SuperHero Dice: Roll Into Action

SuperHero Dice: Roll Into Action

My dice game which I have designed, for which I am currently working with a talented artist and creating new SuperHero's and Villians.

Here is a bit of background:

SuperHero Dice: Roll into Action

Background

The Island of Asilo, where contrary to the musings of modern day scholars was where the first humanoid inhabitants of planet Earth dwelled, they were known as the Armonia. The Armonia had fled to Earth and been guided to the Island of Asilo by the great wise one Mentem, the Armonia were a peaceful race and their small home planet was rich in energy crystals called Cubitos, the other races of the outer galaxies had sought to control their planet to gain the crystals, battling each other with the poor Armonia caught in between. The Armonia fled their planet with as many Cubitos crystals as they could, they journeyed far until they found Earth and the Island of Asilo there they lived peaceful lives for centuries, until Mentem the Sixteenth foretold of an impending disaster that would change their lives, the Earth was about to undergo a Seismic event that would change the shape of the planet, their island would be crushed in-between two great continents as they merged together. The great thinkers of Armonia decided the only course of action would be to sink the island under the seas so deep the land masses above would not crush the island; they toiled hard to build a protective cocoon around the island with powerful Cubitos engines to power the islands atmosphere and to sink the island itself. Thus Asilo was forever lost in history until…

When the continents parted again millions of years later, there were great discussions in Asilo on whether to return to the surface or not, they decided that they would gain nothing by returning and stayed under the waves, until one day one of the powerful engines which kept the island below the seas malfunctioned, thus the decision was made to return to the surface, the engineers worked on new technology to protect the Island from any prying eyes, the island rose to the surface and the dome retracted. The island lay a great distance from any known land mass and they thought that they would be safe and could remain hidden, but they had not realised that the Earth itself had new inhabitants; the Human race.

Sea going vessels had been spotted by the lookouts on several occasions so the Islands defences were put into action. The Island had two mist banks that surrounded it, the outer mist bank and the inner mist bank, both moving in opposite directions, those trying to navigate would get confused and sail straight past the island, the sea also moved quicker in-between the mist banks and could push ships back into the outer mist bank.

But eventually the ships became more powerful and one day a ship broke through the two mist banks and ran aground on the Island, the Armonia approached with caution as three figures fell from the ship’s deck onto the sand, thus the Armonia first met members of the human race.

The Armonia learnt as much as they could from the Humans and in return gave the humans a place to live and food, but they were not allowed to leave the island.

The thinkers of Armonia decided that they would need a new way to protect themselves if needed, they could no longer rely on the sea defences, so using an ancient knowledge that had been sealed many aeons before they landed on Earth, they did the almost unthinkable and started to train some of the younger members of Armonia society in combat and defence techniques, using the power of the Cubitos minerals to boost the strength and power of their actions.

Over the years more ships become stranded on their shores and soon it was flying ships that crashed onto the island, some survivors of the various wrecks would mutter about the Devils Triangle and look in fear at the Armonia when they arrived. When they calmed down they would tell the thinkers that Asilo lay in the middle of Triangle of sea with modern day Puerto Rico to the South East, America to the West and Bermuda to the North East. It was known to many as the Bermuda Triangle or the Devils Triangle where many ships and aircraft vanished without trace, they told of other people scouring the seas to try and find the cause of these disappearances and with each new technology that the Human Race would develop the Armonia realised that one day there secret would be uncovered.

A plan was decided upon and the Armonia chose to reveal the island to the human race and ask for a peaceful existence, in return they would take with them any of the humans that had found themselves stranded on the Island.

Thus the Armonia became a part of the history books once more and for a while lived in peace, until some members of the human race found out about the Cubitos crystals from the survivors who had been stranded on the island, they learnt of the power that could be unleashed and they wanted it for themselves.

So the Armonia launched the Legion of Primus, using their trained citizens to protect the island and the Cubitos, the legion was led by the fittest and brightest, the one they call Centurio.

Super Interlude

Here is a short interlude to my writing about Ratero.

SuperHero Dice is my other creation that I am working on at this time, the rules are just about complete and SuperHeroes are being created. I have an artist working on the designs for the heroes.

