Doom the boardgame was the game that got me into tactical killing games. But it's not just that, it's a lot more: the original FFG edition of Doom granted me some of the best hours invested in games. It's one of the few games that stood the passing of time, being played over and over during the last 7 years (or so). I thought I'd have never seen the day when a new edition of this timeless classic could see the light.
So hyped! Can't wait to start playing the new scenarios!
Doom the boardgame was the game that got me into tactical killing games. But it's not just that, it's a lot more: the original FFG edition of Doom granted me some of the best hours invested in games. It's one of the few games that stood the passing of time, being played over and over during the last 7 years (or so). I thought I'd have never seen the day when a new edition of this timeless classic could see the light.
So hyped! Can't wait to start playing the new scenarios!
Edited
by alexbobspoons
Thanks Alex!
Julia, is there any FFG game forum that you do not dwell within?
A space thematic game with no Jedis in it ?
What's the Fxxx FFG ?
Finally something besides Star Wars...
Now all we need is a game of thrones version...
Julia, is there any FFG game forum that you do not dwell within?
LOL, that's a good question
Julia, is there any FFG game forum that you do not dwell within?
LOL, that's a good question
Another: Heck, YES!!!
Doom universe is not quite my thing, but if the mechanics are good I'll be interested. But it looks like the size (or lack thereof), streamlinedness, and simplicity of Space Hulk combined with the price of Descent. So yeah, not super pumped, but still keeping an eye out.
Does DOOM:The Board Game have a campaign element Like Imperial Assault?.
And what is it about the game that is different every time you play it?
If you had to choose between this DOOM The Board Game and Imperial Assault, in terms of game mechanics, simplicity in teaching others (wife and casual gamers), or complexity of depth of strategy, and replayability, which one would you pick?
Things to consider:
- My usual tabletop gaming group is made up 4 people including my wife and myself.
- After playing any board game 4 times, it is getting boring for us, i.e. XCOM Board Game, Game of Thrones (2nd Ed),etc. Blood Bowl Team Manager is the only exception.
- I'm looking for a 4+player board game that can be played more than 4 sessions ( 2.5 hours each) and still be enjoyable and challenging. That's why I was thinking investing in Imperial Assault. The campaign mode is definitely going to take more than 4 sessions, and when that's over, I can always play scenarios with my wife.
Does DOOM:The Board Game have a campaign element Like Imperial Assault?.
And what is it about the game that is different every time you play it?
If you had to choose between this DOOM The Board Game and Imperial Assault, in terms of game mechanics, simplicity in teaching others (wife and casual gamers), or complexity of depth of strategy, and replayability, which one would you pick?
DOOM (the first edition) was the original chassis for the game engine that has been popularized and refined by Descent and IA, so I would not be in the bit least surprised if this new edition is the next iteration on that game engine. In other words, it will probably be very similar to IA, although I would expect at least a few tweaks and optimizations.
There was a campaign mode in the original, although it basically boiled down to rolling before each new mission to see if your weapons broke (thus allowing you to "progress" by regaining them.) I fully expect the new edition will have benefitted from the campaign modes of D1, D2 and IA to provide something a little more substantial, though.
I do hope they keep the limited ammo of the original DOOM. Not necessarily the exact same mechanic, but limited ammo in some form. I'm not denying that vast improvements have been made to the game engine since the first edition, but there was something terrifyingly tense about the way DOOM got HARDER with more heroes, because the number of monsters went up, but the amount of ammo to go around did not. I fear that if this is just IA/Descent with a new skin and a few tweaks, it won't do justice to it's predecessor.
DOOM is a horror game at its roots, so it needs that tension - that difficulty - to properly recreate the atmosphere of the source material. As amazing and fun as Descent and IA are, the IPs and the new mechanics are decidedly aimed at creating a "fantasy/space opera" theme rather than a "survival horror" one. Let's hope FFG keeps that in mind. I mean, they've never disappointed in the past on thematic points, so I'm confident they can pull this off, but they've also merged with Asmodee in between then and now, and those sorts of corporate changes have a funny way of impacting the products put out sometimes.
I'm super stoked to hear about this new edition, and I will be following the updates with baited breath. But I'm taking it with a grain of salt until I see otherwise.
