I'm not exactly sure why I am posting this, I suppose I was inspired to share my thoughts while standing in the shower and thinking about this game after I opened it up this past Christmas morning. I know FFG is rewriting the rules, and hopefully the new rules will address some of what I feel Tannhauser is missing, and maybe, just maybe, someone at FFG will read this and think "hey, that would be the perfect board game!"...wishful thinking I know.

First off though, I think I need to give a little of my gaming background and some details on what I like about some of my current favorite board games.

My gaming "career" started way back in the early 90's when an unassuming little card game came out called Magic: The Gathering CCG , I was instantly hooked. I am a collector, I love collecting and having "Collections", and I love games, so this hooked me on a couple different levels, which soon branched out into various other CCG games and eventually to various "Mini" collectible games. I also love customizing, and optimizing, getting that perfect combination of cards, the perfect deck, the perfect squad of minis, its all so very captivating and delicious to me. As much as I love collecting, optimizing, configuring and customizing, I absolutely loathe the price tag that comes with it! I discovered GW and Warhammer 40,000 4th Edition back in 2002, and a bill on the credit card for nearly 3k within a 4 week period, nearly ended my marriage! I'm not even kidding! Oh but I had the sweetest Daemon Hunters army ever, and a pretty cool Night Lords one as well. But that was it! Two armies! $3000! INSANE!

Anyway, I only discovered FFG and non Hasbro or Parker Brothers board games in general, just last year. And ya, I'm hooked. Here are some of my current favs and why:

Descent: Journeys in the Dark - I love Scenario based games in general. I especially love the modularity of the game board, the theme is great (awesome story/background), I love the variety of characters (the minis are great too), but they lack customization. Sure you have Feat and Skill cards, but that's not really customization.

Doom: The Boardgam e - I love for the same reasons as Descent (board modularity and scenario based), except that Doom doesn't have the variety of characters that Descent does. And Doom is set in Sci-Fi , which I absolutely LOVE Sci-Fi themes, much more so than Fantasy! And of course, the story/background for Doom is awesome.

Tide of Iron - WWII theme (I totally dig anything WWII related, movies, shows, books, video games, board games, I eat them all up!), AWESOME modular board, beautiful miniatures, TONS of scenarios. Customization of the units is there, but very limited.

Arkham Horror - Incredible theme, fantastic story/background, huge variety of characters and miniatures, co-op play, and the capability for scenarios is there although not built into the game. No modular board (although not really necessary for this type of game) and no customization of characters.

StarCraft: The Board Game - Awesome theme (Sci-Fi), great modular board, awesome units and miniatures, while there is the ability to somewhat customize your army as a whole, which allows a certain depth of strategy, theres not much customization of individual units. Very cool story/background.

So, all that being said, this was just to point out what I like about some of my favorite games, and what is missing to make them close to my "Perfect Game", which believe it or not, Tannhauser does come pretty close to. When I first saw Tannhauser last year (when I was making my initial discovery of FFG games) I was immediately turned on by it:

Miniatures! - They are prepainted and somewhat collectible!! And when I say collectible, I mean that I can buy additional miniatures individually to expand, customize and optimize my force, sure there are only 4 additional miniatures available right now, but whose to say they cant/wont make more? I am a huge sucker for good looking minis. I have a large filing cabinet sized drawer full to the rim with Star Wars minis, but I don't really like the game all that much, but the minis are awesome!! Same goes with Heroclix, D&D minis, WoW minis, Mage Knight etc., I have them all, and don't play the games!

Background/Story - Incredible!! WWI never ending, occult powers, somewhat Sci-Fi'ish (very Hellboy like), Demons, cool technology set in the WWI/WWII time period!? Perfect!

Character Customization - Best I've seen in a board game so far. Sure there may only be 2 or 3 "Packages" to choose from, but the ability to customize is there, and they are releasing more "tokens" in expansions and what not.

Production Quality - Psh! Its FFG! Freakin fantastic!

But wait! It's just a skirmish game!? FULL STOP! No thanks! And that's what stopped me from buying the game a year ago.

I have had enough of miniature skirmish games, that's why I have moved on into real Board Games. I want depth and meaning to my games, I want to be immersed in the story and the theme of a game! But I love miniatures, I love collecting, customizing and configuring like you get with miniature and CCG games, but I can't stand the repetitive and shallow nature of skirmish games! Why can't I have both!? Why can't I have a deep, involving, strategic, dripping with theme and story board game, that lets me purchase additional miniatures to enhance and augment my force?!

Tannhauser comes very close to this but falls short on only a couple areas, unfortunately, they are key parts of the game:

Game Play - I am going to assume that FFG is fixing this problem with the new rules. They have stated that they are fixing the so called "Story Mode" and it sounds like they may be going towards Scenario based play as well, which would be awesome. Maybe the new rules will change the game from being just another "Skirmish" game, maybe not, I really hope that it does though.