The first hero is Centurio, all round good guy, who packs a powerful energy punch, other powers include a Thunderclap that knocks all enemies within a certain distance down, he can regenerate damage done to him and he can create an energy shield with which he charges an opponent.

Trux is a Psychic Cyborg or Psyborg for short, who not only loves to get mean and dirty brawling with his opponents, but can unleash a psychic energy blast, his energy exo skeleton can use surronding energy to heal wounds and can also vibrate the molecules in the air bending light and rendering him invisible.

These are just two of the heroes that can slug it out in a battle royale.

The gameplay is simple and quick to learn, its a push your luck dice rolling game, the results on the dice power up your abilities, the more power the stronger ability you can unleash, but if you roll too many fatigue results, the attack fails due to over exerting yourself.

More detail coming soon and artwork as well.


Finally had a few friends over for some gaming the other night, we played Smash Up and fun card shuffling game, with players attempting to control bases using minions and powers. It saw my Dinosaur Pirates battling Zombie Robots, Wizard Aliens and Ninja Tricksters. It was a very close game but the Zombie Robots kept coming back from the grave to conquer all.

We then broke out the new X Wing minis game, with pre painted X Wings, Y Wings and Tie Fighters, this is a clever system that has templates for all the moves your ship can make, with players secertly selecting the move before the turn starts.

The game pitched my X Wing with Wedge and R2 D2 alongside a Y wing fight two Tie Fighters and an Advanced Tie Piloted by Darth Vader, the first game saw victory for the Imperial Side, but the second game the tide turned and after the Ion Cannon of the Y Wing weakened the Tie Fighters, Wedge proved his worth and finished off the two ties, Dart Vader destroyed the Y Wing and then it was a straight dog fight, that thanks to some great flying and shooting by wedge saw the Rebels victorious.

Its a great game.

Ratero Rulebook

So I have finally worked out the initial draft of the rulebook for Ratero, having typed it up, re written it, edited it, chopped bits around and so on.

Typing up the rulebook is actually a handy way of refining the rules, because as you put the gameplay down in words, you think hmm does this sound right, how about doing it this way instead.

So the Turn order goes like this:

Upkeep Phase
Any face up pickpockets in jail are returned to their gang leader.
Any face down pickpockets are turned face up in jail.
Each gang leader takes an action card.

Placement Phase
In this phase the gang leaders place their pickpockets in to some or all of the seven districts of the City-State of Tempest. I discussed this in my last blog post.

Action Phase
For each district that is chosen the action phase occurs, this is split into sub phases that happen in order for each district.

Sub Phases
Scuffle and Flee
A gang decides to muscle in on another gang, that gang can either stand and scuffle or attempt to flee.

Recruitment
Either talk nicely to new recruits or threaten them to join the gang.

Bribe
Grease the plams of the City Watch to lower the alertness and raise your influence in a district.

Pickpocket
Try and pick the pocket of the citizens of Tempest, with your friends acting as distractions.
Success brings riches, fail brings trouble.

Event Phase
Draw an event card, these cards affect many things.

So thats the basic turn structure. When a certain number of turns are played the game ends and players start toting up their victory points.

Victory points are earned by being the most influential gang leader in a district and each wealth card is worth victory points as well.

As mentioned this is the first draft and playtesting will commence shortly.

Ratero Gameplay Ideas

Having worked out the main theme and idea behind the game, I had to start working out the mechanics of the game play itself, this had led to ideas, more ideas, back tracking and a lot of pondering, when designing game mechanics there is usually more than one way to skin a cat.

For example Dice does the game need dice to function properly, when pickpocketing the pickpocket uses his Guile skill, any other pickpockets who are there to cause distractions add their Influence to the pickpocket's Guile to form his total skill for this attempt, then the player chooses his target from the citizens present in the area, he compares his total skill to their alertness rating adding any modifiers from the district itself, if the pickpocket's skill is equal to or greater then the alertness level he succeeds in his attempt........However this meant that there is no way a pickpocket attempt can fail, which is not very realistic, so if we add a dice roll to the action this gives us an element of luck.
So after finding his total skill level for the attempt and finding the total alertness of the target, the player rolls a D6 and adds it to his skill, now if he gets equal to or higher then the alertness level he is successful. This way the action has an element of luck, but with clever usage of distractions and picking the right target the player can maximise the chance of success.

