Up until now, i've always thought there was a bracchiosaurus on the cover instead of that broken monument remains. Thanks for an awesome clarification of the game, Jon!
Hi Jon, your playthroughs are just incredibly helpful and this one is no exception. Picked up Vindication recently, played it yesterday and absolutely love it. Thank you for all you do, it is much appreciated.
I don't think this game is for me, but i *really* do the love Potential / Influence / Conviction interaction with the common / heroic attributes. The entire system and concept there is really elegant, thematic, and cool. The game is also beautiful!
I really like your videos, Jon. Thanks! Vindication is a pretty complex game to learn at first, but I feel reasy to go about the rulebook now, thanks to you.
Hadn’t played this in a bunch of months, so I dialed up your video. Thanks for creating awesome content. Video was a great and FUN refresher of the rules and gameplay.
Great game. We play mostly 2-3 players. Use most of the expansion except the treachery and boss monster. Backed the expansion and after a few plays two of my groups backed base game as well
I am looking forward to playing this with others, and I was planning on bringing out the Pets expansion for the first play while I teach it. I really want to try the guilds & monuments module but I'm worried that may be too much all at once for totally new players.
JonGetsGames - Guilds and Monuments changes the game (for the better). Once you add it you won’t play without it. There are many options for what you can do with them but you can either pass on most options or print a mini cheat sheet from BGG for new players.
Great playthrough video - thank you Jon. I haven’t seen your stuff before but will definitely be checking it out in the future. Now I just have to get my hands on this game!!
Ok. So little late to the game on this on (pun intended) and making a comment here as most of the comments here already were from 9-12 months ago. Got the game last year, tried to muddle through it without watching your video and felt overwhelmed with so many things to keep track of so didn’t really enjoy the game. In preparation of possibly backing the chronicles KS, decided to pull out the game again and give it another try. Set it up, watched this play through and tried the game again. This time, it was much more enjoyable since you did such a great play through that demoed all the nuances and scoring opportunities I didn’t see the first time. Great run through and thanks for ONLY playing the base game. Too many times play throughs put in expansions which are great once you know the base game but make it harder to understand the base game itself. Again, great job.
I try to talk normally, but the way I edit this together can sometimes give me a weird cadence. Unless you mean during the introduction and wrap up in which case... well I guess I'll take that as a compliment :P
At 53.11 the Green player activated companion Venoa to adjust the cost of the better mount. However, it looked like that companion reduced the cost by 1 (the pic looks like it indicates -1) instead of making the cost 1. Which is right?
I thought this at first too, but after reading the rulebook it explicitly states that Venoa makes the cost "-1 instead of -3". I agree that it's a bit confusing iconographically here.
I try my best, but it happens rarely. In one video you can see the side of my face and my big headset microphone and everything. I tried to edit it out by zooming in but ended up leaving it there for everyone to see :P
This was a great playthrough that helped cement the rules in my head. I will be more interested in watching your videos from this point! To be honest the thumbnails never really grabbed me.
I'm not a very graphics oriented person, though I've modified my thumbnail template many times. I try to more prominently show the game name these days, but I know they still aren't as flashy as many others.
Huh, yep I got caught up with the relic and forgot to pull the next card. Thanks for pointing that out NJ, i've added a correction to the Klingon subtitles.
Jon - at 52:58 (and earlier when the Green Player picked up Beast Mistress Veroa) you mention that upgrading the mount only costs 1 strength. I believe, though, it says its ‘-1’ not straight up ‘1’, right? So wouldn’t that mean its a cost of 2?
@Jon - never mind. I see the comment further down, where you replied that the rule book uses the ‘-‘ and its definitely a cost of ‘-1’ instead of ‘-3’. Strange iconography, for sure.
Such a great playthrough, I watched it twice (months apart). 53:30 So glad they nerfed Beast Mistress Veroa. Now she can use that only once per turn so that upgrade would have cost 7 strength instead of 3.
Sure! boardgamegeek.com/thread/2250192/7-duplicate-cards The link to the FAQ is outdated. The revised cards in the reprint (or the expansion) have the new behavior. There is also a new printing of the rule book (check orange nebulas site) in which the “:” behavior of the command post is correctly explained in multiple places. boardgamegeek.com/thread/2271847/beast-mistress-verona So it’s pretty obvious that they made a late change to the command post in the first edition and didn’t realize the gameplay impact it would make on Beast Mistress Veroa.
