Wow it’s been a few days since the last post. A relief for some, a disappointment for a minority.
In that time of incommunicado there was the first Friday gaming of the year. There was a good turn out for us of seven. So we split into two groups, a three and four.
But Saturday saw a game hit the table that I’ve been wanting to play since it arrived.
November last year saw the reprinting of the 35 year old classic board game Dune by Galeforce Nine. Who by the way have the Dune licence now and are planning on releasing new Dune based games in the future.
Dune is a game based on the classic sci-fi book by Frank Herbert. You don’t need to have read it, or seen the movie or tv mini series to play it. But like all things based on a licence of some kind it helps to be familiar with the source material.
Although the game will play between two to six players. This is one of those rare games that plays it’s best at the maximum player count.
Sadly this first time playing the game was not to be at that player count but with three players.
In the rule book they recommend that the factions used for this player count are the Harkonnens, Fremen and Atreides. So this is what we went with for our first play. Who got which faction was decided randomly. I got the Freman, Oli got Atreides and Diego naturally got the Harkonnens.
We also jumped in the deep end and used all of the advanced rules except for the advanced combat. Which seemed to over complicate the combat.
Dune is one of those games that has a reputation for taking a long time to play. The play throughs by MCDM on YouTube are over three hours, and that’s for seven rounds and six players. In the original version of the game the maximum number of rounds is twelve. So if the MCDM folks had played to that limit the sessions potentially could have been much much longer. In this reprint it’s a ten round maximum limit.
In our game we hit a win condition in the ninth round. This took us around two hours. Which I think was pretty good. Especially considering this was our first time playing the game and all that entails as well.
I loved the game. It didn’t disappoint.
Galeforce Nine have done a great job producing the game. You not only get a well written rule book it also summarises the events of the book. They also put in a quick start booklet, which is a nice addition. The component quality is good. The faction cards summarising the factions abilities both for basic and advanced play is a useful thing to have. The only quibble I have is the insert. If the card storage areas had been slightly bigger they would easily have fitted the cards sleeved.
Playing the game at first it may seem overwhelming and complicated. Each round is broken down into 9 stages. But the majority of these are very quick. With only two of them really eating up the majority of the game time. And you quickly get into the rhythm of the game.
Like all great games the time just flies whilst playing and you lose all sense of how long you have been playing. You are constantly engaged even when it’s not your turn.
I like how the first player each round is decided using the storm marker as it moves round the game board. With the first player being the player that the storm will hit next during it’s next move.
The alliances I think would work better in the higher player counts. In the three player game it’s something I think in future games I’ll house rule not to use. I spent the last two or three rounds trying to stop the unholy alliance of the Atreides and Harkonnens. Which was a very difficult task, almost Herculean. Unsurprisingly one I failed at.
The unique player powers are both cool and thematic. Forcing a player to play to their faction strengths. But the unique powers during play aren’t the only unique thing about some of the factions, some have a unique win condition also.
The art has a retro fifties sci-fi vibe to it. That I like a lot.
I don’t think the art would look out of place on the cover of a sci-fi book from that period. I love how it evokes that feeling in me.
The bidding for treachery cards is cool. You need these cards for combat, they can be offensive, defensive or a complete donkey (there is an actual donkey). However you can only have a maximum of four of these cards. And if at the start of the bidding stage you are at that limit you can’t take part in the bidding. So you have this whole hand management element going on. Then add on the fact you are bidding on cards that you have no idea what they are, and the risk of winning a dud. And do you bid to push up the cost of the winning bid and deprive your opponents of their spice? It’s a cool mechanic.
Combat is fun, and you can see it’s influence on Scythe. I like the basic version of combat. It just flows. The advanced version can have half forces, troops used need to be paid for with spice. I can see how this adds to the decisions that need to be made of when to spend your spice. But the extra overhead I’m not sure is worth it. Naturally I will try the advanced combat at some point.
I like this game a lot. I can’t wait to get it to the table again, especially with higher player counts.
