Gears of War Board Game Emerges From Sinkhole

[Tom Goldman]

Gears of War Board Game Emerges From Sinkhole

Pick a card, then roll the dice to see if you chainsaw the Locust in half.

Fantasy Flight has had a Gears of War board game in development status for a while now, but has finally announced the release of the final product. Gears of War: The Board Game will pit 1-4 players up against the Locust horde with dice, cards, and figurines in hand.

It'll take players through 7 "randomly constructed" co-op scenarios that relive moments from Gears of War 2 [http://www.amazon.com/Gears-War-Triple-Pack-Xbox-360/dp/B004JSDQPU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1305742852&sr=8-1]. Missions will require players to do anything from "placing a sonic resonator deep in the Locust-infested earth" to "escaping the attack of a raging Berserker."

[gallery=245]

Gears of War: The Board Game uses 17 double-sided map tiles and a map creation system that makes every playthrough unique. It comes with 30 plastic figurines of the four playable COG soldiers and varied Locust enemies. The game also features 200 cards, 75 markers and tokens, 5 attack dice, 4 defense dice, a mission reference sheet, and a line-of-sight ruler. If you miss a Locust with your blind fire, that ruler will let you know.

Locust AI cards will apparently cause foes to team up on players in devious ways. Drones will fire from cover while Boomers toss grenades, etc. However, get up close and you can just chainsaw the whole lot in half, if the dice rolls go your way.

Fantasy Flight hasn't put a release date on Gears of War: The Board Game yet, but it's priced at $79.95 on the company's Gears of War 3 [http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=167&enmi=Gears%20of%20War:%20The%20Board%20Game] comes out in the fall.

Source: Fantasy Flight [http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=2266]

Permalink

 

[SpcyhknBC]

Interesting, I've always been a big board game fan. Though this sounds very similar to the way that Castle Ravenloft from Wizards is played. It also seems very expensive comparably speaking to other similar games.

 

[manythings]

Did anyone really want this game? I can't imagine the person who asked for it.

 

[AnAngryMoose]

Did anyone really want this game? I can't imagine the person who asked for it.

I sure as hell want it!

Interesting, I've always been a big board game fan. Though this sounds very similar to the way that Castle Ravenloft from Wizards is played. It also seems very expensive comparably speaking to other similar games.

It is sounding a lot like Castle Ravenloft, to be honest. But it's Castle Ravenloft, with Lancers.

 

[Archemetis]

Now, I might be generalising here, but...

Imagine the most common example of someone who plays Gears of War...

Then Imagine the most common example of people who play board games...

Do the two people you've imagined look like they fit together?

My guess, Probably not.

Then again, I could be wrong. Like I said, Generalising.

 

[wooty]

Oooooo k, I cant comment on this, seen slightly worse game related things out on the markets before. But I cant even see real Gears fan playing with it for very long, looks like less stimulation than the games really, the one thing that will make it sell is the title.

Unless they plan to emulate the feel of playing Gears online and include a CD of kids screaming homophobic abuse while you play. My overall memory of when I had Gears of War in the early years.

 

[midpipps]

Could be neat but I think I will stick with Castle Ravenloft and such.

Although those figures could be cool to use in a game of D&D

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Huh... well, for lack of better terms, I'm... curious...

this. I could see myself sitting down a couple afternoons enjoying such a board game.

off-topic: i forgot the name of it, but after the clone wars came out in theater's there was this board game me and my friend used to play DAILY, that shit was so much fun (it involved battling all of 6 movies best villains and heroes against each other on the board in fun ways with cards and stuff)

(we used to always enjoy the jango fett vs mace windu rematch, usually mace would win but sometimes i would win over with fett)

 

[Formica Archonis]

I bought the Doom 3 board game once out of curiosity.

It was one of the worst purchases in my life.

It took FOREVER just to set up the board because of how complex the rules were (you actually had to rearrange the entire board and all of the pieces on it every few turns to reflect the changes happening in the game and player progression through the "levels") and it literally took like an hour at best just to learn how said rules actually worked.

I'd suggest staying away from Fantasy Flight's output then. (Same company as Doom 3, but somewhat different mechanic, looks like.) A lot of them have a lot of setup and a lot of rules, like Descent and Twilight Imperium. I never played the Doom 3 game but I played its successor (Descent: Journeys in the Dark) so I think I have an idea of how it goes.

Actually, let me amend my suggestion: Stay away from boardgames in general if it's not something you can find in a department store. This isn't meant to be an insult, but if you see a boardgame in a gaming specialty shop it's probably going to have rules just as complex. Maybe less setup, as Descent DOES have a notable segment of downtime where one player is assembling the map (unless you have the pieces sorted beforehand, then it's not too bad), but still a lot of setup.

 

[Jack Macaque]

I would buy that lol

 

[Formica Archonis]

Interesting, I've always been a big board game fan. Though this sounds very similar to the way that Castle Ravenloft from Wizards is played. It also seems very expensive comparably speaking to other similar games.

And the problem with something like this is that you'll ask yourself why you're not just playing Ravenloft. Co-op game where monsters move according to X rules? Unless this game is amazing, you'd just play Ravenloft instead. And given how long it's been in development hell - and I'm used to Fantasy Flight's Valve-time way of listing things, so this is still damn far from stores - I'm doubtful of their ability to make it head-and-shoulders better than similar games out there.