Dang, you are right. Looks like Green should have still won this one. Thanks for pointing it out, I've added a note about this to the klingon subtitles.
I use a Shure SM35 headset style microphone and connect it via XLR cable to an H4N Zoom audio recorder. I then use the audio sync function in final cut pro to match it up to the video.
Him being a red companion means he already counts towards strength mastery (and is considered as one of the two red cards of the green player). His ability doesn't make him count double for strength, it just grants him the ability to participate in the race for the courage mastery as well.
It does seem to be a rare mix of mechanics. To a certain degree I think that Prophecy matches this, but that game is significantly more random than Vindication is. I'm hard pressed to come up with other recommendations unfortunately.
In the rule book it says you may upgrade your mount only once per turn. I noticed you upgraded the mount using the command post several times on the same turn. Is that a mistake?
You are correct that the original printing's rulebook says this. I was informed by the designer that they decided to modify this for the second printing and on, and that you are indeed able to activate the command post multiple times with one visit.
At this point this playthrough is the only time I've played the game, so I cant' really comment on downtime yet until i get a chance to play with with friends. I am hoping to make that happen though, I was intrigued by what I saw while filming this.
Billy Johnson - first time you play most big euro games it will take longer. But after a play or two your turns will hasten. If you don’t have a plan or have bad AP then it will take longer.
I like the fact that combat has been abstracted through game mechanics to make it a lot quicker, yet rewarding. You don't have to leave the main board aside in order to go through multiple, tedious rounds of combat - means less downtime, and also you automatically defeat the monster making your hard earned courage worthwhile. Of course you risk losing an NPC at the roll of a die but i personally don't mind it, that's what chaos of battle is all about! I think this system is in fact pretty clever and i am eager to try it.
At 1:10:40 Ga'Nok card is interpreted as saying EVERY TIME you get a reroll when it actually says if you roll A die.. Etc I don't think it allows the player to get more than one reroll per turn. If I'm wrong, wouldn't that be rather OP?
Huh, this is an interesting point. All I can say is that the designer watched the playthrough in order to look for errors before I made the final render, and he did not bring this up as an issue.
@@npane171 It is a sickness. I have sortet out a few games after playing only once or they where updated/replaced. Kickstarter is also hit and miss. Now I am very thoughtful of any game I purchase. Most of them are not exactly cheap ;)
Up until now, i've always thought there was a bracchiosaurus on the cover instead of that broken monument remains. Thanks for an awesome clarification of the game, Jon!
until your comment, so did i...
@@nelsoc2 Me too :D
Haha, me too!
Darn no dinosaur…
What?, I did not even realize that wasn’t a dinosaur until now!
Hi Jon, your playthroughs are just incredibly helpful and this one is no exception. Picked up Vindication recently, played it yesterday and absolutely love it. Thank you for all you do, it is much appreciated.
Awesome, glad you enjoyed it!
I don't think this game is for me, but i *really* do the love Potential / Influence / Conviction interaction with the common / heroic attributes. The entire system and concept there is really elegant, thematic, and cool.
The game is also beautiful!
I agree, this is the most interesting mechanic in the game and after playing with friends I can say that it really does work well :)
What a unique and beautiful game, that you make more accessible. Thank you, I enjoyed you run through.
Yeah I did, in fact I ended up playing this a couple of times with friends later on.
A great playthrough John. Very rarely sit down and watch 1h+ playthroughs, but will gladly watch yours. Great job :)
Thanks Peter, I'm glad you have been enjoying them :)
This got me into really wanting to pick this game up... good playthrough! :D
Just received incredible news about the current Kickstarter so I’m back for my 4th viewing. Thanks Jon for all the hard work you put into your videos!
I really like your videos, Jon. Thanks! Vindication is a pretty complex game to learn at first, but I feel reasy to go about the rulebook now, thanks to you.
Really useful! I am playing this for the first time this evening (UK). I want to win a game for once! Thanks.
Always a pleasure to revise games with Jon
Hadn’t played this in a bunch of months, so I dialed up your video. Thanks for creating awesome content. Video was a great and FUN refresher of the rules and gameplay.
