Earth Reborn then... Convinced by another guy on FB I purchased this beast not even knowing it before. Before everything please mind we don't like skirmish games as usually we were able to just meet in the middle and check who will roll better - end of the game. We played so far only 4 out of 9 tutorial missions but I know the rules already, so I can say a bit more than that. In points:
Components 9.5/10 - superb quality! VERY thick cardboard for everything but character, equipment and missions cards. That means even over filled with data player's screens are thick cardboard. Out of hundreds of token and double sided map tiles only 2 were not cut perfectly and I've had to throw away 1 health token. Just WHY?! WHY?! only (EDITED 6 combat dice... that's the 0.5 down. And it's not about rolling massive amount for attack but more for simultaneous rolls.
Story/theme/depth 10/10 - this game has 15 pages of background story for world, characters etc. Each mission starts with story. 1 male character has a crush on a chick from the opposing faction, so she has a special ability to turn him into traitor - "boobs attack" Theme is old Fallout a lot. I love it. Depth of gameplay -incredible - check below.
Gameplay 9/10 - for me personally 11/10 BUT it may be long, it has a lot of rules later to remember, it has potential for rather long AP. But why 11 for me? Well... it is not skirmish - move, roll, die/kill, repeat. From simple to complex actions you can move, perform melee attack, range attack, search room for equipment, interact with room elements. 386
Easy? What if you can DESTROY room elements so opponent can't complete the mission? What if opponent is hiding behind double wall but you have grenade so you will blow the hole in ANY wall? Destroy doors because you have no access card (we were destroying all until I remembered that we can just open not locked doors ). What if you blew the hole not to just kill the character hiding behind the guards bottle necking the doors but to capture him/her and torture instead for points? Want more? Multi level building to explore and tactically take over, blind biding to interrupt opponent's action to make occasional attack/run/whatever. I can make a whole book so just ask
Complexity 9/10 - it is complex. Very. So why not less? Because it has 9 tutorial scenarios from the first one introducing only move and stab mechanics (including destroying objects, wall and doors) up to the last with all of the rules. To be honest I think this game is playable by even casual players IF they will sacrifice a bit of time to play the whole tutorial campaign. Oh yes this is story campaign so not just simple tutorial. HOWEVER you will most likely read the whole rulebook and it's not easy over 40 pages. With good examples and graphic but still heavy - this most likely push a lot of players away from this game. But I can;t see the way to make it simpler without good video.
Replayability 10/10 - endless. After the campaign you are ready for SAGS - Scenario Auto Generating System. It let's you make draft for maps out of over 90 double sided map tiles and 16 possible missions for each faction. Add a lot of equipment that you can search for in any room and different strategies based on mission+equipment+chosen characters.
Main issue - it is challenging game. Challenges:
Punch everything and sort.
Put everything into the (very good but designed to accommodate expansions) insert.
Take it out of the insert.
MAKE THE MAP - tiles has no numbers so you are checking over 90 DOUBLE sided tiles to find the one that is matching the art from the scenario book. some of them have names so it's easier. They are very different but still it takes some time.
Pack it back into insert after the game
Final score 9.5/10. It's super complex, thematic, beautifully made with solid components.Later you will just operate on icons only but mind the meaningful decisions, deep tactical approach, using terrain, action tiles, equipment, special abilities, strong and weak sides of each characters will make it sometimes a brain boiling yet very satisfying experience. What I like the most is the feel of tactical wargame/rgp with perfect board game rules (didn't mention that miniatures bases shows your sight around, so you have different attack/counter attack values depends on your character facing side - yes you can sneak behind to stab someone that won't attack back or sneak next to the zombie that is focused on what is straight a front of him). 884