen their strategic options within the game.

Deck Building

Deck building is a fun way to play with the cards without actually playing the game, and is an addictive and enjoyable pastime in itself. Different games allow players to modify games in different ways - for example, in Pokémon, decks must be 60 cards, and no more than 4 of each type of Pokémon, Trainer or Support card etc is allowed, but Energy Cards are allowed in any quantity. Another example is the Call of Cthulhu CCG - in this game no more than 4 types of any card are allowed in a deck (so 4 maximum of any card with the same title), and cards must be a minimum of 50 cards, with no upper limit. In the VS System, again no more than 4 of each character, plot twist or location is allowed -unless the character is marked with the Army keyword, which allows an unrestricted amount to be placed in the deck. VS System allows a minimum of 60 card decks, with no maximum. Once players have familiarised themselves with a game, it is often easy to build powerful decks or decks with combinations of cards that work very well together. It’s very exciting to put a deck together and then test it during actual play – it’s incredibly satisfying to see your own customised deck in action.

Tournaments

For those wishing a more competitive style of game, CCGs can often be played within the context of a tournament, normally organised by the company who publishes the game. For example, Wizards of the Coast (publishers of Magic: The Gathering) have a branch called the DCI, who handle and adjudicate all official Magic tournaments worldwide. Each player takes their deck and in some cases a smaller ‘sideboard’ deck. They have to use the same deck throughout the tournament, although changes are allowed between games by substituting cards from the ‘sideboard’ into the main deck. Each round normally consists of three games against an opponent within a time limit, with points being awarded to the winner. Most CCG tournaments are based on the ‘Swiss style’ meaning that players who gather a similar amount of points will be allocated to play against each other. In a wider context, attendance and success at tournaments will result in a player’s ranking increasing, and these rankings are available for viewing online, with players being listed globally, nationally and regionally. Tournament play does provide a very exciting experience and a chance to greatly improve the level of your game. If you do not mind its competitive nature, then it can be very satisfying, especially as you can see how you rate against players worldwide. The main drawback is that the high standard of decks being played will mean a greater investment and a need to purchase more rare cards, some with value of up to £15 each. However, once you have a deck, it can remain competitive for around a year, and the outlay is probably no more than for someone who takes a sport seriously.


In short, CCGs often require a significant time investment – not just to play, but also to construct decks in order to compete against opponents and their ever-evolving decks. The time investment is not all that is required – a big factor is the amount of money required to build up a collection of cards. There are many great CCGs still available – there was an explosion of CCGs in the mid to late 90s, of which only a few remain – and we’ll take a look at some of them one by one in order to give you some information on where is best to start:

Magic: The Gathering is probably the single most popular CCG in production and was first published in 1993. In this game, each player assumes the role of a duelling wizard attempting to reduce their opponent’s life score to zero. The two main types of card in the game are spell cards and land cards. Spell cards are played by paying a cost in ‘mana’, or power, drawn from the land cards. Spells and land fall into one of five ‘colours’, White, Black, Blue, Red or Green. Each colour broadly represents a type of magic – blue is water magic, green is nature magic, red is fire magic and so on. Magic is a good place to start looking at CCGs and its popularity means that it is never hard to find someone to play with. Local game stores will often host games to take part in or help you meet other players.

Pokémon is an excellent choice for the beginner, younger player or video game enthusiast. It’s very attractive visually and has very easy to learn rules with simple gameplay, which can be understood and enjoyed by anyone. The deck building is easy to pick up, and the game is widely available with many different and well tuned starter decks. Different starter decks from the same series (eg Emerald, Unseen Forces, Deoxys) are well designed to be balanced against each other, which makes buying boosters less of an issue. An excellent introduction to CCGs which is always immense fun to play, but far less complex than other CCGs.

Yu-Gi-Oh! is a wildly popular game, based on a Japanese Manga comic. A step up in complexity from Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh! has players summoning monsters, traps and spells – sometimes secretly – to whittle their opponent’s life points down to zero. A very satisfying game, but prone to nastiness with regards to the secret traps or spells that are set (it is very frustrating to carry out a well thought out plan only to have it thwarted by a series of traps and spells, none of which could have been properly planned for). For slightly older players than Pokémon is necessarily aimed at (maths skills are also required on a larger scale than with Pokémon) who don’t mind the often frustrating nature of the trap and spell cards. Yu-Gi-Oh! also has a very good online version which can be played against opponents from all over the world from the comfort of your home PC. This eliminates most of the cost issues with traditional CCGs as it is much cheaper to play and to amass cards, which are collected and stored ‘virtually’ on your PC. However, please note that knowledge of the rules of the CCG is required before you play the Yu-Gi-Oh! Online game, as no tutorial is provided.

