CabinCon 2022 - Part VI
I mentioned in my last post that I was really looking forward to getting into the recap of Champions of Midgard specifically because of the design thoughts it inspired for me. It had been a running joke that the group had intentionally played Champions of Midgard whenever Josh wasn't around because he somehow hadn't played it yet. I couldn't remember ever playing it, despite recognizing the title. Everyone else was really looking forward to playing it, so I was happy to get into this game with Josh, as well as Suf and Ryan, who were gracious enough to teach us how to play. But as they taught it, I very vaguely remembered playing the game quite some time ago. Champions is described as a game that features dice rolling, set collection, and worker placement mechanics. Normally, worker placement games are my jam. So why didn't I remember anything about this one, either good or bad?
It turns out that I didn't remember it because I thought it was poorly designed the first time I played it! I was enjoying the way it played this time, which led me to sort of ponder out loud how it was that I'd so completely forgotten it. I'm pretty sure it was Johnnie who asked me if we had played with the Valhalla expansion - that expansion was the sideboard that allowed us to collect the souls of fallen warriors (dice) and use them to purchase cards that offer buffs or are worth straight points at the end of the game. When I'd previously played this game, it was just the base version, in which we basically used our dice for combat and if they died, then...well, too bad, so sad. I didn't enjoy playing the base game originally because it fell into the category of design choices that sort of leave a player feeling empty.
What I mean is that in a lot of games wherein players spend resources, there's the possibility that it's ultimately an unsatisfying feat because a player needs to do it to win, but there's no immediate gratification and once the action is complete, a player needs to start earning resources from scratch again. Building the largest army in the base game of Catan is great example of this. Each time a player purchases a Development Card, they spend 1 Sheep, 1 Grain, and 1 Ore. If that Development Card grows your army, that can technically get a player closer to victory. After all, it's not enough to keep building - in order to win, a player really needs either the largest army or the longest road. But what if you spend those resources midgame and get the Largest Army card? Cool, that's a couple of VP! But now what? You've spent 3 resources for something that doesn't actually affect how you play the game or increase your capacity for resource collection or management. And it's also a point of vulnerability, since someone else can muster a bigger army and steal the 2 VP from you so long as the game isn't yet over. Subsequent Development Cards don't get any cheaper just because a player has a big army. So each Knight card a player purchases has that player collecting resources again from scratch. And what if you only collect 2 Knight cards? A player must have at least 3 before they can collect the Largest Army and get 2 VP. So what if you end up with only 2 Knight cards? You've now spent 2 Sheep, 2 Grain, and 2 Ore for cards that do literally nothing for you. And maybe the dice broke your way and it was easy to collect those resources. Then again, maybe the dice have been unkind or even malicious and you've had to go out of your way to collect these resources. Plus, each of those could absolutely have been spent on some other endeavor. So that can feel pretty empty.
It's a design space I've come to really dislike. Not because it may not work out, but because it's completely luck-based. After all, there's not a lot you can do when the dice aren't coming up your way in Catan and giving you the resources you need to expand and collect points. Nor is there anything you can do about the Development Cards you top-deck. It would be different if it were a worker placement game like Viticulture, in which there's definitely some luck involved, but it's often a player's own fault when things don't break their way. After all, most of the decisions players make around Viticulture are informed ones. They may not draw the best guest cards, and sometimes, worker actions they need to take are occupied by other worker pawns. But with that all said, it's also worth pointing out there are a lot of workarounds. If you really needed to take that action, you should've gone first. If you couldn't go first, then you should've saved your grande worker to visit that location after someone else beat you there. But in other games, the benefit we get is tangible and doesn't necessarily require "starting over" when collecting resources. Catan does impose such a requirement and it doesn't feel great. It can often feel like buyer's remorse: "Now I have the thing I wanted, but my wallet is empty and I'm not as satisfied as I thought I'd be. Now what?" I mention all of this because it's how I felt about the base version of Champions of Midgard; if my warrior dice don't cut it, then they simply die and I've wasted multiple actions - the actions that got me those dice and the fight action that caused me to lose them and yielded no benefit.
But the Valhalla expansion fixes literally all of that and creates a much more interesting decision space for players. This also doesn't fall into the category of "this mechanic makes the game more forgiving," because warriors failing to win the battle is luck-based. Sure, a player can pick up superior warrior dice, and if one needs to deal 4 damage and sends just enough warriors to do the job if they roll perfectly, then that's a player who is putting it all on the line. If the gambit doesn't work, that's how it goes. But what about those battles wherein, statistically speaking, a player *should* win, but doesn't? They prepped as best they could, they lost everything they prepped, they receive no recompense, and now they have to start over. That feels terrible and doesn't usually make for a very good gaming experience for anyone who doesn't have a hot hand when it comes to dice. With the Valhalla expansion, I might've wanted to win that combat, but at least I get something from my warriors dying. Something that can help me win! And the flip side of the coin is that I might not lose the warriors I wanted to in combat because I won it too quickly. Feels counterintuitive and it's not very common, but it can absolutely happen. I really admire how Grey Fox managed to use this expansion to really fix what I think of as major shortcomings in their base game. It's a very elegant solution and takes the game far beyond it's sort of yahtzee nature.
