Hi all – Scott again.
Last time I promised a
game play write up of Krosmaster Arena. Last week I got together with
a friend, and got to grips with the game.
The rules
Each player starts the
game with 4 characters represented by a figure and rule card as well
as 6 "galleons of glory" (medals).
You win the game when
your opponent has no medals left.
- A player loses medals to their opponent when one of the characters gets knocked out, 3 medals are handed over per knock-out.
- A player can buy (read steal) a medal from their opponent if they hand in 10 gold coins which can be collected throughout the game.
- Finally every turn two dice are rolled and if they come up doubles then each player loses a medal.
So you have two ways to
win as well as a sort of random timer inbuilt into the game so the it
doesn't go on too long.
Each character has
scores in:
Speed
– used to work out which player goes first and which character goes
first in your squad
Movement – the
number of squares this character can move
Actions –
points to spend doing things during a characters turn, including
attacking, casting spells and picking up coins and power-ups
Health – how
much damage this character can take before being taken out of the
game
The board is set-up
itself with terrain pieces and coins scattered over it. Some of the
terrain blocks movement, some blocks line of sight and some can even
be climbed onto to give a height advantage.
The coins are spread
out over the board and can be used to buy medals or can be used in
different quantities (3, 6 and 12) to buy increasingly effective
power-ups. The power ups include potions and one-time boosts to
weapons and magic costumes. The player has to balance spending the
coins on pretty trinkets and spending them on medals to get closer to
victory.
How it plays
The game turn is quite
quick, each character is simple to get to grips with and has only a
few choices each turn. The challenging aspect comes later in the game
– all of the characters are now in the thick of it and synergies
between the characters can be used to get the maximum edge.
For example one
character can throw down bombs. He can throw down two bombs, throw
down a bomb and then shoot it, making it explode or just can wait the
bombs will detonate automatically once his turn come around again.
Alternatively the player could get one of his other characters to
shoot the bombs instead.
Each of the characters
played quite differently, and with 4 per squad and 8 to choose from
in the box you can create enough different teams to keep things
interesting without investing more into the game. Characters include an
archer, a bomb thrower, a healer, someone who can summon other
creatures plus some others.
The game gets quite
frantic towards the end, typically with different power-ups in play
in a large melee in the middle of the board, the games we played were
all very close, and took between 30 mins and an hour depending on how
we played and how up-to speed with the rules we were.
Try before you buy
If
you are not sure if this is the game for you and want to see how it
plays the game is also available to play online. You can play with
some basic characters for free and all real-world figures come with a
code to unlock that character online.
You
can download and play using the following link:
http://www.krosmaster.com/en.
I have played the game, my PC is pretty old but the game worked
perfectly fine.
If
you think this is something you might like then I advise you check it
out online first.
I
really enjoyed playing this game it is certainly something we are
going to have a copy of in the cafe and we intend to bring it along
to pop-ups we are planning in the future.
I
hope you found this review useful and I will do more in the future.
If
there is a game you would like me to review please let me know and I
will see what I can do.
Comments
and questions are always welcome.
Scott
from All Aboard.
