I think it's a banger. But yes it's waaaaay heavier than kinfire. Those mission cards are all face up. You are basically playing them like you do TMB or Hoplo with an eye on the end game the whole time trying to push the abstract puzzle to your final advantage in 20 mins. Never is it roll lots of hits and apply them all to the highest health monster to win. It's straight up tactical puzzle banger.
I often feel like you're deliberately polemic because it's your schtick and you get more interaction that way. I'm gonna take the bait this time. It seems crazy to me to have an experienced gamer moaning that a dice-game is based on luck. Or that a solo game provides a difficult challenge that you'll likely fail as often as not. Those are both key features of those genres. I'd play 20 Strong over solo Elder Sign any day of the week. Having said that, I do agree that the rulebooks should have been better. And I'd also add that CTG really screwed up the dice in their desire to bling them out. The flakes all settle on one side, giving that side a rough edge. I'm annoyed by this because it was a clear problem during the updates, but CTG just ignored concerns and went ahead anyway. And now they're trying to lay the blame with the manufacturer. Ugh!
Perfect game for what it’s supposed to be. Take it with you on a travel or sth. Small footprint, good material and nice to play. Quick and easy. Won’t table it at home probably-if i just have 30 Min than maybe yes. You need to be „stress resistent“ though cause it’s heavily luck dependent (dice rolling and the cards you draw). I want Kinfire Delve so badly. But EU *cry*
I think you are doing missions wrong. In setup you deal out four, then choose one to discard. That indicates to me they are dealt face up so you can make an informed choice. There is also a hero that lets you rearrange the order the missions are in, once again an indication that they are dealt face up. This should have been explicitly stated in the rules. Knowing what the missions are helps you plan accordingly. I have only played Solar Sentinels so far, and I agree there is a lot of luck involved. Took me four games to finally win. The +enemies can easily snowball. In my fourth game I was certain I was going to lose, but then I pulled some good enemies and some good rolls to turn it around into a victory. Looking forward to trying out the other sets.
This... game... was... hard! I've only played it a few times and not even with the missions yet but I got my butt kicked. That being said, I did enjoy the strategy, the artwork and the flow. I'll keep at it for sure but man I got slapped around in my initial playthroughs. Thanks Chris!
For Solar Sentinels you deal 4 missions but get to discard 1. Getting through the 3 missions could be tough, trying to complete a 4 could have definitely cause frustration.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't care for this. I only played the TMB one, and I plan on trying the Sentinels one, but for me it boiled down to mechanism/special case soup. The rules go over the basic mechanics and then you're fighting 3 or 4 "baddies" and they all have weird conditions that contradict one another and sometimes aren't clearly defined on the card, with no reference in the rules for this card. It's "Read this card correctly, or stop playing the game." That kind of screeching halt when I play board games is a huge red flag for me. On top of that it is very difficult so it ends up just not being fun. I wrote a review for this on BGG and gave it a 4/10. If they had a better rules set and a card clarification glossary it would easily make it to a 6 or 7 and possibly even higher. The dice mechanism is BRILLIANT and is just a shining star in an otherwise void of mechanical disarray. I really really wanted to like this but the devs just didn't do enough to make this game playable out of the box.
I can understand the rule criticism, but I didn't face it because I had watched a play through video on Gaming Rules! which made me confident in running it before ever playing. I had a lot of fun watching the video and that led me straight into games. Looking forward to trying Hoplo and TMB decks.
After 3 or 4 plays of Solar Sentinels I really agree with everything you said. I still feel motivated to see if getting good allows you to strategize out of most bad rng rounds
I appreciate you not being afraid to rag on a game by a beloved publisher, though there are a couple of rules/omissions in the overview that make the decisions a more tactical/strategic affair than this video would have one believe. I have yet to lose a game where I felt that I couldn’t have done anything different or made a better choice or decision that would have improved the outcome. That said, dice gonna dice 😅.
Looking forward to giving my base game copy a try soon. I must admit that I take comments about games being completely random with a grain of salt these days. But thanks for the review. I really enjoy your videos. I think that you haven't liked any of the CTG game to date, whereas I love Too Many Bones, Cloudspire and Hoplomachus, so perhaps I am more geared to like them.
I really enjoyed this game. I understand your criticism, but it didn't seem to me to be as dependent on luck as you stated. Regardless, love your videos - you are one of my favorite content creators in the space. Keep it up!
I was second guessing my understanding of the rules, just yesterdays I saw a video of someone’s set up and play through and seeing them helped me see I was correct. But yeah, I was second guessing my understanding. Although that is a personality flaw of mine.
This dude hates CTG so don't listen. This game is a top solo game for me. Setup and teardown is a breeze. Great modularity. I don't play that many games and the rules aren't that hard to understand if you have basic sentence comprehension
You may want to check out a tutorial. The way you're showing it, I can see why you're frustrated.
I think it's a banger. But yes it's waaaaay heavier than kinfire. Those mission cards are all face up. You are basically playing them like you do TMB or Hoplo with an eye on the end game the whole time trying to push the abstract puzzle to your final advantage in 20 mins. Never is it roll lots of hits and apply them all to the highest health monster to win. It's straight up tactical puzzle banger.
With tons of luck built into the system ...