Another initial idea was to that each gang leader would have a special ability, for instance one gang leader could have an ability to "after placement of all pickpockets, you may move one pickpocket to a neighbouring district". But is that enough, would it be better for each gang leader to have a deck of action cards, from which he has two in his hand at anyone time and may play only one a turn, these decks act as special abilities of the gang leaders and their pickpockets, at this time I am favouring an action deck, play testing will decide if this is two powerful and if it changes the game play to much.

The last thought for this post is on deployment of pickpockets, two choices have come to mind, the initial idea was for secret placement, where each player would collect all their pickpockets together, they also have a token for each district, then they would form a stack, placing pickpockets face down in front of them with the district token face down on top, then all players reveal and place their pickpockets, but it got me to thinking does this miss out on a level of strategy as you cant react to another players actions. The other option is for the First Player to place all the pickpockets he wants into one of the districts, then going round the table the other players do the same, then the First Player places his next lot of pickpockets into another district and so on until all pickpockets have been placed, players can only place pickpockets into a specific district once each turn, the first player would be different each turn. This way players can react to what the other players are doing, so if you have a district that you have a lot of influence in, another player places pickpockets there to try and  increase their influence and decrease yours, then you could place your pickpockets there to try and face off your opponents and get them to leave the district.

I am favouring the second option now, again if this doesn't work in play testing then I could revert to secret placement.

Cheers for now
Brian

Ratero, Initial Ideas

Ratero is a game of pickpockets operating in the City-State of Tempest, Tempest is similar to a Mediterranean 14th Century Port located at the cross roads to several great empires.

Having recently read the Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch in which the central character starts as a very young lowly pickpocket and thief and also thanks to my local Costa Coffee which sells second hand books for charity, I got a copy of The Way of the Shadows by Brent Weeks, which again features gangs of pickpockets, scroungers and thief's, from which the central character wishes to escape, reading these got me thinking about a board game featuring these gangs and the areas they control, one of the books depicts scuffles between rival gangs, encroaching on the others territory.

In both of these books the gangs are led by a master or gang leader, in Locke Lamora the gang leaders have a double life, leading a semi respectable life in the eyes of the other citizens, while also being the leader of the gangs.

I started to think about how these ideas could translate into game play, what would be the main aims of the game, it was about this time that I got access to AEG's games designer toolbox for the City-State of Tempest, the era was spot on and the map of the City was just what was needed, as it is split into different districts, each with a different feel and look. The artwork on the site is excellent and has the right feel about it for Ratero.

Using the map and the districts I came up with the idea that each district would have its own rewards and dangers when it came to pickpocketing, operating in the slum areas, pickpocketing would of course be a lot easier, but the rewards would be a lot lower. But a pickpocket operating near the Canals and the Merchants would have a greater chance of some interesting rewards and wealth, however the City Watch operate in this area and the risks of carrying out a successful pickpocket attempt would be much higher.

Each player would play a gang leader like Vito Rossillio whom I posted a picture of in a recent post, Vitto has found himself living the life of a criminal, an expert lookout and very agile, he has a dislike for his fellow criminals and wants to distance himself from their activities, after a chance encounter with a couple of pickpockets he has decided to start his own gang, and profit from others without doing any of the hard graft himself.

Each gang leader will have a special ability that can be used during the game, there will be a choice of gang leader to play.

Each turn the gang leader will send out his pickpockets into various districts to help raise the wealth and influence of the gang.

Next time on the blog, further game play ideas and mechanics.

Games Night Interlude

Friday night so me playing Descent 2nd Edition for a group of 4 other players (Joel, Ross, Richard S and Richard G) at the Totnes Board Game Group, it was a seperate night to the usual to allow us to concentrate on running a campaign.

As the game was mine I was the Overlord and after 30 minutes of rules explaining, choosing of charcters and ordering of pizzas by some of the group, we were off.