Great game. We play mostly 2-3 players. Use most of the expansion except the treachery and boss monster. Backed the expansion and after a few plays two of my groups backed base game as well
I am looking forward to playing this with others, and I was planning on bringing out the Pets expansion for the first play while I teach it. I really want to try the guilds & monuments module but I'm worried that may be too much all at once for totally new players.
JonGetsGames - Guilds and Monuments changes the game (for the better). Once you add it you won’t play without it. There are many options for what you can do with them but you can either pass on most options or print a mini cheat sheet from BGG for new players.
@@cgulde1 Good idea with the guild token cheat sheet, I think I'll print those out to make playing that module easier.
Awesome video. Really stepping up your game at demo’ing games! Nice work!
Great playthrough video - thank you Jon. I haven’t seen your stuff before but will definitely be checking it out in the future. Now I just have to get my hands on this game!!
Great video, great job, helped a lot to understand how the game is working.
Ok. So little late to the game on this on (pun intended) and making a comment here as most of the comments here already were from 9-12 months ago. Got the game last year, tried to muddle through it without watching your video and felt overwhelmed with so many things to keep track of so didn’t really enjoy the game. In preparation of possibly backing the chronicles KS, decided to pull out the game again and give it another try. Set it up, watched this play through and tried the game again. This time, it was much more enjoyable since you did such a great play through that demoed all the nuances and scoring opportunities I didn’t see the first time. Great run through and thanks for ONLY playing the base game. Too many times play throughs put in expansions which are great once you know the base game but make it harder to understand the base game itself. Again, great job.
I'm glad you found this helpful :)
Excellent as usual Jon. Loved watching it!
Now I'm REALLY excited for this game after watching this playthrough. Thanks so much!
That's great to hear, I hope you enjoy it when you have a chance to try it out :)
Wow you are really good at this walkthrough - thank you! I’m a subscriber now!!
Awesome playthrough! I feel like I'm ready to play this :)
I love this! Wish there was a set of solitaire rules, though
Thanks. This really help me understand the game.
The way you talk reminds me of William Shatner! Makes the tutorials even better!
I try to talk normally, but the way I edit this together can sometimes give me a weird cadence. Unless you mean during the introduction and wrap up in which case... well I guess I'll take that as a compliment :P
Great play through. Looks like an instant back now!
At 53.11 the Green player activated companion Venoa to adjust the cost of the better mount. However, it looked like that companion reduced the cost by 1 (the pic looks like it indicates -1) instead of making the cost 1. Which is right?
I thought this at first too, but after reading the rulebook it explicitly states that Venoa makes the cost "-1 instead of -3". I agree that it's a bit confusing iconographically here.
Thanks Jon. Your video helped me decide on whether to purchase this not.
Love this review. Thanks!
1:14:56 Don't think I've ever seen your hair sneak into frame like that, haha!
I try my best, but it happens rarely. In one video you can see the side of my face and my big headset microphone and everything. I tried to edit it out by zooming in but ended up leaving it there for everyone to see :P
This was a great playthrough that helped cement the rules in my head. I will be more interested in watching your videos from this point! To be honest the thumbnails never really grabbed me.
I'm not a very graphics oriented person, though I've modified my thumbnail template many times. I try to more prominently show the game name these days, but I know they still aren't as flashy as many others.
Really nicely done video
Minor issue - at 1:06:15, Green should have revealed another endgame trigger card for the trigger token they took.
Huh, yep I got caught up with the relic and forgot to pull the next card. Thanks for pointing that out NJ, i've added a correction to the Klingon subtitles.
Ty for the video, love it!
Jon - at 52:58 (and earlier when the Green Player picked up Beast Mistress Veroa) you mention that upgrading the mount only costs 1 strength. I believe, though, it says its ‘-1’ not straight up ‘1’, right? So wouldn’t that mean its a cost of 2?
@Jon - never mind. I see the comment further down, where you replied that the rule book uses the ‘-‘ and its definitely a cost of ‘-1’ instead of ‘-3’. Strange iconography, for sure.
Thanks Jon
Such a great playthrough, I watched it twice (months apart).
53:30 So glad they nerfed Beast Mistress Veroa. Now she can use that only once per turn so that upgrade would have cost 7 strength instead of 3.
I don't think this is true: boardgamegeek.com/article/30413674
Do you have a link about the nerf to Veroa? That'd be an interesting change.
