Yesterday, I played a three-player game of HeroCard Orc Wars. If you’ve read my review, you’ll note that I assess it strictly as a two-player game; this is because I didn’t own the expansion packs at the time of the review, and I still don’t. When I played with my friends Tad and Chris yesterday, Chris played as the orcs, Tad played the Paladin, and I played as the Ranger, using the Ninja deck from Rise of the Shogun. I still plan on posting a second part to my review, assessing it as a multiplayer game with the decks that it’s meant to be played with, but I thought I’d post some preliminary thoughts based off of the game I played yesterday. In no particular order:

• As a multiplayer game, Orc Wars is something of a mixed bag. I enjoyed it, and I think there’s a lot of potential fun there, but my problem is with the player elimination mechanic. As a rule, I’m not generally a big fan of player elimination in multiplayer games. In a two-player game, it’s fine; once a player is eliminated, the game ends. Yesterday, though, Tad was eliminated twenty minutes or so into the game, and had to watch me and Chris play what had effectively become a two-player game for another thirty or forty minutes. How is that fun for Tad? I’ve always thought that, regardless of whether you win or lose, a good game should be fun for every player as much as possible. The other issue with the player elimination mechanic is that, once a player is eliminated, the orcs are at a huge advantage. Once Tad was eliminated, Chris and I were effectively playing a two-player game; however, he was able to reinforce his armies based on the number of elves at the start of the game, and he got a bonus draw whenever I drew cards based on the same thing. This puts the remaining elves at a pretty severe disadvantage, and it almost makes it feel like you’re just trying to delay defeat as long as possible, rather than trying to really win. Of course, this may vary based on scenario. To combat these problems, I’d like to try Orc Wars with a modified multiplayer system, one that eliminates the player elimination aspect of the game. Some possibilities:
  • A mechanic similar to the one used in Descent: Journeys in the Dark could be used. Instead of each elf having a wound track that results in elimination when it’s filled, perhaps the elves have a collective pool of tokens equal to their total wounds. Each time an elf suffers a successful attack, they discard a wound counter; when they have no more left, the game ends and the orcs win.

  • Perhaps an elf whose wound track is full could suffer a sort of ‘disabled’ condition. Upon receiving his final wound, that elf skips his next action phase, but then plays as normal afterward. Any time the elf takes another wound, he suffers the same effect, skipping his action phase. The elf might also suffer some constant debilitating effect, like the value of any attack sequence he plays being one or two points lower for as long as his wound track is full. When all elves have full wound tracks, the orcs win.
• The more elves there are, the more it is to the elves’ advantage to accomplish their objectives quickly. Tad and I spent a couple of rounds trying to kill off a squad of orcs, but because Chris could reinforce his armies more effectively in a three-player game than in a two-player game, the orcs were reappearing almost as quickly as we could kill them. By the time the game had ended, Chris had four full squads of orcs on the board; that’s twenty orcs against my lone elf! We were playing The Relics, and if we had been trying to get the treasures on the board a little more quickly, we might have stood more of a chance.
• If you don’t own the expansions for this game but you do own other HeroCard games, the ones from Rise of the Shogun make good thematic approximations of the Ranger and Sorceress. Thematically, the Ninja is a pretty good match for the Ranger, and either the Prince or the Miko would work well for the Sorceress. For me, playing as the Ninja helped to minimize the thematic disconnect that I would have felt had I played, say, the Cosmic Cult from Galaxy or the Cryptomancer from Cyberspace.

In all, I feel like Orc Wars is really optimized for two players as it is, though I think I need a few more multiplayer play-throughs to truly get a good sense of the game. The game scales well on the orc side, allowing the orc to still be a viable player, but the player elimination aspect has some problems.

First, there was the World of Darkness. Then, there was the second World of Darkness. Now the approach of Monte Cook’s World of Darkness is imminent, and I must say I’m pretty excited about it. I’m one of those people who likes the new Vampire game, enjoys the lack of bloat and reduction of typecasting. I’ve read a few previews on Pen & Paper Games for this new product, and I’m salivating already.