First Blood the introduction encounter was first, and the players quickly scooped up the search tokens, devasted the goblins and set to work on the Ettins.

After a brave stand by the Ettins, the Mauler finally fell.

Well actually it was a desperate stand by the Mauler and the players kicked my......

They chose the Masquerade Ball as the next encounter and after a bit of shooping, a travelling round that saw me add 3 Overlord cards to my hand we were off....

Again my fault I didnt take notice of a skill card that was purchased which gave a charcter a blast attack with his rune weapon, which also had pierce +2 surge ability, which ignores 2 shield results on defense dice.

So 3 Spiders went on the first turn of the first character, the other 2 were soon dispatched.

This caused me a lack of troops for the first encounter, although I then charged my ettins forward , revealing some melders as they went, the players got one guest off and I got another off, but by then I was left with very few figures and it was a choice to either stay and fight or run off with another guest with some of my figures, good placing of the characters saw them block the progress of the Ettins, although two of the heroes were knocked out in quick succession thanks to the use of overlord cards, they players quickly finished me off and were lucky with the dice role, they manage to rescue the guest.... But for part two of the encounter they are heavily wounded so we shall see in a fortnight, the battle was over but not the war.....

Then as Ross had to leave, we had a quick game of Dominion using the prosperity set, it took about 30 minutes and Richard S was very victorious, the set of cards which were used allowed him to burn through lower coinage and gain higher level coins quickly and so he purchased colonies more quickly then we all realised, it was only my second game and I am intrigues to play with different set ups of cards.

Ratero

I have recently heard back from AEG regarding my submission of a game idea, using their game design resource of The City-State of Tempest.

They liked my idea and want me to continue to work out a rulebook and a prototype and playtest the game, before submitting it for a review to see if they want to publish the game, so thats great news.

So trumpets please.....

Ratero by Brian P Lewis
The City-State of Tempest has a hidden secret; gangs of pickpockets vie against each other in the districts of Tempest. Each day the leader of each gang sends his recruits out into The City-State, each tasked with either pickpocketing the citizens in the hustle and bustle of the streets, causing distractions to aid their fellow pickpockets, trawling the districts recruiting new pickpockets or having a scuffle with a rival gang.

You are such a gang leader and you will not stop until your gang is the most influential and richest gang in the whole of The City-State of Tempest. But beware the citizens, city watch and other more secret organisations dont take to kindly to pickpockets and they will be on your heels all the time.

Next time on Bay Board Games, the idea and base mechanic thoughts.

Vito Rossillio, Gang Leader

Sunday Sunday

A slight time setback with the game I had submitted to AEG for their Tempest setting, the submission has got lost in the ether of the interweb maybe attacked by an enthusiastic spam filter.

So I have had to re submit the idea for Ratero.

My meeting with the artist for my other game has had to be rearrranged for next week, which is disappointing, but it's only week and gives me more time to get the game to the next play testing phase.

Thoughts at Night and Kickstarter

Yesterday afternoon I had a few hours to work out some more details of my new dice game, which I felt went well.

Then last night or to be more precise at 4am this morning I was awake, and my mind was filled with extra details about the mechanics and how to improve the game, I also thought about some apsects to ditch from the games mechanics, the original idea was for a fast and easy to learn game, with some nuances thrown in to give an added layer of strategy, however I had been adding in more and more layers, thinking 'wow that would be great.' But I realised that it was moving away from the quick and easy to becoming a more complicated game, nothing wrong in that but I wanted it quick and easy, so those ideas are either going to be put aside for a different game or maybe added as an advanced version. Playtesting will help me decide.

My other thoughts turned to Kickstarter, yes I plan to use Kickstarter to help with the costs of getting the game published. But the thoughts of stretch goals and rewards keep filling my mind, and I sometimes find myself detracting from the main goal of creating a game to thinking about stretch goals, do people really want them, if I was offering a great game at a great price, wouldnt people just be happy to sign up on that basis, the stretch goals that would make the most sense I believe most people would feel that they could have been included in the original game in the first place. So would people prefer a great game at a great price with all the extras included at one price, or would they prefer stretch goals adding bits and pieces as we go along? mmm I know which I would prefer.

