[Boardgame] Mage Knight Boardgame

So, last 18th April 2012, my friend, Daniel has been talking about this boardgame, it was released around end of April and he finally received it on 8th May 2012.  Right after BIM.  Talking about good timing huh?  Scheduled to play the game on a Sunday which happened yesterday.  But before that, here's a link if you're wondering about this game, here.

An introduction to Mage Knight:

The Mage Knight board game puts you in control of one of four powerful Mage Knights as you explore (and conquer) a corner of the Mage Knight universe under the control of the Atlantean Empire. Build your army, fill your deck with powerful spells and actions, explore caves and dungeons, and eventually conquer powerful cities controlled by this once-great faction! In competitive scenarios, opposing players may be powerful allies, but only one will be able to claim the land as their own. In coöperative scenarios, the players win or lose as a group. Solo rules are also included.

Combining elements of RPGs, deckbuilding, and traditional board games the Mage Knight board game captures the rich history of the Mage Knight universe in a self-contained gaming experience.

Put it in simple words.  You play as a character (in this case, there's four (4) to choose from), max. 4 player) and kill monsters, simple right?  This is a co-operative game.  Anyways, meeting up at our usual place, Just Wargame, Damai at 2pm.  First to arrive, where are the guys?  First session of Mage Knight, introductory game.  Less complicated?  I think.

We need a big table for this, cause map placement is unpredictable.  Well, not really, just that it goes left and right and there's a marker on the map to show you how you should place it, you can't go wrong.

Started with this.

The boardgame cover.

While waiting for the others to arrive.  Setting up.  As usual I'd be taking photos with my handy smartphone. I'm sorry for the photo quality though.  Donate me money so I can get a nicer one.  :)

The four (4) characters you can choose from.  Since I was there first, I get to pick my character.  Obviously, the one in black red caught my attention.  Looked so undead, that is so me.  I'm such a big fan of a Necromancer or anything lookalike.  Wait, no, I actually was looking at the skills/abilities.  OK!  I lied!  I pick that one cause of the earlier reason.

The character I chose is called Arythea.  The other characters, Norowas, Goldyx and Tovak.  I vaguely remembers the name of the other characters cause I forgot to take photo of their names but I remember one of em begins with a letter "V"?  Not too sure about that though lol.  As you can see, from left looks like a knight, obviously the second one looks like a sorcerer,  the dragon looks like a holy monk somehow and the last one which I thought is a female is an elf.  Faggot!  *rofl.

The card on the left is your character's abilities, only get to use it when you level up.  How to level up?  Whack some monsters and you get fame, with fame, you unlock some neat new skills.  Every player starts with 16 basic action cards, which is on the right in this photo.  Don't forget to shuffle.  POWER SHUFFLE!!!

Shield tokens.

Use it when you conquered a location.  Also use as a marker when you gain fame or reputation.  This is so D&D like.

On the top are monsters token, the cards on the right are Advanced Action Cards, Wound Cards and wait I forgot what's the one at the end, Artifact/Magic Cards? Then you can see the map (I'll explain about it later), the chart is the fame and reputation chart, notice you need to gain a lot more fame to level up?

Oh this photo only got my sequence indicator here.  But notice that tiny red token on the left of the chart.  That's the sequence for player's turn.  Determined when you choose the Daylight/Night cards.  Next is the cards at the bottom of the chart.  The one with the 3 "powderful" hands is the Units card.  You can hire by playing the Influence cards on your turn and some available at different location like the Village, Mage Tower, Citadel or the Keep.  You only can have certain number of units, depending on the shield token you have, everyone starts with one (1) and you can control move units when you level up.  Yes, it's good to whack monsters.

The next one is the Daylight cards.  During the Daylight round, player according to the order get to choose one of 6 Daylight cards for a bonus action.  I'm last all the time aiya.

During the Daylight phase, notice the indicator with numbers on the left, those indicates terrain movement.  It's harder to move during Night time.

The Night cards, works pretty much the same as the Daylight cards.

Mana dices, 6 different colors.  During the day, if you roll a black symbol, bad news, you lose a die.  You're reducing the number of dice from the dice pool.  We do not want that.  You may use one of the 6 dice, notice here we have 7 cause one of it is extra, I think you can use that as indicated in one of those Advanced Cards.