Anyway, I played as Ullr. My special ability was that I scored 1 point in each combat during which I rolled at least one double hit. I didn't give it a ton of thought, which was probably good, as it might've caused me to focus harder on combat than I did. And I imagine I would've been reaching for single points here and there through combat, which wouldn't have been as advantageous in the long run. I decided early on to just get as much gold as possible so I could so I could spend it on other stuff. It really paid off because I had enough to get my extra worker very early and before everyone else. It was then easy enough for me to ship across the sea to fight monsters before other people were doing it, which provided a pretty big advantage. I was able to use my Berserker Cry to get pink dice, which got me pink souls early (though I did have to use 2 Fortune to reroll into my Leader ability; so relieved it worked out on the final roll!). Owing to this confluence of events, I had exactly what I needed to buy Jormungandr in the fifth round. This would prove to be huge in the end game, as I ended up winning with 117 points. Suf came in second with 87, Ryan in third with 83, and Josh in fourth with 53. There was a combination of things that just made it extremely difficult to keep up with me: the first was Jormungandr, but the second was Ullr's passive ability, and the third was that I scored two of my three objectives (Prosperous - I ended the game with the most gold, and Troll Slayer - I had killed the most Trolls). Owing to the fact that I got the extra worker before anyone else, I could make extra moves early on. Since other players were forced into a game of catch up in this regard, I also had the luxury of snagging new objectives before anyone else really started looking at them.
This was one of my winners of the weekend. I love worker placement games anyway, but it was so nice to rediscover Champions of Midgard and learn (in my mind) the only way to play the game, as I'll never play this game without the Valhalla expansion again. It just feels like an incomplete game without it, and there are plenty of dice-dependent games that are better designed than the core Champions game. It was a terrific start to a day that would only get better, as next up was a game I'd been wanting to play for FAR too long: Nemesis.
It's time.
I had purchased the Seed Voiders expansion, but we decided not to play with it because there seemed to be enough to unpack with Nemesis as it was. So I didn't peek at the Seed Voiders rules at all because I just assumed it added on a couple of mechanics and some new minis. Oh man, was I wrong in the best way possible. But I'll get to that later! For anyone unfamiliar with the premise of the game, players are on a ship that has been damaged, thus waking characters from cryogenic sleep in the Hibernatarium. Upon waking, the characters find a dead crew member in our midst. Each player has different objectives, so it's kind of a semi-co-op game. While our goals might actually coincide, allowing us to both win, it's also possible that our objectives are mutually exclusive (I need the ship to go to Mars whereas you need it to go to Earth; only one of us has the potential to win that objective at the cost of the other player). Each player gets a role, we sneak around the ship, and we encounter aggressive and deadly aliens. The game plays over the course of something like 15 rounds and by the end of it, players have to either be asleep in the Hibernatarium or in escape pods. 
I think I dealt two role cards out to each player to choose, so Johnnie took the Captain, Mike the Scout, Drew the Mechanic, and I ended up as the Pilot. It wasn't awful to set up, but I will say that while the rulebook is very good when it comes to setup, it's not so great when it comes to finding very specific rules that come up decently often. The first time was exactly when Intruders actually show up. We didn't know if the beginning of the game and lack of Intruders was the game design building suspense or if we had missed a step. It was a little frustrating and it happened a number of times throughout the game where we really had to scour the rulebook for things we were certain we'd found before. So that was kind of meh. But other than that and the time that it tacked on to the game, I really enjoyed it! That was partially because I think the design is a lot of fun and really evokes the feeling of...well, you know what movie the designers of this game are going for.
But it was also partially because it encouraged some excellent gems such as Mike telling Drew "I can do Reconnaissance because I am a Scout and you are a plebe." I definitely brought that up a couple more times over the course of the weekend. I appreciate that the game gives players options as to which objectives we'll pursue, but I'll also say that I didn't get much choice given the possible objectives into which I drew. The first objective card said player 3 had to die (which wasn't an option, since I was player 3 and couldn't win if I was dead) or every other player needed to be dead in order for me to win. The second objective card said that the ship had to get to Earth or...every other player needed to be dead in order for me to win. So I obviously chose the second Objective card. I decided early on that I'd be trying to get the ship to Earth. We probably communicated a bit more honestly than the game sort of calls for, but it made it easier for me to feel as though trying to get the ship to Earth was my best bet. However, it didn't take long for me to get into trouble: I got ambushed by an Adult Intruder at the end of the first round and started taking damage right away. I took a serious wound super early, so I only had one working arm for the vast majority of the game, which really sucked. Mike got me a prototype shotgun so I could actually be useful in the fight against Intruders, and I kept it to myself that I was sitting on an Energy Charge so I could reload my shotgun anytime as an action.