The Call of Cthulhu is a CCG aimed at older teenagers and adults - with sometimes suggestive or graphic illustrations accompanied by lurid text, it is definitely not a game. for younger players. Based on the dark and disturbing works of renowned, pioneering horror writer HP Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu is a game that is initially hard to grasp but immensely rewarding to play. There are many factions which can be mixed and matched to suit a player’s style, and it is easy to build decks that reflect certain themes or stories from Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Thematically very good, consistently well illustrated and brilliantly designed, this CCG is – in my opinion - one of the most compelling games currently available (collectable or otherwise). The biggest drawbacks are that it is often hard to find opponents, it is fairly tough to learn, and due to the large number of factions and cards available it can be quite expensive to get enough cards to build the deck that you want.

This brings us to the end of the second ‘An Introduction to…’ article. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them at the link below and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

By Jason M. Brown, with additional input from Chris Walkley

Gloom Review

Gloom is a non-collectable card game for 2-4 players from Atlas games with an interesting premise and an even more interesting game mechanic. Each player takes control of an eccentric family, which could easily have stepped out of a Tim Burton movie, and aims to have each member suffer the greatest misfortune and tragedy before shuffling off the mortal coil and receiving the comforting embrace of death. This may all sound incredibly morbid (and, quite frankly, it is) but the whole thing is carried off with such a wonderfully twisted sense of humour that you cannot help but play with a wry grin on your face. Think of Roald Dahl’s books or the Lemony Snicket series and you are on the right track.

The game comes with 110 transparent plastic cards and a rules sheet. Cards are either character cards, showing a member of a family (five per player), event cards, fortune/misfortune cards or untimely demise cards.

Each misfortune card has a title (e.g. Pursued by Poodles, Mocked by Midgets), some humorous flavour text, game effect and one, two or three circles with a value written in them. When these are played, they stack on top of a character of your choice. This is where the transparent nature of the cards becomes important. As more misfortunes are played, they either add additional negative modifiers, or cover up previous ones (only the uppermost in each of the 3 positions counts). Cards can also be played on your opponent’s characters, so you can place a lesser misfortune on them, or even a happy occurrence, such as a wedding, which has a positive score.

Event cards are discarded after being played and generally have a one off effect, such as swapping misfortunes between characters, allowing you to draw extra cards, or even bringing deceased characters back from the dead!

Untimely demise cards can only be played on characters with a negative self worth score and, unless later removed by an event, means the character is dead and no more cards can be played on them. Some misfortune cards have special icons representing story elements such as poison, money, or beasts. If a dead character has a visible special icon which is mentioned on the demise card, they can score extra valuable points.

The cards themselves are well made and would probably stand up to extended shuffling. My copy of the game does have a few print errors causing some of the numbers or text to be a little unclear, but this does not greatly impede gameplay. It is also possible to see the values through the backs of the cards! This is odd considering the game text and title of each is printed onto a black layer, which is all that is needed to stop them being seen through. Quite why this was not done with the most important aspect of the cards will probably remain a mystery! Another odd quirk is that Atlas games decided to print the cards on slightly frosted plastic. This does not make much sense when you consider you need to see through them, although few enough cards are played on a single character for this not to be a crippling problem.

The rules of the game are very straightforward. Each player starts with a hand of 5 cards and a player’s turn consists of playing or discarding two cards, although an untimely death may only be played as your first action. This continues until one player has managed to cause all their characters to expire, at which point the game ends and everyone adds up the value of their dead characters (living ones score nothing).

Gloom is certainly interesting to play the first few times, especially if players make a little effort in storytelling and describe how the misfortunes they play connect together. Like many simple card games, however, it does start to feel somewhat repetitive and a combination of some very powerful cards and inherent luck of the draw does not help play balance. As a result, the game does not have very high replayability - despite the novel transparent card mechanic - and its lack of depth stops it from being fully satisfying. However, Gloom is entertaining enough for the odd half hour it takes to play, especially if you appreciate the humour and want something quick and light, or at appropriate times of year - such as Halloween.

6/10

Review by Chris Walkley

One False Step For Mankind Review: Overlooked Classic

Cheapass Games are a small company that produce incredibly cheap games, often in envelopes, simple white boxes or resealable 'ziplock' bags. The main idea behind Cheapass Games is that they provide rules, boards and cards - and the players provide all of the more generic components such as dice, pawns and counters. This means that full games cost less than a fiver, and offer comparable play value to games that cost two, three or even four times that amount! Pretty much all Cheapass products have a silly theme, with humour woven into the rules, making them easy to learn and digest.