Mana crystals!  Some you can keep in your inventory.  Some you have to discard at the end of your turn.

Location cards description and rewards, when unconquered/conquered.  What a player can do.

The map, we start at the portal near the coast.  You can heal wound at the glades or the village with T&C of course.  The one with the blades is the monsters, you need to be adjacent with the space unless it's a mage tower or a ruins.  If I'm not mistaken.

Apart from gaining fame from killing a monsters, you can also gain +1 fame from exploring = revealing a tile.

I hope I haven't confuse you guys yet.  Cause I can't seem to do it in proper sequence lol.

I pretty much covered most of the cards and tiles.  Now lets start the game.

Woops forgot to mention, there's this shield token which is placed on your character card, it indicates your shield and cards in hand.  Everyone starts with 2 shield and 5 cards in hand.  These cards can help you with your movement, influence, attack, blocking and etc.

Exploring and whacking!  Strategy!  Think hard!  Don't screw yourself.  But me being the achievement whore that I am, self proclaimed *cough cough, SAYA GILA FAME!  Cause I want more skills and level up like madness!  But do it smart not get wounded like the blek knight.

We do not want Wound Cards.  This will be in your hand till somebody declared end of the phase, which means everyone gets 1 turn before the tile flip to a new round.  You can declare end of round when you run out of cards.  And when that happens, all the cards, in the discard pile, in hand and in your stack are shuffled and the round starts again.  The less wound you take the better.

The first unit I bought from the village, cost me 6 influence.  A level II.  Remember I said depending on the number of token you have, that's the number of unit you can control?  It's that token on top of the card.

Photo leeched from Pjal

That's my messy look on a Sunday.  It was so hot!  I do not like sweating in my clothes but the aircond at JW orz, bring blanket next time hehe.

Remember what I said about achievements?  My shield is the one in red hee~

The first Mage Tower I've conquered.  We do not shop for soap here.  We hire units!  But you lose -1 reputation :(

Everyone hang around at zero (0) and one (1).  Should you ever get bad reputation, nobody wants to do business with you.  We do not want that unless you're an idiot.  I'm just saying.

Some of the examples of the unit cards that are offered for you to "influence".

How do you attack monsters?  You will need Ranged attack so you get to attack first, or if you don't have that you could chose to block equivalent to the number or greater than the monster if not you'll deal wounds.  You could use ONLY one Mana dice from the dice pool to enhance your action ability.  Unless you have a card in play that state otherwise.  For example, if you have a card that gives you Movement +2 you could add a Mana dice according to the color to enhance it to Movement +4.  But if you do not have a move card, you could face it sideways and acts it as +1 to Movement/Attack/Block/Influence.  I had a lot of problem with movement cause most of my cards is always Attack lol.  Had to discard.

And before you end your turn, you roll the earlier dice that you took from the dice pool and return it.  Just don't roll black if it's Daylight phase.

Manage to try the Night phase.  HARDER TO MOVE!

We got screwed big time.  Before the Blek Knight left for Mother's Day Dinner.

5 Daylight dice into the darkness nouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

And we're back to Daylight again.

This game took us 4 hours lol.  And we're not done yet.  Went for dinner around 7:19pm.  I think we went back around 8pm or was it earlier to finish up.  The Citadel is finally revealed and end of game.  Not enough time to level up.  Need more Advanced card!

But overall it's a fun game.

I've conquered 3 location.  2 Mage Tower and a Monster's Den hee~

Played A Touch of Evil after that, bad idea, I got really tired and got a bit cranky.  Okay maybe a lot.  I mean I played boardgame for 8 hours before but I think I wasn't cranky then cause I had tea lol.

Shi- I can't upload the photo of the final fame/reputation photo.  It's okay, pretty much get the picture to how to play this right? :)

Till my next blog post.  Enjoy reading.  Hope I covered everything.  Oh lord, this got longer than it should.

Another boardgame that I got my eyes on.  Spotted at Times Bookstore, Suria Sabah *uhuk~

Okay, back to watching TV Series,  The Client List! :)