If we never actually say it, we're fine, right?
We started playing a little more cautiously, trying to mitigate Noise where we could. It was also a bit frustrating because Mike happened to keep drawing the same token out of the Intruder Bag, so we were regularly throwing Noise tokens down on the board. Besides the fact this meant we didn't get to see the full range of what the game would throw at us, it was a tough thing to deal with round after round. With 9 rounds left, I was pretty confident that other people had set the engines to working (literally everyone else checked the engines and proclaimed they were good except for me; I chose to take their word for it) and I knew Mike had set the coordinates to Earth (because I had checked the coordinates in the second round and directed Mike through changing them so we'd be headed to Earth). So I felt pretty good about my objective! Not including the fact that I was still walking around the ship with only one good arm, which was frustrating.
Lady in the Water was pretty dumb, but this nonsense still makes me laugh...
With only 7 rounds left, we got 3 Adults dropped on us in one round, bringing us up to a total of 5 on the board. I still feel good about hitting my goal, but now I'm starting to question just how much help I can deliver to everyone else on their own goals. For instance, Drew got trapped in the corner of the ship with two Adults that just kept chasing him. It was absolutely brutal. I blew my Orbital Maneuvering System (which I lucked into very early in the game and could afford to hold onto) to protect Drew from an attack during the Event Phase, but then immediately closed the doors to the Hibernatarium and went to sleep. At this point, Mike joined me, we congratulated each other on the win, and Drew responded with: "I can destroy this ship. I'm not trying to, but I could."
An unpleasant surprise awaited two unlucky crew members...
Drew linked up with Johnnie and the two of them tried to sprint to the end. But then the Queen got dropped on them and it was pretty much all over at that point. They fought valiantly, but Drew died first, then Johnnie quickly followed him. The game ended, at which point, Mike and I had to check victory conditions. The engines were all properly working and the coordinates were set correctly for Earth. So next up, I needed to check my Contamination card. I had previously managed to remove a Larva Intruder from my character, but got unlucky and got dealt a Contamination card after I'd cleared away my other ones. Turns out my single Contamination card was Infected! So I shuffled my deck and drew my 4 cards one at a time. I didn't draw a Contamination card, so I survived! And since Mike needed someone else to survive with him, my survival and subsequent victory meant his victory as well! I decided to see where that single Contamination card was in my deck. You know, for fun.
It was the very next card I would have drawn. Literally just came in under the wire. It was a very satisfying conclusion for me and Mike! Less so for Drew and Johnnie because the delays in the game and some of our planning had really just extended the playtime. It was pretty frustrating, because I could see how the game generally moves faster, but this one just felt as though it crawled. And that was especially true for Drew and Johnnie, who were stuck behind trying to play out the rest of the game, despite the fact that they really didn't stand much chance at all of actually achieving their objectives. I don't think it was a shortcoming of the game that it played out this way: I think we spent too much time developing game plans in some rounds and I think there are absolutely shortcomings in the rulebook. I know there are multiple Learn to Play videos as well, but I should be able to find what I need in the rulebook pretty easily. So that was kind of disappointing. But overall, I really enjoyed the hell out of the game!
Originally, the plan was that we'd play Nemesis so that one or two of us could then teach the other folks so everyone would get to play. Johnnie and Mike were both good to move onto something else, but Drew enjoyed it as much as I did, so I started reading the Seed Voiders expansion rules so maybe we could play with it later. And y'all, I was impressed. Void Seeders doesn't expand the game by adding a new mechanic or two and new minis; Void Seeders changes the premise of the game. Whereas in the core game, we're on a ship with alien monsters, Void Seeders replaces the various decks and Intruders, changes up some of the rooms, and introduces us to the notion that most of the minis we see on the board are actually illusions created by a very few manipulative, sneaky aliens. The more I read, the more excited I got about playing it! We didn't end up revisiting Nemesis this weekend, despite the Drew and I talked about playing it with just the two of us. But I really enjoyed the hell out of Nemesis and can't wait to get back to it. It was one of the big titles on my Unplayed list and I'm so glad I finally got to cross it off!
We finished the day with some lighter stuff like Resistance: Avalon, Oceans, Diplomacy, and Skull, but I'll get into that next time. Looking forward to sharing more about CabinCon with y'all!
**Also, if anyone reading this is interested in this most excellent group of adventurers and their exploits, you should check out their Twitter! They're the Champions of Valinwood!
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