Thats not to say there wont be different reward levels, but at this time all the reward levels which include a copy of the game will include the same components as each other.

Why no mention of the games theme just yet, well I am awaiting the first piece of artwork and want to wait until then to showcase the game properly.

Till next time...

Board Game Design

Havent we all thought 'mmm that would be a cool game to make'. I have loads of times and have several works in progress. But game design isnt really that simple, the ideas are, the basics are, but taking it to the next level is the tricky part.

I have listened to various podcasts on the subject, my favourite being the Ludology series, which does a great job of going into the different aspects of board game design, I also frequent the board game design forums at Board Game Geek and occasionly drop by the Board Game Design Forum.

Looking at my list of basic game ideas, I tend to float between several different ideas, then come up with some more ideas, write those down and so on.

BUT recently I have been more focused on a couple of designs, AEG have got a great resource available for games designers, its called Tempest. They have created the city-state of Tempest, with maps and characters available, they then allow games designers to submit game pitches to use these resources and design a Tempest branded game, they currently have four games in production. So I have submitted a game idea to them and am currently awaiting news on my idea. The game idea was for a different thematic setting but also worked well with their setting, so a bit of re-jigging some of the mechanics and I felt that I had the beginings of an interesting game.

My other game idea which is proggressing is a dice based game, I am currently in talks with a great artist to design characters for this game and will be announcing more details very soon along with hopefully the first piece of artwork.

For me sometimes the theme of the game comes first, or sometimes the objective of the game enters my head first, then I start thinking about how to achieve said onjective, or what I would like to see happen in such a themed game.

For instance trench warfare, after watching a program about the trenches and playing numerous video games with a trench or tight underground section, I thought 'interesting, how can I turn that into a game, what would be the aim of the game'. Then its a case of thinking it through and fleshing out some details, what era should it be, what would the victory conditions be, what mechanics could it use and much more.

So next time more details on the actual game designs that I am working on...

Quiet Times

A bit quiet on the board gaming front this week, having only had a chance to play on the Ipad.

Ascension continues to dominate my gaming time, its just so quick and easy to pick up and play.

A few new IOS games coming soon that look interesting including Alien Frontiers.

New board games out this week:
Level 7 from Privateer Press is released this week, Im still undecided about it.
On the plus side it can be played solo, but a lack of reviews etc mean I am not going to bite just yet.
Others have commented that the game should really include minis, but Im not that fussed as long as the game is good.

Quiet Weekend

Well boardgaming wise it was a quiet weekend, the weather was nice and sunny, so my wife and I were out and about.

For boardgaming it fell to my trusty Ipad in the evenings for some action.

A quick fun game is Ascension and thanks to a recent sale, I have purchased all the expansions.

Followed my a couple of games of Summoner Wars and then Small World.

The Ipad is a really great way to play and learn some board games.
Playing Ascension against the AI lets you play quickly and learn the cards , their abilities and work out some chains.
Card abilities can interact with other cards, which can then trigger other cards abilities, so trying to get the biggest chain is hard but very worthwhile.

UK board game releases 10th Sept

7 Wonders: cities

Timeline

The Big Bang Theory

Starship Merchants

Aeroplanes: Aviation Ascendants

Game of thrones Lcg: A time of ravens

Izzet V golgari, Magic decks

Pokemon Legendary EX Tins

Reprints:

Mystery of the Abbey

Pirates Cove

Totnes Board Game Group

Last Friday saw me attending the Totnes Board Game Group for the first time, set up and run by Ross fromWishing Tree Toys in Totnes, although not actually held in the shop itself by very nearby.

First up was King of Tokyo which although I own it myself, I have never played it before, its a cool dice based game featuring godzilla-esque monsters competing to be king of the monsters in Tokyo.

Each turn you roll the custom dice and choose to keep all re roll the results, you can re roll twice.
The results either give you energy to buy power cards or remove some game effects, hearts replenish your health, attacks launch attacks at other monster or monsters depending on if you are 'in' Tokyo or not and finally there are three numbered sides to each dice from 1 to 3, these give you victory points, you must roll at least 3 of one number and you get that number in victory points, so roll 3 lots of 2's and you get 2 victory points.