I often feel like you're deliberately polemic because it's your schtick and you get more interaction that way. I'm gonna take the bait this time. It seems crazy to me to have an experienced gamer moaning that a dice-game is based on luck. Or that a solo game provides a difficult challenge that you'll likely fail as often as not. Those are both key features of those genres. I'd play 20 Strong over solo Elder Sign any day of the week.
Having said that, I do agree that the rulebooks should have been better. And I'd also add that CTG really screwed up the dice in their desire to bling them out. The flakes all settle on one side, giving that side a rough edge. I'm annoyed by this because it was a clear problem during the updates, but CTG just ignored concerns and went ahead anyway. And now they're trying to lay the blame with the manufacturer. Ugh!
Perfect game for what it’s supposed to be. Take it with you on a travel or sth. Small footprint, good material and nice to play. Quick and easy.
Won’t table it at home probably-if i just have 30 Min than maybe yes.
You need to be „stress resistent“ though cause it’s heavily luck dependent (dice rolling and the cards you draw).
I want Kinfire Delve so badly. But EU *cry*
I think you are doing missions wrong. In setup you deal out four, then choose one to discard. That indicates to me they are dealt face up so you can make an informed choice. There is also a hero that lets you rearrange the order the missions are in, once again an indication that they are dealt face up. This should have been explicitly stated in the rules. Knowing what the missions are helps you plan accordingly. I have only played Solar Sentinels so far, and I agree there is a lot of luck involved. Took me four games to finally win. The +enemies can easily snowball. In my fourth game I was certain I was going to lose, but then I pulled some good enemies and some good rolls to turn it around into a victory. Looking forward to trying out the other sets.
This... game... was... hard! I've only played it a few times and not even with the missions yet but I got my butt kicked. That being said, I did enjoy the strategy, the artwork and the flow. I'll keep at it for sure but man I got slapped around in my initial playthroughs. Thanks Chris!
One rule error: in Victorum, you can attack a Primus anytime. You don't have to go through the pile first.
Oh, that's huge.
My copy hasn't arrived yet, but I'm pretty certain the core set is called Solar Sentinels and not Solar Storms...
For Solar Sentinels you deal 4 missions but get to discard 1. Getting through the 3 missions could be tough, trying to complete a 4 could have definitely cause frustration.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't care for this. I only played the TMB one, and I plan on trying the Sentinels one, but for me it boiled down to mechanism/special case soup.
The rules go over the basic mechanics and then you're fighting 3 or 4 "baddies" and they all have weird conditions that contradict one another and sometimes aren't clearly defined on the card, with no reference in the rules for this card. It's "Read this card correctly, or stop playing the game." That kind of screeching halt when I play board games is a huge red flag for me.
On top of that it is very difficult so it ends up just not being fun. I wrote a review for this on BGG and gave it a 4/10. If they had a better rules set and a card clarification glossary it would easily make it to a 6 or 7 and possibly even higher.
The dice mechanism is BRILLIANT and is just a shining star in an otherwise void of mechanical disarray. I really really wanted to like this but the devs just didn't do enough to make this game playable out of the box.
I can understand the rule criticism, but I didn't face it because I had watched a play through video on Gaming Rules! which made me confident in running it before ever playing. I had a lot of fun watching the video and that led me straight into games. Looking forward to trying Hoplo and TMB decks.
After 3 or 4 plays of Solar Sentinels I really agree with everything you said. I still feel motivated to see if getting good allows you to strategize out of most bad rng rounds
Are the only person I can find ranking them!
I appreciate you not being afraid to rag on a game by a beloved publisher, though there are a couple of rules/omissions in the overview that make the decisions a more tactical/strategic affair than this video would have one believe. I have yet to lose a game where I felt that I couldn’t have done anything different or made a better choice or decision that would have improved the outcome. That said, dice gonna dice 😅.
Not saying I disagree completely with your take, but you should probably re-read the rules.
Agree a 1000%
Unfortunately that doesn't help since the rules are poorly written and the mechanics aren't streamlined.
Very helpful Chris, thank you
Looking forward to giving my base game copy a try soon. I must admit that I take comments about games being completely random with a grain of salt these days. But thanks for the review. I really enjoy your videos. I think that you haven't liked any of the CTG game to date, whereas I love Too Many Bones, Cloudspire and Hoplomachus, so perhaps I am more geared to like them.
Thanks for a thoughtful assessment. I have the game, but haven't played it yet. I wonder if there are some tricks that you haven't discovered yet?
Gotmy KS I'm loving it!!
Time stamp bar sections not showing up in video.
I really enjoyed this game. I understand your criticism, but it didn't seem to me to be as dependent on luck as you stated. Regardless, love your videos - you are one of my favorite content creators in the space. Keep it up!
Will you try the 3 new 20 strong games that are being released next year? The tanglewood versions
They are coming out with more?
I was second guessing my understanding of the rules, just yesterdays I saw a video of someone’s set up and play through and seeing them helped me see I was correct. But yeah, I was second guessing my understanding. Although that is a personality flaw of mine.
This dude hates CTG so don't listen. This game is a top solo game for me. Setup and teardown is a breeze. Great modularity. I don't play that many games and the rules aren't that hard to understand if you have basic sentence comprehension
Agree
idk, this game looks awesome!
Your table seems a little wiggly.