The Board - For me, this is the biggest problem with the game, and unfortunately, not one that is likely to change. The problem with the board is that it is very specific, its the inside of a building on one side, and an outside area on another. To me, re-playability seems very limited with a game of this nature and a board like this. How many times am I going to want to play a game in the same house, with the same rooms, and the same objective or terrain areas and the same paths? This game screams the need for modularity in the board, and it's not something that would be too hard to do, even with the Pathfinding system. Which brings me to:

The Pathfinding System - I know this is a hot spot with this game, and the fans, so I'm not going to linger on it, I'll just give my opinion and leave it at that. It's unnecessary, it wastes a TON of board space, and it forces certain strategies while limiting others. I realize that it is a very unique and quite ingenious movement system, and that it is an integral part of Tannhauser (as Tannhauser is now), but that doesn't mean that I like it, and I personally feel the game would be better without it.

So this is why Tannhauser is "Almost" my perfect game. Like I said earlier, I got it for Christmas this year and I am very glad I did, even though I decided against purchasing it a year ago, and passed it up every time I went back to Game Depot to buy another game. Even though it's not likely that changes will be made to make it my "Perfect" game, it should at least become one of my top games. Even as it is now (without FFG's rules changes) I do really enjoy it. Heres to hoping that some day FFG, or another game company, will some day produce my "Perfect" Game...Cheers!

gdotbat said:

Like you, I also got this game for Christmas and - out of 11 other games (yes, it was a very good year), this one is my favorite. That being said, I share your feelings regarding the areas of the game where there is room for improvement. I'm hopeful that when FFG re-releases the game they will tweak the gameplay rules towards scenario play. Being a fan of Battlelore and Descent, I actually thought the scenario book was mistakenly left out of my box. I also wouldn't mind seeing a reworked board, though not for the same reasons you cited. I actually like the Pathfinding system in concept. My problem with the execution is the difficulty in distinguishing some colors (was that blue or purple or...) and in determining adjacent spaces for area effects like grenades. I found a good player-aid over at BGG that resolves the color and adjacent issues but I would still consider purchasing a new game board with brighter colors and clearer adjancency.

Edit: Hooray for exploding posts!

gdotbat said:

First off, I'd like to thank you for making this post. Not so much for the specific contents but just for having the nerve to share your personal thoughts on Tannhauser and board games in general. I think these sorts of posts are the most interesting, but also usually the most rare. Also, wishful thinking can accomplish some amazing things! =)

gdotbat said:

I feel where you're coming from with the skirmishes. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing Tannhauser move to a (slightly) bigger stage. The story mode as is seems like a fairly good scenario system to me, though. Maybe I have a different set of standards for what constitutes a "scenario" though. I've enjoyed the different ideas I've seen for Tann's scenarios though, especially all the old ones TOY came up with before they went down. Maybe you should try to find those (on an English translation of them) if the scenarios in the box aren't doing it for you. I'll see if I still have my old translations when I get home tonight and let you know.

gdotbat said:

Again I find myself agreeing with you. I would love to see some more generic modular boards, say each one quarter the size of this board, but designed so they can be assembled in a variety of ways. That might involve some imagination on FFG's part, especially for indoor areas, but I think it could be done. Something like the board parts in Last Night on Earth would work well here.

Whatever changes they have planned, though, they have promised all the original components will be compatible, so although we can always hope for new boards and new components later on, the existing boards will still be functionable as they exist now.

gdotbat said:

The Pathfinding System - I know this is a hot spot with this game, and the fans, so I'm not going to linger on it, I'll just give my opinion and leave it at that. It's unnecessary, it wastes a TON of board space, and it forces certain strategies while limiting others. I realize that it is a very unique and quite ingenious movement system, and that it is an integral part of Tannhauser (as Tannhauser is now), but that doesn't mean that I like it, and I personally feel the game would be better without it.

On this point I respectfully disagree. I think the Pathfinder system is one of the best parts about Tann. Maybe it could be made more compact (move the circles closer together) but I don't find it that restrictive in terms of tactical options. I find the maps restrictive as they are close quarters. Combat tends to be fast and brutal and there are few avenues of escape or room for maneuvering, but that's a function of the chosen terrain more than the Pathfinder system itself. A larger (possibly modular) board with more open spaces, as we have already discussed above, would make the game "looser." I think without the Pathfinder system Tannhauser would lose a lot of the unique gameplay flavour that makes it stand out from other board games. Also, the way in which it handily resolves basically all line of sight questions is a huge godsend, IMHO.

That said, making the pathfinder system work on a modular board could be tricky. Matching up colour lines would be a practical impossibility. Unless you used a variant of the system where colours only denoted different height levels, but then you'd need a new way to determine line of sight on the same level.

Hears one for you on the Collectable Front "Operation Novgorod" adds an other Army to your collection of Minies, but it also adds a new Map to your collection (and cleans up an other), also just about ready for release is"Daedalus" with two new maps for your collection, and following that three new Character Minies and a "NPC" Minie, also their is the Troops Packs that are in (the finale stages of) development.

No word yet if we will be seeing the Winter Packs (with or without Minies) any time in the near futuere or when the Translated "Token of the Month" that haven't found their way in to other releases yet.

Once FFG has a chance to kick Tannhauser out of low gear things will get even more amazing.