Unusually for a Cheapass Game, One False Step for Mankind comes with full colour boards and cards. Also, its depth and playing time far exceeds that of any other game in the range and its strategic options are many and varied, with the average length of a game being around 3 hours.

One False Step for Mankind is an intricate game of resource management and territory building from the warped mind of the Cheapass Games head honcho, James Ernest. Players compete to buy cities on a map of the Old West, and slowly spread their territories from their owned cities in order to build up reserves of food and gold. Food and gold is used when launching and upgrading rockets, which is the only method of gaining the political influence that is needed to win the game. Players compete to be the first to reach a total of 30 influence chips, which enables them to become Governor of California (a position currently being held by a certain ex-Terminator, which does make the game seem slightly less fantastical - if Schwarzenegger can do it, surely anyone can!).

Given its complexity and the options available to each player during each turn, play progresses surprisingly quickly with minimal downtime. Player interaction is always high, as each round has an auction in which players bid on cities to be added to their little empire, as well as the fact that during the expanding of territories, players often have to fight over farms (the source of food) and gold mines (fairly obviously, the source of gold). This is handled simply and quickly, with players who have taken the time to fortify their cities rather than just expand with no regard for defence being rewarded in the latter stages of the game when resources are viciously sought after.

The game is hugely enjoyable, with many different and equally effective ways of playing, and as is usual with Cheapass Games the rules are clear, concise and very easy to digest. The game turns are split into seven phases, each one a day of the week (with the same turn order every week), and this helps to make One False Step very easy to learn. The Cheapass sense of humour is somewhat lacking from the game - the only silly thing is the overall theme, concerning rockets being shot to the moon in the mid-1800s (and some of the bizarre but admittedly amusing city names), but this doesn't really rear its head in the same way that the humour is imprinted into the very core of many other Cheapass Games. Perhaps this decision was taken so that players do not find the game tiresome during its reasonably long (for a Cheapass game anyway) duration. If so, it has worked admirably.

As the board is modular (and can be arranged in any pattern that the players choose, with thousands of possible combinations), as well as the fact that only 5 out of 8 supplied boards are needed to play a game, it would be very hard to set up two games in exactly the same way - which will help to keep it feeling fresh even after several games. Every time my group has played this game, it has reached its conclusion within one turn of the final city being drawn, which is fantastic - it seems to have been perfectly designed to reach its natural conclusion at near enough the same point every time you play, with the game never outstaying its welcome.

The only complaint that I can make with this game is that it can be quite difficult to track down all of the required components - which can end up costing more than the game itself. Yellow poker chips, green poker chips and red poker chips (around 100 of each) are needed, as well as dice, paperclips and around 40 small counters (gaming stones are perfect) for each player. This does seem ever so slightly at odds with the Cheapass ethos, but at least they only have to be bought once - and it is perfectly possible that future Cheapass releases will need the same components, therefore spreading the cost somewhat. That said though, even if the components have to be bought along with the game, it will still work out cheaper than a lot of games that are far more expensive due to their custom components and huge boxes.

This has to be not only the deepest and most involving Cheapass Game so far, but also the most satisfying. It's great to have a Cheapass Game that not only has great depth and superb replayability, but also one that has excellent production values far in excess of anything that they have released before. Any naysayers that write James Ernest off as a games designer would do well to check out One False Step; Cheapass fans need not be told twice that this is an essential purchase. Those new to the Cheapass concept altogether, with a penchant for fast, involving strategy and near-limitless replayability (all at a ridiculously cheap price) should check One False Step for Mankind out immediately!

Summary

Presentation: As usual with Cheapass Games, players are expected to provide most of their own components. The cards that you get with this game are full colour though, which is unusual for a Cheapass product. 7.0/10

Clarity of Rules: The rules are not as witty as the average Cheapass release, but as this game is a step-up complexity wise from other Cheapass Games, there is less room for wit! Very simple to learn. 8.5/10

Game Length: Usually around three hours, with an incredibly small amount of downtime considering the depth of the game. 9.0/10

Value: Very good value for money - but bear in mind that you will need quite a few components to play the game. 7.6/10

Overall: Many strategic options and a near infinite number of ways to create the board mean that this game has a longevity that few full price titles can match. A stunning achievement. 9.6/10 (not an average)

Review by Jason M. Brown