Edited by Steve-OA couple of additions to Steve's gret post:
- the original Doom: the boardgame had a series of scenarios that even if played on stand-alone mode (i.e. not implementing the campaign rules) actually covered an entire story arch (possibly one of the most dramatic ever appeared in a boardgame, considering a few elements I won't spoil) so that you actually had a feeling of a "story progression" regardless the campaign structure (something that was really non-existant in Descent 1st edition)
- and yes, Doom was all about putting pressure on the players. Marines needed to know when to run and when to stand, how to use properly the strongest weapons and it was all about risk management. Many thought the boardgame was a "kill'em all game", which was not: the Invaders had infinite hordes, so, stopping to remove a few zombies was actually favouring the Invader
I do hope they keep all these aspects intact in the new game; a real Doom game should be all about tension, desperation, and the oppressive presence of death
I do hope they keep the limited ammo of the original DOOM. Not necessarily the exact same mechanic, but limited ammo in some form. I'm not denying that vast improvements have been made to the game engine since the first edition, but there was something terrifyingly tense about the way DOOM got HARDER with more heroes, because the number of monsters went up, but the amount of ammo to go around did not. I fear that if this is just IA/Descent with a new skin and a few tweaks, it won't do justice to it's predecessor.
Hmmm. I never actually thought of Doom has a horror-themed game, more like an action-game to be honest, but that is an interesting way to think of it and explaisn why my group and I have lost as the marines so many times. Though, I highly doubt the new version will have ammunition constraints like the original did. That pessimism stems from this image right here: (from the preview page) https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/77/b9/77b9dc46-8f42-486f-8e4d-fcf6e56cc0fd/zx01_glory-kill_cardfan.png
The card on the right suggests that ammunition, if there is any, it purely a card-based resource for the players, earned through Glory Kills. Of course, we still don't know for sure if any of the tokens shown in the preview image are ammunition or not (from what I've assumed, they're mostly Spawn Portals, with some Teleporters, and perhaps a few Armor (the green ones), Medkit (the red, or the whitish-blue ones), and Weapon pickups (maybe that red-white starred one in the upper left? I dunno.)
Also, don't know if anyone has seen this, so I'll share it. Someone posted this image of the back of the box on Twitter: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cojfid9WgAASGZh.jpg
A few things of note:
1. There are a total of 8 Demons in the game (only 1 hasn't been shown; I figure it's either the Revenant or Hell Knight)
2. Stun is a condition in this game. The first time DTBG has featured conditions.
3. 187 assorted tokens. It's possible there could be ammo tokens in that lot, though this game looks to be a bit more action-oriented than the original.
4. 24 Map tiles. This... Seems like a bit of a disappointment, especially when the original had over 40~60 tiles. Worse still, we already know what 16 of them looks like, as they're all previewed in the teaser reveal (unless caps don't count, which may be the case, but is unlikely). At least they'll likely be double-sided and have Hell-themed tiles on the opposite sides. Here's hoping for a room larger than 6x6 for that overwhelming Cyberdemon figure to move around in.
5. There will be 37 Plastic figures. There's obviously 4 Marines, and I assume the following amounts of the other figures: 1 Cyberdemon, 2 Barons of Hell, 2 Mancubi, 4 Cacodemons, 4 Pinkies, 4 Revenants/Hell Knights/????, 8 Imps, and 8 Possessed Soldiers.
6. And of course there's lots of other cool stuff to speculate upon. I'm really excited about this game as DTBG was my introduction into the Boardgaming hobby. Seeing this new addition has also re-kindled my interest in playing the original.
DOOM wasn't a horror game at it's core. The only iteration of DOOM to shoot for the 100% horror angle was DOOM 3, which the first board game was based off of.
This new DOOM is not based off of DOOM 3, but the newest one, which is absolutely 100% NOT horror. It's an adrenaline rush of action mayhem. The information we've already gotten about the game even explicitly states "death should not be a concern"
This game isn't going to be about skulking around the corner trying to conserve ammo and fretting over the next big demon to walk around the corner. It's going to be the opposite of that. It wants all of the players to fall into a sort of mini-berserk rage because it's trying to imitate DOOM 2016.
If you haven't played the newest DOOM, let me explain: Your primary method of survival is killing. Taking cover is the worst thing you can do since you need to be moving fast at all times to stand a chance. You do NOT fear the Demons, it's quite the opposite. They fear YOU. You are their reckoning and they know it and they are trying to do everything within their power to put a halt to your wake of destruction, but it's all fruitless because you are of an immeasurable might and rage beyond comparison to anything else. In the new DOOM, you are the Doom Slayer, an infamous legend in Hell, trapped and encased in a stone prison and induced into potentially centuries of sleep because you could not simply be killed, but you were freed after the UAC made expeditions from Mars into Hell and retrieved you and your armor (both in sarcophagi) as well as many other artifacts, and then through stupidity released Hell's armies on Mars. This sudden invasion is what triggered your awakening, and it is clear from the get-go that you are not some mere man stuck in a bad situation. You are THE answer to the bad situation. Your only purpose in life is to kill demons.