During the game you are either in Tokyo or outside Tokyo, only one monster can be in Tokyo, the benefits are your attacks will damage all other monsters and you gain victory points for entering and staying in Tokyo, the downside is you cant heal and all other monsters attack you.

Its a quick playing game fast and furious, with clever management of the dice and your location will see you to victory. We played a couple of two player games with my monster being Cyber Bunny,while awaiting the others to arrive and then one four player game, alas victory was not mine in any of these games.

Next up was Dixit an interesting game of describing and guessing, that when it was being explained peoples faces were 'mmm not sure about that' but a couple of rounds in and it was an enjoyable game, made even more enjoyable by a close victory to me. Choose a card in your hand then either describe it with a word or sentence to the other players, they then choose a card in their hand to match, all cards are placed face down, shuffled then revealed, players then each choose which card was originally being described. The trick is you want players to pick your card on your turn, but not all the players, you only get the points if only some pick your card. As I said it was a fun game to play and would suit a family gathering.

Next up it was Munchkin, I have heard of it before of course but never played it, after a quick refresh of the rules we were off and away, its a quickish, fun, screw you type game. As a filler or one off game it was enjoyable and fun to see the different weapon and monster cards, but I get the feeling it would wear off pretty quickly. The chance of Victory was very close between all the players.

The other table was playing Settlers of Catan at this time.

We then settled into a late night game of Dominion Prosperity, a deck building game.
Again my first time playing it for real, I have the unofficial app on my Ipad, but only played it the once, the app dosent really explain what is going on and why, but after a couple of rounds on Friday we were all quickly up to speed, and through a judacious use of the goons card, our host for the night Joel was victorious, I came a close second. It was after midnight so we called it a night.

A fun enjoyable night, next time we have a Descent campign game starting and many more games available to play as well.

D Day Dice Board Game Review by Brian Lewis

June 6^th 1944 the Allied forces are landing, can you lead your unit to victory on these heavily defended beaches?

D Day Dice is a dice game for 1 to 4 players that is played co-operatively, each player is leading a unit on one of the beaches in the D Day landings, their mission to take control of the bunkers at the top of the beaches. Each player has a unit dice which is used on the board to denote the location of their unit, this also tracks how the unit has spent at each location, each player also has a set of six custom dice, two red, two white and two blue, these dice form the basis of the game and when rolled these represent your resources on the battlefield. These dice each have the following symbols on them, a single soldier, two soldiers, a star, a medal, a spanner and finally a skull. There are also decks of cards included for regular and unique specialists, items and awards.

There are eight beaches to conquer in the game, they are designed to be played in numerical order as each beach gets more difficult as you progress, usually only one board is used in each game, and each map is split into numerous sectors, which allow for different routes to the bunkers. The first mission is a training mission played on the Slapton Sands beach board, it has three different levels of difficulty to introduce all the elements of the game, and some of the other beaches included are Omaha, Juno and Merville Battery.

Each turn players act simultaneously in the five different phases of the turn; Phase one is the most important and forms the basis of the entire game, you will roll your six custom red, white and blue dice up to three times, on the first throw you have to choose two of these dice to lock in, these dice cannot be re rolled again this turn, on the second throw you can re roll any or all of the four remaining dice, now you can keep or re roll for a third and final time any of these four dice, you now have your final tally of dice for this turn.  

Phase two is the upkeep phase where  you convert your final tally of dice to add to your resources, each symbol  has the following effect, a soldier result adds the number of soldiers shown to your unit, stars are used to recruit specialists, medals represent courage and enable your unit to advance on the battlefield, spanners give you item points, which you can then spend on items to aid your advance and skulls are the bad side of the dice as they negate the effect of one of the other dice rolled.

