Before I drop the money on it, what is the beef people have with this game. I have played it at GenCon 2 years ago and have a couple of friends who want to try it say once a month in some get togethers in our local gaming club and I really cannot understand what people have an issue with with this game.

What am I missing that makes it so bad?

Honestly, I haven't seen that much bad feedback about it.

no, never seen any bad press about it, its a great game, i love it and the original rules are fine, no probs for me there, the new rules just streamline some of the harder to get round issues. but you dont need them, so go buy it

I shall

It is mostly the Board Game Geek people that really rip this game apart from what I read

ha ha lol, yea i dont go on there any more, think they are like trainspotters or something,lol

Their are many factors that put out a lot of folks, for starters the game doesn't conform to one of the "Classic" Bord-game formats, nor dose it conform to any excepted Miniatures game formats, this puts some folks out, for others it is the sometimes questionable translation in the original Rules book, it confused some and allowed others to get interpretive with their rules lawyering that erks many folks.

personally I love the game, once you establish the rules and slap down the Rules Lawyers it's fun for all, the new Rules edition fixes the problems that arose from the translation problems.

Hate?

I own 4 copies of the base game 2 of Novgorod and all the character expansions.

Count me in on the 'love it' department

(I shave my horns to fit in)

Personaly I love it...

I'm just waiting for the new rule book so i can finish the Mythopoiea.

A link for that tread www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp Make sure you go to page 2 for the last version.

Well, I'll be lurking in the shadows.

So I just got the game yesterday and finished reading the rules last night. While I can kind of see the criticisms with some of the ambiguity I think that those are outweighed by the game's positive attributes. I might be wrong here, but I can see multiple areas where gamers can use their imagination and storytelling to come up with some great missions. Honestly, I can't wait to play this thing to death.

I've found some people think it's unbalanced when they first start playing. Either the Reich is too powerful (mostly Herman and Heisinger) or the Union's guns make it unfair. Its mostly the Reich they complain about though and they only complain about the Union when I win with them because they want to play the cool demons all the time and I think they're easier for new players to use, which had given me lots of experience w/ the Union.

Well, I'm the designated grouch here anyway, so I think the main reasons it gets complained at include:

• A poorly written rulebook.
• Games modes that are so thematically weak they take no advantage of the cool setting.
• 100+ tokens that have absolutely no game information on them.
• Having to look up said tokens on poorly designed reference sheets during play.
• Several near useless mechanics (bull rush and counterattack, I'm looking at you).
• Bad balance among character option packs.
• Bad balance between extra characters.
• A standard number of characters that doesn't work well with more than 2 players.
• Drastically overcomplicated dice mechanics.
• Bad map design that makes it unclear which circles are adjacent to each other.
• Bad pathfinding color choices that put very similar colors close together.

I think that probably hits the main complaints.

well you have made it as the grouch lol . i suppose a lot is in how you look at it, as i said me and a lot others havent had the probs and so in a way the new rule book is not needed, but will be got of course, its up to you if you want to play the old or new rules.

a lot of people at first find the reich hard, but in fact are weeker, remember, smoke is your friend, (shouldnt say that as im a reich and matriachy player,lol)

StormKnight said:

As I some other people said, most of the gripes with game are a matter of taste. But I can also undestand that English players have had access to a lot less resources than us French players. After all ToY offered on their site equipement reference sheets, up to date FAQ, tactical maps and interesting scenarios free of charge...

Fom what you said in your messages I bet than nothing short of a compete game components overhaul will make you happy, so the new rulebook will certainly be not enough.

as i said me and a lot others havent had the probs

You'll notice that enough people have had the problems that most of these issues have been addressed, or at least attempted to be addressed in some way by the new rules.

* A poorly written rulebook is being rewritten for clarity .
* Games modes that are so thematically weak they take no advantage of the cool setting are apparently being redone .
* Several near useless mechanics (bull rush and counterattack, I'm looking at you) are being improved .
* Drastically overcomplicated dice mechanics have been simplified and improved .
* Bad map design that makes it unclear which circles are adjacent to each other have been at least clarified with reference maps .
* Bad pathfinding color choices that put very similar colors close together are, again, at least clarified with the reference maps. .

That leaves the balance problems and the reference difficulty. It seems likely that they will at least try to improve this since they are redoing all the gear, but we won't know until its done.

Tannhauser can be a very good game. Its got some cool ideas, and it often makes for exciting and dynamic firefights. But its got a lot of "bugs" and clunky points that drag it down. Its not really surprising that a lot of people aren't willing to but up with the flaws.

StormKnight said:

I guess it depends on personal tastes. There also alot of people who just played the game for years and weren't asking for a new edition !

As I said before the French editor had quite a number of resources ready for doanload including great scenarios and the mechanic questions were answered by the designers of the game themselves and put in a regularly updated FAQ. I still blame FFG for botching the translation and not releasing decent support for this game.