It’s been a little while since my last post. I’d like to blame it on our impending move and, in truth, that might have something to do with my motivation issues, but truthfully I think that lack of stuff to post is the prime culprit. Things have been a little slow, gaming wise. I will post on a few gaming-related things, as usual, in no particular order.

1. I played Arkham Horror last weekend with some friends. We normally play with the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh and Dunwich Horror expansions, but last weekend we also got the chance to play with the King in Yellow expansion, too. We lost, and I think that expansion had something to do with it. It certainly adds some cool new toys to the mix; one of the players got a spell that granted him a sort of controllable lycanthropy, which was useful. I also got a journal that allowed me to reduce the Terror Track once. However, the expansion does ramp up the difficulty somewhat, and it succeeds in adding an extra level of tension to the game.

2. I’ve been playing Dungeon Siege 2 lately; picked it up cheap along with its expansion pack, and I have not regretted that decision. DS2 does all the same things right that the first did, but it adds more depth and a somewhat more interesting storyline (though it’s still pretty generic and somewhat predictable so far). The game is not, by any stretch of the imagination, realistic. It is, however, extremely fun, providing that combination of mindless combat, party management, and carrot-on-a-stick character advancement that makes it so appealing.

3. Lately, I’ve been reading Secrets of Xen’drik a campaign supplement for the Eberron setting that deals with that mysterious continent. It’s not like other campaign supplements I’ve read. When I first found out about it, I viewed it with some trepidation. Kieth Baker, the setting’s creator, had always been very clear that he didn’t want to detail Xen’drik too fully, that he wanted to leave it mostly open for individual DMs to fill in with their own imagination. Would a supplement pull back that curtain too much, reveal too much of what should remain hidden? Thankfully, it doesn’t. The supplement is a sort of campaign toolbox, with a variety of settings, encounters, and even adventure frameworks that are flavorful, but generic enough to be easy to place anywhere on the continent. The book stays away from specifics and metaplots, allowing the DM to create his or her own plots and mysteries.

HeroCard Orc Wars is the latest in TableStar Games’ flagship series, and it’s a good one. The game is a departure from other HeroCard games in a number of different ways, though some of them are not in the scope of this initial review. I should note before I begin that currently I only own the core game, not the expansion packs. TableStar has informed me that the expansion packs are on their way, though, and I will review them (and the multiplayer aspects of this game) in Part 2 of this review, at a later date.

The Decks
Orc Wars comes with two Hero decks, the Paladin and the Orc King. The Paladin is fairly straightforward, with some powerful base attacks and some decent mods and blocks, but he does have a few tricks up his sleeve. “Pious Protection”, for example, is a base block with a value equal to the cost of a base attack that you already have in play; very useful for when you’ve already lead an attack with “Magical Blade”, which costs 6 Body. Other good cards include “Tactical Insight”, which allows you to draw three cards immediately, and “Divine Sacrifice”, an incredibly versatile card that functions as either an attack mod or a block mod with a value equal to twice the number of cards you discard from your hand when you play it.

The Orc King is similarly straightforward, and is designed such that none of his cards cost more than 4 points of any given attribute (more on why later). Again, like the Paladin, he’s got some tricks up his sleeve. “Avenging Sword” is a potent base attack with a value equal to the value of a base attack that an opponent has in play, allowing you to use your opponent’s cards against him. “Rending Fangs” functions as an attack mod with a value one higher than another attack mod that you already have in play in the current attack sequence, which makes for a mean one-two punch with the Orc King’s numerical attack mods.

The artwork on the cards is very good and extremely appealing, and the combination of card names with pictures serves to enhance the theme and feel of the game while playing. It’s very cool, for example, how most of the Orc King’s cards feature his minions doing things, rather than himself, which reinforces the idea that he’s sitting back and commanding his orcs to do his bidding.