There are a couple of special rules which relate to the final tally of dice, these add an extra layer of choice to the game, in your final tally if you get three identical symbols on three dice of separate colours you get a “RWB” result known as a red, white and blue this gives you a special ability as well as the usual benefits of each dice, for example if you get a skull RWB on the dice in your final tally then you get the Dead Man’s Gift,  which means “you find a dead soldiers gear bag and gain +20 Item points this turn and you also ignore the negative effect of the skulls this turn”, or a single soldier RWB result gives you an extra four soldiers and you can also give another players unit four extra  soldiers. If you manage to roll one of each symbol regardless of colour you gain an Award card, these are one use cards that mainly take effect straight away.

Once resources have been collected players change the face of their unit die, the unit die is used to track how long you have been in your current sector, most sectors allow you to wait a maximum of three turns, but some sectors are too dangerous to linger in and must be vacated quickly.

Phase Three is where you can recruit specialists or buy items using your available resources. Different specialists are available depending on the map but they include the likes of a minesweeper, handy if you have to cross a mine field or a Corporal who allows you to re roll a dice in your final tally each turn, these specialists also count towards the number of soldiers in your unit. Items purchased are only useable once per game, when used they are turned face down; they give you a special ability for the turn in which they are played, examples of items include a walkie talkie which gives you an extra two soldiers or a grenade which allows you to ignore Machine Gun Fire for one turn.

Phase Four is the Movement phase, if your unit has the move symbol showing you must advance either forwards or sideways into a sector you have not been into before, otherwise it’s your choice whether to move or not. To move you look at the board and each sector has a courage level, you must spend that number of courage points to advance, if you can’t the game is over.

Phase Five is combat, each sector has a Defence number in it, in this phase you must lose a number of soldiers equal to the defence value, and if you ever have zero soldiers the beach is lost. Some sectors have a symbol to denote Machine Gun Fire, in the combat phase you roll a normal D6 and add the result to the defence value of the sector; this is the amount of soldiers you must lose.

Each sector can have other symbols which can either aid you by giving you extra soldiers, a new specialist or bonuses to your final tally or they can also contain mines, machine gun fire and negatives to your final tally, these are all marked clearly on each board and are different for each board, one board also allows random generation of the layout for a different game each time.

Bunkers have a defence value and upon entering one you lose this number of soldiers, if you still have soldiers remaining you have occupied the bunker, once each player has managed to occupy a bunker you win the game.

It has been remarked that why when you are charging up a beach on D Day does your unit get stronger? For me each turn represents your unit advancing up the beach, so on the way you can increase you unit size by finding soldiers on the way who have lost their unit or you can be reinforced from soldiers moving up from behind quicker than your unit, specialists who are pinned down in the field can join your unit, items left dropped by fallen comrades can be picked up and a rousing charge command by your leader gives you the courage to continue your advance.

The game is fast and fun to play, there is of course a small element of luck involved as with most games involving dice, but it is also a resource management game, you can clearly see each sector you could go through, so it is your choice where and when you advance. The ability to re roll most of the dice up to three times gives you a greater chance to get the resources you need and with the added layer of the chance to try for RWB results this gives you a welcome boost, for most games the use of specialists is a necessity and there is usually a specialist or two that will enhance any strategy you choose. The components are of a high quality, there are four player aids included for quick reference during a game, the rule book is made to look like a war journal, the rules are clear, concise and well written, the back of the book includes special information about each mission and which cards to use, all the other information is printed on the player aids and the map itself, so once initial setup is complete there is no real need to consult the rule book. The game also scales very well from one to four players, there are some abilities that allow you to interact with other players, giving them troops or swapping dice, so unlike some co-op games this doesn’t feel as if you are each playing a separate game, I have also been enjoying playing this game solo a lot, the solo rules do not feel like an add on and where a card would be more beneficial in a multiplayer game there are slightly different rules included for its use in a solo player game.  So for me a big thumbs up for D Day Dice.

My handy dice tray, has a felt bottom to deaden the impact and noise, handy for when space is at a premium on the table.

Welcome to Bay Board Games a new board gaming blog.

Im Brian and based in Torbay in the UK, I am an avid board gamer, IOS board gamer and wannabe board game designer, so this blog will be a bit of everything.

New releases in the UK, intresting news, upcoming games, reviews and my thoughts on board games and board game design.