Plageman said:

well you have your view, but i and a lot of others enjoy the game, if you dont then thats fine,

sorry didnt mean against you pageman, dam non edit!!! i meant storm, question, do you play the game now, or how long have you played it for, did you like it at all? do you think the new rules will "remake" the game for you?

StormKnight said:

StormKnight said:

For my purposes:

• Rulebook was fine; however, included scenarios would have been fine
• Story mode with scenarios are so thematically strong it makes for a very immersive experience; other modes are fun for variety and when you just want a quick game
• Tons of tokens, with enough game information on them (what factions can use them; whether they are dropped when the character is killed; which item they are) that allow them to be usable
• Reference sheets that work fine; plenty of player-supplied reference sheets if the originals aren't to your taste
• Don't think we've ever used Bull Rush, but Counterattack has changed the course of more than one firefight in more than one game
• Most character packs work fine; we tweaked them on a few plays, but have since gone back to standard stuff
• We've had no problem swapping in extra characters, and it's even worked well with an additional character; we've also played scenarios with unbalanced sides, and had the underpowered, outnumbered side win through strategic play; in my opinion, when it comes to games about war or fighting, "unbalanced" and "broken" refer to the capabilities of the player, not the game ~ warfare tends to be asymmetric, so the games should be as well
• The game is designed for 2 players; however, there are ways to bring in more players if you want
• Dice cups and a dice tray (or box top) can easily handle rolling the number of dice needed to play; other than that you're just comparing the numbers being rolled to a target number, so that doesn't seem complex to me at all
• The map is a bit dark, but the circles that are adjacent are pretty easy to tell on account of being the same color (at least in part) and right next to each other
• The colors could have been brighter, and more distinct, but if they were much brighter it would detract more from the game play (it's not a DayGlo type of mood you want to encourage here!) ~ I am colorblind, and I've found that I only have trouble differentiating things once or twice a game, and even then only before we started to play with a brighter light; the light resolved any which-path-is-which issue and the former what-is-adjacent issue as well

Of course, as this points out, these are (mostly) matters of taste. The only one which absolutely isn't a taste issue (it really is a 2 player game) can still be easily changed by dividing forces amongst additional players, so that, without changing the size of the factions, up to 10 could play.

Wow, that gives a new meaning to the phrase "double quote", no?

I agree with ellyssian, there are flaws but the overall game experience makes up for it in the end. I've honestly yet to play a game where there wasn't some confusion on the rules at some point or another.

The OP asked what people don't like about Tannhauser, that's a list of the main things they dislike. Your mileage may vary.

I don't think any of these on their own are game breakers. The balance problems, for example, aren't going to win or lose the game. You can probably pick all the worst options and still have a fighting chance against an opponent who picked the best options. There are just a few packs/options you'll probably never pick if you're trying to win.

When taken all combined, however, it is a lot of "bumpiness" to the game, and its especially infuriating when most of it could have been easily avoided with a little better component design or just a few rules tweaks.

other than that you're just comparing the numbers being rolled to a target number, so that doesn't seem complex to me at all

I have to check my stat to find the dice pool, ask for your stat to determine the target number, while you check your stat and ask for my target number. Then we compare our successes. Its several steps, and it means the attacker's combat value counts for a lot more since its factored into both their pool and their opponent's target number.

This system isn't unique to Tannhauser, but every other game I know of that used it chose to "lock" either the dice pool or the TN when they went to a second edition - exactly like Tannhauser is doing with their second edition.

I've honestly yet to play a game where there wasn't some confusion on the rules at some point or another.

Perhaps coming in with experiences like that makes Tannhauser a lot more appealing by comparison. For the most part (except possibly some oddities with melee combat), Tannhauser's rules make sense; they are just poorly formatted, and confusingly written, sometimes with sentences placed in odd orders.

The vast majority of games I've played don't cause rules confusion.

For my part, I found that the game rules were fairly clear but that the execution of the game was poor.

• Some equipment combos were way too powerful (i.e. The Reich had huge advantages)
• The skill system was titanically boring

Ultimately, I found that Tannhauser sounded great but was very boring to play. It never became my go-to game, as I ended up finding way more interesting 2 player games, so why play this one?

The new rules show some promise.

For me the main gripe with the game is the lackluster skill system and the poor mission objective implementation.

Although the PVP aspect is very fun, and the entire setting is quite riveting - the game still lacks that sense of accomplishment you should get for actually doing the storyline missions (which i find to be anything but story driven).

I really hope there will be a revamp of the entire skill system into something a bit more meaningful in the new rule book, but i kind of doubt it.

At this point though i would even be happy with some new scenarios that are at least a bit more engaging story-wise.

a lot of people say that about the reich at first, but in every tourny (im sure) they never win against the union, they are the strongest when you get used to them,

just the reich have some "nasty habits) lol