Now, it looks like in this board game, we aren't playing as the Doom Slayer, but the generic Marines of the same universe, but being that it's based off of the new game, you shouldn't expect that being a Marine rather than the Doom Slayer is going to change the spirit of the game at all, because the new DOOM was 100% action.
I was pretty much just thinking that.
In Doom 3, the Demons were scary.
In Doom 4, YOU'RE Scary!
If you haven't played the newest DOOM, let me explain: Your primary method of survival is killing. Taking cover is the worst thing you can do since you need to be moving fast at all times to stand a chance. You do NOT fear the Demons, it's quite the opposite. They fear YOU. You are their reckoning and they know it and they are trying to do everything within their power to put a halt to your wake of destruction, but it's all fruitless because you are of an immeasurable might and rage beyond comparison to anything else. In the new DOOM, you are the Doom Slayer, an infamous legend in Hell, trapped and encased in a stone prison and induced into potentially centuries of sleep because you could not simply be killed, but you were freed after the UAC made expeditions from Mars into Hell and retrieved you and your armor (both in sarcophagi) as well as many other artifacts, and then through stupidity released Hell's armies on Mars. This sudden invasion is what triggered your awakening, and it is clear from the get-go that you are not some mere man stuck in a bad situation. You are THE answer to the bad situation. Your only purpose in life is to kill demons.
Now, it looks like in this board game, we aren't playing as the Doom Slayer, but the generic Marines of the same universe, but being that it's based off of the new game, you shouldn't expect that being a Marine rather than the Doom Slayer is going to change the spirit of the game at all, because the new DOOM was 100% action.
Well, that's unfortunate.
You're probably right. The new DOOM BG is clearly based on the new DOOM VG, so I would fully expect it to embody the themes and atmosphere of that game.
Based on your description, though, I'm not entirely convinced that the new DOOM VG is something that would interest me. "Doom Slayer?" Really? I mean, DOOM was never a literary masterpiece or anything, but if that's the direction this is going, I'll probably pass. The original DooM and DooM II were definitely action-oriented, I don't deny it, but they were also scary as frig for 13-year-old me. Horror is and always should be part of the equation.
If this is just going to be another hack n slash action-fest that begets newbie questions like "why can't the marines always win?", I have enough of that with Descent. It's fine in a high fantasy setting, but it's not what DOOM means to me.
I may cherry pick some ideas for house rules to re-implement in the first edition Doom BG, but I don't think I'll buy this one unless I can easily homebrew it to be the DOOM I want it to be.
Well, that's unfortunate.
You're probably right. The new DOOM BG is clearly based on the new DOOM VG, so I would fully expect it to embody the themes and atmosphere of that game.
Based on your description, though, I'm not entirely convinced that the new DOOM VG is something that would interest me. "Doom Slayer?" Really? I mean, DOOM was never a literary masterpiece or anything, but if that's the direction this is going, I'll probably pass. The original DooM and DooM II were definitely action-oriented, I don't deny it, but they were also scary as frig for 13-year-old me. Horror is and always should be part of the equation.
If this is just going to be another hack n slash action-fest that begets newbie questions like "why can't the marines always win?", I have enough of that with Descent. It's fine in a high fantasy setting, but it's not what DOOM means to me.
I may cherry pick some ideas for house rules to re-implement in the first edition Doom BG, but I don't think I'll buy this one unless I can easily homebrew it to be the DOOM I want it to be.
Well, the Doom Slayer nickname was just one of several different ones that the demons give the main protagonist in the new game. The only other one I can think of right off hand was Hell Walker, but there were two or three more.
You just have to look at it from the perspective of being a predator rather than being the prey. The new video game does a great job empowering the player (that's not saying it's an easy game, because on higher difficulties it is by no means easy at all)
What I mean is, it makes you feel like a proper badass. If you haven't tried it yet, I'm begging you to give it a whirl. I can't really put into words just how great the game is at doing what it sets out to do. Doom 3 did horror pretty well. Doom 2016 does badass spectacularly.