The Game
Orc Wars is an asymmetrical combat game. What do I mean by that? One player plays the Paladin, a single elf hero pitted against the other player’s squads of orcs, and possibly the Orc King, as well. In any given game, the Paladin will be vastly outnumbered by the orc player’s forces. However, orcs are individually much weaker than the Paladin is, and the Paladin is capable of killing multiple orcs with a single attack.

Technically, I suppose the elf player can choose any of the three roles that come with the game, though only the Paladin deck is available in the core box. The elf Role Cards allow for different play styles on the part of the elf player. The Paladin role, for example, kills all adjacent orcs of the same clan on a successful attack and can take an additional wound (each time the elf suffers a successful attack, he takes a wound; when he’s taken enough wounds, he’s dead). The Ranger can intersperse movement with actions (whereas other players must move first then act), and can make multiple attacks in a single round (the others are generally limited to one). The Sorceress can attack orcs that she’s not actually adjacent to, can kill an extra orc if her attack is good enough, and can kill all adjacent orcs of the same clan if her block is good enough. The Paladin makes a good tank, and should be wading into battle at every opportunity. The Ranger is a skirmisher at heart, and excels at hit-and-run tactics. The Sorceress has a good balance of offensive and defensive capabilities.

The orc player, by contrast, has control of squads of orcs. As the orc player, you can draw from five different clans of orcs, and you can arrange them into squads; a squad is a contiguous group of orcs of the same clan. There are three different kinds of orcs you can recruit, too, and each lends certain attribute points to the squad as a whole: brutes grant 4 points of Body, tacticians grant 4 points of Mind, and shamans grant 4 points of Attribute X. When you recruit orcs, you take the appropriate orc punch-out figure and put it on the appropriate clan base, and place that orc on the board; there are five of each clan base, which means that a given squad will have, at most, five members, and there are seven of each orc type, which means that drawing too heavily from one type for one squad may leave you short on that attribute in another squad.

Each round, the orc gets to replenish his forces in some way or another, either by flipping over a squad marker (which can grant him anywhere from 1 to 4 orcs of the same clan) or by reinforcing an existing clan with a single orc. Reinforcing allows you to continually strengthen your existing squads, while flipping squad tokens allows you to bring new clans onto the board, effectively increasing the total number of orcs that you can bring to bear by five for each clan present. However, you only get a limited number of squad tokens, and once they’re all flipped, all you can do is reinforce your existing squads.

In addition to amassing a small army, each clan gets its own movement and action phase, and each clan can attack on its own. Each clan also has its own attribute stack (one stack for all attributes), though the orc player still only gets a seven-card hand, and doesn’t have any hand-replenishing cards like the Paladin does. Often this means that two or three modest attacks might be more effective than a single, powerful attack, as the Paladin likely only has so many base blocks in his hand; eventually something will get through.

All this means that, interestingly, the orcs are meant to be played defensively; the longer they can delay contact with the Paladin, the stronger their forces will be. It also means that, because the Paladin cuts great swaths through the orc forces, the orc player will want to arrange his squads so that the Paladin is adjacent to the fewest orcs possible, though he’ll still generally get to kill two in a given attack due to the hexagonal nature of the board. Orcs start the game at a bit of a disadvantage and gain more advantage as the game progresses.

The orcs are also somewhat more complicated to play, and require a lot of strategy and forethought to bring to bear effectively. Knowing that new players might have trouble with this, TableStar included eight Dirty Trick cards with the game. The first time you play a scenario as the orcs, you get three Dirty Tricks from this deck, at random, and subsequent plays net fewer cards, especially if you did well on your previous plays. The Dirty Tricks, themselves, are always very useful to the orc player. “Expendable Recruits” allows you to cancel the effect of an attack, which can save several orcs. “Black Venom Dart” eats up the Paladin’s precious attribute points and is very difficult to get rid of. “Taunt” allows you to move the Paladin three spaces, which can buy you a whole round with which to strengthen your forces.

