Roux Dat: LUTHIER, TAG TEAM, LEGIONS OF KADMON
Mitchell from Southern Board Game Fest has been knee deep in work and festival planning, so we have not had a lot of time to game together. But recently, we both had a weekend morning free to get in some two player games.
I was surprised to learn that he had a copy of Luthier, the new musical instrument creating game from Paverson Games. Not surprised because of the theme — Mitchell loves music so it’s a natural fit — it’s just that our friend Logan has the super deluxe edition of the game, too. I didn’t realize I had access to two different copies!
Luthier was the next game to come out after Paverson released the very popular Distilled game. Other than the publisher’s name on the box, I did not see a lot of cross over, except maybe the fact that there is a tiny bit of push your luck in the game when you roll for your performance bonus.
In Luthier, players are master craftsman, readying new instruments for patrons of the arts. It is the antithesis of a dry, soulless euro, as it is dripping both with theme and thematic connections between the mechanisms you employ during the game to stockpile resources for your instrument crafting as well as putting on performances in the orchestra with your created instruments. Clearly, finding games that are solid euros but have thematic roots is important to Dave Beck at Paverson Games.
But very solid mechanics aside, the art and production of this game really sets the tone. Vincent Dutrait, that master of eye and color, has done it again. Every square inch of this game pops with his gorgeous art, and really helped me to look at the game in terms of the steps needed to gather, make, refine, and utilize an instrument.
It’s only the first play, but this is a strong contender for one of my favorite games of the year for 2025.
Next up, we played Tag Team, a new auto-battler that the folks at Scorpion Masque sent to us for review. I was already excited about this one, as I heard it compared to a better version of Challengers! at two players.
The rumors were true. This doesn’t feel like Challengers! at all, except of course for the card flipping. Where Challengers! is fun and frivolous, with lots of short term combos, Tag Team is both superficial and deep at the same time.
In the game, players choose two heroes with special powers (sort of Dice Thrones style) and start with a “deck” of just two cards, one for each hero. Secretly they choose the order in which the two cards come out, and then the fight begins. First to knock out one of the other player’s heroes wins. Simple? Hardly.
The mind games begin immediately. My first card blocked your attack? But in the next round, I get three new cards from my deck. Will I add another attack? Or try to outthink you by shoving my attack one card down from your block? Will I try to fire off the special attack of my player, or focus on counteracting what I know you will do.
There’s so much Vizzini inner monologue going on, especially as the decks get larger each round, that makes this game a lot deeper than Challengers!
That’s not a bad thing in my opinion. There’s room for both games in my collection, because they activate differently. Plus, it’s so easy to re-rack and play again using different heroes. This game is definitely a keeper.
And finally, we played a prototype, pre-Kickstarter launch copy of Legions of Kadmon, coming next year to crowdfunding from Stormbraver Games and designer / publisher, Joshua Dharmawan.
At its heart, Legions of Kadmon is all about hand management. Each round, you have a small hand of cards, each with dual purposes — immediate spells or playing as vassals that work for you to help destroy the baddies attacking your beloved land of Morbid. Secondarily, it’s a boss battler, because the points in this competitive game come from not only clearing out the attackers in your realm, but throwing off extra attack against the Sovereigns who are trying to destroy the world.
But it all leads up to the inevitable showdown with Kadmon, the baddest of them all. Kadmon has a special mechanic that allows the use of powers of the other bosses that players have sent to the “tomb”, so dealing with Kadmon will be different each game depending on what villains came out that game.
I really enjoyed the round-to-round puzzle of using my very limited actions (three at first, but we gained access to more actions as the game progressed) to plan out the sequence of bringing in new vassals to assist me, casting spells to manipulate the battlefield that round or attack the enemies, or “invoking” (I.e. activating) special powers available to us during the round. The most attractive thing to me was the way that you have to build your hand mostly by attacking the enemies, which brings the cards you defeat into your hand for your own use. The card play is innovative and makes for some interesting tactical choices that I really enjoyed.
The theme was the least attactive thing to me. I love fantasy, but not the level of gore most people accept or even enjoy. This is a dark world, filled with pretty graphic representations of the evil that abounds. Clearly, Joshua has a talent for world building, and Morbidia is huge, filled to the brim with storylines that he has created. It’s impressive, but horror-fantasy is just not a genre that attracts me. I’d love to see this system utilized in a more theme friendly way.
This is not a criticism in any way — there will be lots of players who will want to explore this setting. Keep an eye out for it on crowdfunding next year, and we’ll be sure to post something on the blog when it does. And let me know if I am wrong — you can check out the artwork for yourself at the home page at https://legionsofkadmon.com or on the game page here on BGG. Our thanks to Joshua for meeting up at BGG CON and then sending us the prototype to play. It was definitely very cool meeting up with a fellow gamer who came all the way from Singapore to Dallas to promote his game and hang out with fellow enthusiasts.
*************
As an aside, I see that there is some new content for Tenpenny Parks, a game we really enjoyed, so it might be time to break that out soon. Does it still hold up? I’ll report back if it does.
Until next time, laissez les bon temps rouler!
— BJ from Board Game Gumbo