So, I was just thinking about Reincarnator in a game designerie way. Before I go there... Reincarnator is fun. Isn't Reincarnator fun! You get to keep switching!

Ok, that being said, Reincarnator has no advantageous power. Here's some points:

1) You start with no power.

2) Warrior is sad... you loose all experience when you loose instead of gaining extra. Citadel is sad too.

3) You get new powers every time you loose, which means people have to alter their strategy, but so do you. No advantage there.

4) You will likely get an alien with no flare available.

5) Your own flare is useful, "Oh gee thanks, I get to choose now," but... they really could have just made it optional to begin with and everything I've listed so far would still apply (except, you could choose not to abandon Warrior or Citadel). Actually, the Wild Flare is quite arguable MORE useful... so you really just gave another advantage to everyone else. Hopefully, its use will help you too, which it would in most cases.

6) If playing with hidden power text, you wouldn't even get to keep your new power hidden, because that only happens at the "start of the game." I would probably say that playing with Hidden Power Text where Reincarnator could keep their new power hidden would mark the first and only actual advantage.

One possible present advantage to Reincarnator is that it only changes when you loose... so, therefore, it might stand to reason that you would be more likely to ditch aliens that aren't working against the present aliens, and more likely to keep those that are. It's almost enough to soothe my soul, but I wonder well that actually operates in the chaos of the game.

Also, in a sense, Reincarnator needs no advantage, because it always has one or another. Big exception: at the beginning. So I guess, the real question here is: Is the one present possible advantage (and maybe ones I haven't thought of) enough to counteract the downsides so that you can say something besides, "Reincarnator is just playing gimped."

So, please comment, being sad with me that the funnerest alien is directly disadvantaged. Or, even better, highlight some advantages I had not thought of.

Reincarnator is a little like insurance. If you have the power, and you're winning, you don't need to use it's power. But if you lose, you have a chance at picking up something that can give you an advantage.

For instance... imagine getting Anti-Matter in a game against Virus and Warpish. They may have gotten the early wins, but now you have a power that can stand up to them easily.

Or let's say you pick up a power like Reserve, and you've used your high cards... now those low cards will come in very handy. By the time you lose again as Reserve, you may pick up something that will fare well against the current opponents.

It's definitely a good power, with potential to be great in the right situations... there's randomness to be sure, but that's where the fun of playing it comes in.

I just played a game with reincarnator. And he kicked our a..es.

At first he waws going a bit slow but in the end he became unstoppable.

I was playing Mite, and the others where Vacuum, Tick-Tock and Hacker. Wich later became Hacker/Oracle due to Precursor seed.

Like I said tge Reincarnator started of slow, he first became Spiff and I dont recall the order but he where also Vulch, Sorcerer, Observer, Parasite and perhaps one more (he switched alot). But in the end game he got Warpish. And i belive there where about 30-40 ships in th warp.

So when he got Warpsih he had 3 or 4 colonies. We even tried the tubes but ofcxourse he had a card zap. We were screwed big time. But it was a very good game. We had a lot of fun.

This was also the first time we tried Techs (after aprox 25 games). So exept Precursor seed, Tick-Tock had The Prometheus, Mite had Omega Missile (wich blew up Tick-Tocks planet, leaving him powerless with 5 tokens left hehe), Vacuum had the Gluon Mines and Reincarnator Infinity Drive. And all the techs were succesfully used

You lose your EXP when you lose the Warrior power? We've always played that any external effects linger, whether the power is around or not. Granted, this was from the EON game (for example, the Terrorist bombs lingered whether the power is still around or not, etc), and haven't played with Re yet in the FFG version...

-shnar