It's like Runewars (if I remember correctly - the titles of the Terrinoth games I don't play kinda all melt together). Why play that when we could play Twilight Imperium instead, which is similar but overall better? (Can't wait for the new TI expansion. Those tech stealers look interesting, though I don't usually like bellicose races.)

That doesn't happen every time, of course. My group will switch between Defenders of the Realm and Pandemic despite the similarity of the games. They're both about as fun, so we play both.

 

[dosp5]

What do I have to roll to get Overpowered shotguns?

 

[TheSchaef]

Actually, let me amend my suggestion: Stay away from boardgames in general if it's not something you can find in a department store. This isn't meant to be an insult, but if you see a boardgame in a gaming specialty shop it's probably going to have rules just as complex.

I'm going to have to disagree with this generalization. Fantasy Flight is singularly notorious for two things: making awesome themed games based on franchises, and making obscenely complex games in order to make said game as thematic as possible.

There are a very wide variety of hobby games available that do NOT have FFG-style rulesets. Days of Wonder is particularly good at making games that are relatively simple to explain. Z-Man and Rio Grande have games that kind of run the gamut from simple to intricate.

I promise you, not every game is Doom. Gears of War probably will be, though.

off-topic: i forgot the name of it, but after the clone wars came out in theater's there was this board game me and my friend used to play DAILY, that shit was so much fun (it involved battling all of 6 movies best villains and heroes against each other on the board in fun ways with cards and stuff)

This sounds like Star Wars: Epic Duels, one of the crown jewels of my game collection. It's out of print now, and hard to find, and not the most well-balanced game (Obi-Wan and Yoda are badass, while Luke and Dooku, not so much), but it is a LOT of fun to play.

Another now-gone Star Wars game that was completely awesome was The Queen's Gambit. Basically, it's like the last hour of Episode 1, if it were actually an epic battle between stalwart soldiers, and not something more like this (skip to 1:15):

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Actually, let me amend my suggestion: Stay away from boardgames in general if it's not something you can find in a department store. This isn't meant to be an insult, but if you see a boardgame in a gaming specialty shop it's probably going to have rules just as complex.

I'm going to have to disagree with this generalization. Fantasy Flight is singularly notorious for two things: making awesome themed games based on franchises, and making obscenely complex games in order to make said game as thematic as possible.

There are a very wide variety of hobby games available that do NOT have FFG-style rulesets. Days of Wonder is particularly good at making games that are relatively simple to explain. Z-Man and Rio Grande have games that kind of run the gamut from simple to intricate.

I promise you, not every game is Doom. Gears of War probably will be, though.

off-topic: i forgot the name of it, but after the clone wars came out in theater's there was this board game me and my friend used to play DAILY, that shit was so much fun (it involved battling all of 6 movies best villains and heroes against each other on the board in fun ways with cards and stuff)

This sounds like Star Wars: Epic Duels, one of the crown jewels of my game collection. It's out of print now, and hard to find, and not the most well-balanced game (Obi-Wan and Yoda are badass, while Luke and Dooku, not so much), but it is a LOT of fun to play.

Another now-gone Star Wars game that was completely awesome was The Queen's Gambit. Basically, it's like the last hour of Episode 1, if it were actually an epic battle between stalwart soldiers, and not something more like this (skip to 1:15):

yeah! that's what it was, god damn i loved that game. yeah it wasn't that balanced but i used to love rolling darth maul anyways, would use his speed attacks like crazy. and yeah i tried buying it online but they are all out =[

and speeking of the queens gambit, and the way that you described it, i may have played that also..was it a bit "tougher" to setup and stuff? i remember having one that was a bit tougher but quite a bit of fun in the way you described it

 

[TheSchaef]

yeah! that's what it was, god damn i loved that game. yeah it wasn't that balanced but i used to love rolling darth maul anyways, would use his speed attacks like crazy.

Sounds about right: store up a bunch of speed attacks, then run up on the opponent, hit him like six times and then use the hit and jump move at the end so he can't just bash you back.

and speeking of the queens gambit, and the way that you described it, i may have played that also..was it a bit "tougher" to setup and stuff? i remember having one that was a bit tougher but quite a bit of fun in the way you described it

Yes, The Queen's Gambit had three boards: one for the Gungan plains (basically a killing ground for the droid tanks), one for the Jedi fight and Anakin hitting the droid ship, and in the middle is a 3-D board representing the palace, where Padme and the guards try to surround the viceroys. And while the gameplay is simple - play a card, move the plastic piece, shoot - you have to manage all four areas of the battle fairly equal or the other player is going to jump all over the areas you leave unattended.

I could have had both these games for $20 in the supermarket aisle in the months following Episode II. By the time I got them (TQG in 2007, Epic Duels in 2008), I paid $80 each for a used but complete copy on Ebay, and if you tried to track one down now, you could expect to pay twice that. That's the problem with having games that are actually very well-designed but get ignored by the elite gamers who think all franchised board games suck, and by the average shopper who doesn't realize there are other games in the world besides Monopoly, Risk and Battleship.