Chikahiro
SNK Neo•Geo fanboy
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2018
- Messages
- 55
- Reaction score
- 13
FINALLY! I managed to finangle someone to play with me 
www.aristeiathegame.com
So, Aristeia is that board game I got back in December. 1vs1, with each player having a four character team. Its modeled after the MOBA game genre (multiplayer online battle arena), and can be compared most directly to Blizzard's Overwatch. In the default game scenario, players compete to occupy scoring zones (control points). First to 8 points or has the most points at the end of the 5th round wins.
Aristeia's setup takes a little bit of time due to all the various tokens in the game, particularly the status tokens (-2 speed, -2 energy, +2 initiative, immobilized, taunted, dazzled, -1 health, -3 health, etc). The box in and of itself doesn't help with this because there's a lack of storage despite being such a big box with lots of empty space possible. Also, there are markers for various scenarios (red, blue, green, orange) that are two sided and a different color on each side. Clever in theory, sort of annoying in practice.
I'm going to have to get a little box for the bits and bobs. Or, more ambitiously, I'm thinking of going to our local craft or plexiglass shop, getting some foamcore or gatorboard, and making a better internal setup.
Once that's all sorted? Okay, things go pretty quick. Setup the main board, then give each player their "control panel." Draft team members, although in this case we used pre-made teams in the tutorial. Each character has 4 Tactics cards (special abilities), so pick two to use per character. Take all those cards and add to the standard tactics deck (10 cards common to both players).
Planning phase begins the round. You lay out your initiative order for each turn face down. At the beginning of each turn both players flip, and whoever has the higher initative score goes first. Ties are broken by whoever is the current underdog (first round goes to whoever has the overall slower team, after that whoever has the lower score). So, yeah, order of operations plus expected order of the enemy is quite important.
Rounds play out like a miniatures wargame at that point. Or a MOBA. Characters have X-many Energy points, with moving, attacking, special abilities, etc., costing energy. I like this since its flexible. Foregoing an attack or movement allows you more options as a result. You can do most actions (not sure if there are exceptions) more than once (double move, double attack, etc) if you have enough points. Very important: some characters do NOT have attacks! Gata is a "scorer," able to move 7 hexes for each movement she buys, and Hexx3r is a support/control character who can move models (friendly and hostile) or immobilize/slow enemies. This is before getting into any of their tactics/specials.
Anything that requires rolling uses color coded custom dice. Pretty easy.
Fragging another player is pretty rough. They lose that character for the remainder of the round (devestating if they've not gone yet) as they're sent to the infirmary. At the end of the round they're sent to the Bench and get a -2 Energy penalty. When its their turn again? They enter in with a penalty. At the end of their turn it goes from -2 to -1. At the end of their next turn it'll go from -1 to 0. Support characters can remove that state, though.
Fragging doesn't getting you Victory Points directly. It does give you a frag token (used for tie breaking) and lets you draw a card from your Tactics deck. Victory points are earned through occupying scoring zones which is easier when enemies are in the infirmary or bench, obviously ;)
I like it. Minis were quite nice, too. Looking forward to playing again. I've been pondering a 2v2 set of homebrew rules, as well as a Master X Master homebrew that allows for tag-team switching.
www.aristeiathegame.com
So, Aristeia is that board game I got back in December. 1vs1, with each player having a four character team. Its modeled after the MOBA game genre (multiplayer online battle arena), and can be compared most directly to Blizzard's Overwatch. In the default game scenario, players compete to occupy scoring zones (control points). First to 8 points or has the most points at the end of the 5th round wins.
Aristeia's setup takes a little bit of time due to all the various tokens in the game, particularly the status tokens (-2 speed, -2 energy, +2 initiative, immobilized, taunted, dazzled, -1 health, -3 health, etc). The box in and of itself doesn't help with this because there's a lack of storage despite being such a big box with lots of empty space possible. Also, there are markers for various scenarios (red, blue, green, orange) that are two sided and a different color on each side. Clever in theory, sort of annoying in practice.
I'm going to have to get a little box for the bits and bobs. Or, more ambitiously, I'm thinking of going to our local craft or plexiglass shop, getting some foamcore or gatorboard, and making a better internal setup.
Once that's all sorted? Okay, things go pretty quick. Setup the main board, then give each player their "control panel." Draft team members, although in this case we used pre-made teams in the tutorial. Each character has 4 Tactics cards (special abilities), so pick two to use per character. Take all those cards and add to the standard tactics deck (10 cards common to both players).
Planning phase begins the round. You lay out your initiative order for each turn face down. At the beginning of each turn both players flip, and whoever has the higher initative score goes first. Ties are broken by whoever is the current underdog (first round goes to whoever has the overall slower team, after that whoever has the lower score). So, yeah, order of operations plus expected order of the enemy is quite important.
Rounds play out like a miniatures wargame at that point. Or a MOBA. Characters have X-many Energy points, with moving, attacking, special abilities, etc., costing energy. I like this since its flexible. Foregoing an attack or movement allows you more options as a result. You can do most actions (not sure if there are exceptions) more than once (double move, double attack, etc) if you have enough points. Very important: some characters do NOT have attacks! Gata is a "scorer," able to move 7 hexes for each movement she buys, and Hexx3r is a support/control character who can move models (friendly and hostile) or immobilize/slow enemies. This is before getting into any of their tactics/specials.
Anything that requires rolling uses color coded custom dice. Pretty easy.
Fragging another player is pretty rough. They lose that character for the remainder of the round (devestating if they've not gone yet) as they're sent to the infirmary. At the end of the round they're sent to the Bench and get a -2 Energy penalty. When its their turn again? They enter in with a penalty. At the end of their turn it goes from -2 to -1. At the end of their next turn it'll go from -1 to 0. Support characters can remove that state, though.
Fragging doesn't getting you Victory Points directly. It does give you a frag token (used for tie breaking) and lets you draw a card from your Tactics deck. Victory points are earned through occupying scoring zones which is easier when enemies are in the infirmary or bench, obviously ;)
I like it. Minis were quite nice, too. Looking forward to playing again. I've been pondering a 2v2 set of homebrew rules, as well as a Master X Master homebrew that allows for tag-team switching.