Sure! boardgamegeek.com/thread/2250192/7-duplicate-cards
The link to the FAQ is outdated. The revised cards in the reprint (or the expansion) have the new behavior. There is also a new printing of the rule book (check orange nebulas site) in which the “:” behavior of the command post is correctly explained in multiple places. boardgamegeek.com/thread/2271847/beast-mistress-verona
So it’s pretty obvious that they made a late change to the command post in the first edition and didn’t realize the gameplay impact it would make on Beast Mistress Veroa.
@@tychay Thanks for the information! I wish they also update the FAQ properly!
Blue squeaking out the win!
Kudos to the blue player 🤣🤣🤣🤝
Thank you
Blue forgoth to pay for his red companion at 1:19:00. This allowed him to win the game.
Also forgot to roll the reward die for that last monster for blue.
Dang, you are right. Looks like Green should have still won this one. Thanks for pointing it out, I've added a note about this to the klingon subtitles.
@@dall1786 Good catch, I've added a notes about this to the klingon subtitles. Thanks for mentioning it.
What do you use to capture your audio? The onboard mic to your video camera?
I use a Shure SM35 headset style microphone and connect it via XLR cable to an H4N Zoom audio recorder. I then use the audio sync function in final cut pro to match it up to the video.
Well done
Doesnt herk count for strength and courage to tie for strength proficiency?
At 1:30:00
Him being a red companion means he already counts towards strength mastery (and is considered as one of the two red cards of the green player). His ability doesn't make him count double for strength, it just grants him the ability to participate in the race for the courage mastery as well.
Yeah. I looked again this morning...and realized my mistake. Seems Jon was correct
Any good games similar to this? (Euro/minimalist rpg/adventure)
It does seem to be a rare mix of mechanics. To a certain degree I think that Prophecy matches this, but that game is significantly more random than Vindication is. I'm hard pressed to come up with other recommendations unfortunately.
Honestly, I see a lot of similarities between this and Islebound. Islebound seems to be a simplified version of this (of sorts).
@@JJJayster I've been meaning to try Islebound for a long time, someday I do hope to give it a shot.
In the rule book it says you may upgrade your mount only once per turn. I noticed you upgraded the mount using the command post several times on the same turn. Is that a mistake?
You are correct that the original printing's rulebook says this. I was informed by the designer that they decided to modify this for the second printing and on, and that you are indeed able to activate the command post multiple times with one visit.
Seems like long turns. Lot to do. Is there much down time? Feels like you could leave and come back after a while?
At this point this playthrough is the only time I've played the game, so I cant' really comment on downtime yet until i get a chance to play with with friends. I am hoping to make that happen though, I was intrigued by what I saw while filming this.
Billy Johnson - first time you play most big euro games it will take longer. But after a play or two your turns will hasten. If you don’t have a plan or have bad AP then it will take longer.
@@cgulde1 Sure but with three main actions and five supporting actions. That is a lot of time between me and my three opponents.
Billy Johnson - for the 1st or 2nd play-through I can see more downtime. But some of those actions aren’t available because they are situational
I like the fact that combat has been abstracted through game mechanics to make it a lot quicker, yet rewarding. You don't have to leave the main board aside in order to go through multiple, tedious rounds of combat - means less downtime, and also you automatically defeat the monster making your hard earned courage worthwhile. Of course you risk losing an NPC at the roll of a die but i personally don't mind it, that's what chaos of battle is all about! I think this system is in fact pretty clever and i am eager to try it.
At 1:10:40 Ga'Nok card is interpreted as saying EVERY TIME you get a reroll when it actually says if you roll A die.. Etc
I don't think it allows the player to get more than one reroll per turn. If I'm wrong, wouldn't that be rather OP?
Huh, this is an interesting point. All I can say is that the designer watched the playthrough in order to look for errors before I made the final render, and he did not bring this up as an issue.
I really do think they meant to name this “redemption”, not vindication.
Cant honour yourself..
the game looks drab to me
I have it, yet to play, and I'm feeling the same :^/
@@npane171 It is a sickness. I have sortet out a few games after playing only once or they where updated/replaced. Kickstarter is also hit and miss. Now I am very thoughtful of any game I purchase. Most of them are not exactly cheap ;)