EPTLast night was lots of fun and brought many firsts. Notably, it was the first time I met anyone from Teamliquid in person, and the first time playing Champions of Midgard.
Please note, first impressions is really to give my initial view of the game and does not express how good the game is overall as games can often get much better and/or worse through multiple plays. So, before further ado, here is my first impression of Champions of Midgard.
First Impression Score: 8.5/10
Champions of Midgard is a worker placement game that you can pick up and learn within 15-30 minutes. It has a quick and intuitive set up and overall, it makes the first play through easy and focused on game play more so than rules and technicalities. While this is amazing for the first play through of the game, there is an evident problem with depth which may create an issue with replay value. Still to be seen.
Game Mechanics:
So, as indicated above, the game mechanics are fairly easy to understand and that is primarily due to the fact that the options in the game all have the same basic requirements: Collect Warriors, once you've collected Warriors, you can fight to gain glory (Victory Points) AND assign blame (Negative victory points), you can fight to gain glory and gold or you can fight more difficult creatures to gain even more glory. Since all of the future options rely on the same starting actions, there are fewer areas where players can make mistakes.
What does this mean for the first play?
As stated above, it is very easy to pick up and play. In addition, it means that the better player will generally win on the first play because you can't accidentally go down a lesser path than everyone else. There is only one path to follow and the player who most optimally uses the only option present wins.
What does this mean for future plays?
This is purely hypothetical as I have not yet played the game more than once, however, games that do not have different progression paths are easier to solve, thus when playing with an experienced crowd, the winner should be almost entirely random. It could be frustrating for experienced gamers to play games in which they have little to no control over the outcome. For less experienced gamers, it is not so bad to play a game which can be easily solved as it adds a much needed degree of randomness to the outcome of the game.
There are some mechanics that revolve around luck such as combat and destiny cards (private score cards), however, there are other mechanics that mitigate the risk enough so that you don't feel like you're playing Yahtzee on every turn round.
Another interesting point to bring up about game mechanics is that, overall, the game board gets very well used which is not such a common thing in worker placement games, generally, it's very difficult for game developers to put out options that are all somewhat enticing.
Visual appeal / Theme:
The first impressions here are all very good, the board is very well organized and captures the theme and locations very well. The point system (though now very standard) is tidily tracked along the outside of the board. There really isn't much to take away from here as all of the pieces are appropriate for the theme and the descriptions are explicit making it easy to play.
Conclusion:
There are no glaring flaws in the game upon first play through. With it's strong theme, the game is fun to play and you never seem to run into mechanics that take away from the enjoyment of the game.
Shoutout to TL writer Swanized who managed to roll 3 blanks back to back to back on a 33% chance of rolling blanks... Maybe it does sometimes feel like Yahtzee!Also, I'm hosting these every 2 weeks (generally), so I encourage others in Montreal who are in to gaming to come out and have a good time. Next event: April 22nd.
I'm also still looking to do some offline Brood War stuff in Montreal - No money, just for fun, out of my apartment. Please let me know if there's any interest.
Edit: Next review I will try to include pictures.
