Well, it’s been far too long since I’ve done anything gaming related! The last couple of months have been dominated by a number of projects at work but I am hoping to find time for gaming again over the next few weeks.
To ease myself back in gently a game of Mars Attacks with an old mate this evening. I’ve had an eye on this for a while so it was nice to give it a whirl.
Initially we set up the matt and ruins which was a fairly simple job. The plastic terrain is quite nice and the felt matt was good quality. The miniatures are ok for a mass production game, the Martians and their natty helmets being the pick of the bunch. The cards and counters are good quality and enhanced the gameplay. For this game I played the U.S. Army and it quickly became apparent that the longer ranged rifles and machine guns were going to be key factor in defeating the Martians. The Martians proved to be more durable at range, but in the scenario we played were they were out numbered and seemed to be at a disadvantage. It has to be said that I enjoyed some outrageous luck but even so the Martians just didn’t seem capable of generating a credible threat. The gameplay was simple and intuitive but with enough tactical variation to make it interesting. The crazy event cards were fun and added a random element to proceedings which kept interest levels up. I was interested to note that Mantic are using the exploding dice mechanic beloved of Spartan Games and this was a fun aspect too. In the end the U.S. Army ran out victors 8 pts to 2.
So, a thumbs up from me. Not a traditional tabletop skirmish game or a board game, it lies somewhere in between. As a pretzels and beer game it has potential and I liked the Martian miniatures. I will be interested to see how this develops over the months and possibly years to come.
Nurgleonbass 