The elves have some things on their side, too. An elf can pick up a treasure token from the board in certain scenarios, and the five treasures in the game can make a big difference. The “Adamantium Shield” grants you a base block of 2 against every attack, effectively increasing your block value by 2 at all times. The “Boots of Speed” give you an extra movement point, which can be very useful on scenarios that require you to accomplish an objective and escape. The “Wand of Slaying” is particularly potent, killing orcs in a straight line with no attack necessary, but it can only be used once.

The game is scenario-based, and comes with five scenarios. “The Prisoners” is an introductory scenario, designed to familiarize players with some of the orc mechanics. It’s pretty different from the other four scenarios, as it puts the orcs on the offensive and the Paladin on the defensive, and eliminates recruitment, treasures, and Dirty Tricks from the game entirely. “Orc Camp” has the Paladin moving from the top of the map to the bottom to kill the Orc King, then moving back to the top to escape. “The Relics” gives the Paladin the job of gathering up three treasures from around the map and escaping. “Bounty Hunters” is somewhat more straightforward, having the Paladin trying to kill one orc of each clan. “The Great Hunt” introduces wild boar to the game, which are apparently sacred to the orcs. The Paladin must kill some of these boar in order to win. In all of the scenarios, the orcs must simple kill the Paladin to win.

Personally, I’ve played the first three scenarios, and I played “Orc Camp” as both the orcs and the Paladin (I played as the orcs in the other scenarios). The game is lots of fun and strategically deep, though it doesn’t take long to familiarize yourself with the rules, especially if you already know the HeroCard system. The modular, scenario-based gameplay allows for a lot of replay value, as does the fact that each side plays so differently.

Components
I’m pretty impressed with the components in Orc Wars. There are ten terrain tiles, six to seven of which are used in any given scenario, and they can be arranged in a number of different configurations to create your own scenarios, as well. In addition, each tile is double-sided, featuring an above-ground side (which includes underbrush hexes, which only elves can move through) and a dungeon side (which is claustrophobic and generally gives the advantage to the orcs, I think). The cards themselves are, as always, good quality card stock, and the artwork is fantastic throughout, and very thematic and evocative. Spelling errors and rules ambiguity are at a minimum in this game, as well. The Paladin figure is a high-detail sculpt, similar to the sculpts in other HeroCard games. All of the other pieces (clan bases, orc figures, wound tokens, squad tokens, treasure tokens, and wild boar) come on rigid plastic punch-out cards, and are in full color. TableStar could have gone with cardboard here, but they went with high-quality plastic instead, allowing for much better durability and a more attractive look overall.

It should be noted that there are a lot of pieces in this game. I’ve enlisted the aid of a bead storage box (obtainable from any craft store, or even from a store like Target) to organize all of my pieces, and I’ve found that not only does this allow me to keep things like the Orc King, the boars, and the clan bases assembled at all times, it also speeds up play because every piece has its own place, so I never have to hunt for anything. I would recommend doing likewise to anyone who buys this game.

What I Liked: Just about everything. The pieces, the artwork, the gameplay, the modular design; it’s all very, very good, and quite possibly my favorite HeroCard game yet.

What I Didn’t Like: Not a whole lot. It’s not precisely clear when the orc should draw Dirty Tricks (and this can make a difference in initial strategy); my ruling was after squad tokens have been placed but before the game starts. Also, it’s not clear what happens when you play two “Divine Sacrifice” cards as a set. Does each discarded card get you +4, or is the extra “Divine Sacrifice” effectively wasted?

The Bottom Line: If you’re a fan of other HeroCard games, you’ll probably like this one. The mechanics are great and it’s a lot of fun to play. If you haven’t liked the other games, it’s still possible you’d like this one, though not necessarily likely. The gameplay mechanics are different enough from other HeroCard games that the only real similarity is the card-driven combat mechanic. At any rate, I highly recommend this game, and at only $20, it’s a pretty good deal.