120 scultped playing pieces, modular board, lots of cards and stuff. It's an $80 big game. It reminds me of the Euro-type game that Rio Grande or Mayfair would produce. Maybe FFG is pushing in on their territory.

It looks like an interesting take on a wargame. For some reason it reminds me of War of the Roses (though I know it isn't like it).

I have to agree that it looks rather impressive. I've got a few friends who I think would be perfect to play this with, so I hope one of us breaks down and buys it. Looking forward to seeing more previews.

sepayne7l said:

I believe that it is made by a European company. It looks to be the same company that made kingsburg. The company's name is Stratelibri. Kingsburg is an amazing game and it's one of the games my gaming group plays the most. And this game comes with a huge amount of components and a modular board so I'm very excited for the release of this game. I hope to see more previews soon.

Yeah, I like Kingsburg, too. That's good to hear. Look forward to seeing more previews.

I'm feeling more skeptical about new games, lately. I think it might be my fun budget is continually shrinking. It's harder to justify bigger purchases when I have so much on the shelf already.

It's on my wish list for sure.

sounds like a great game , i'm tempted .

I played a prototype at GenCon in 2008. The Italian designers were hopeful that FFG would publish it then it went dead for a long time.

I was really pleased to see this on the upcoming list. It looks like the components are excellent. While it may be from the same house as Kingsburg, that is the only similarity. We had a lot of fun for the brief time we got to try it out but I won't hesitate in its purchase.

I ran demos of this back in 2008 in the exhibit hall at GenCon and the repsonse was quite positive. I've been waiting to see this go to print. I'm hoping that there will be at least some copies of GenCon(I say this in no official capacity what-so-ever).

...reading rules right now...

This could be a sleeper for me. Intrigued!

After playing the published version, I came away un-impressed. Not from the mechanics, they're fine. From the middling problems associated with the production values. Specifically:

> Tiles depict the territory and land type. One is color coded, no problem. The other is depicted by pictures. None of which are shown in the instructions. There are hills and mountains, towns, cities, villages and castles, rivers and lakes, and woods. But some tiles show what appear to be hills, along with structures. Are the structures towns? Cities? Villages? Is the tile both a hill AND a village? Who knows. Nowhere in the instructions is there a legend showing what is what. And there are some cards in the Conscription deck that refer specifically to a "town" tile.

> Use the "mixed arms" optional rules! The distribution of Captains to Company's is 18 Captains to 40 Companys. With only 3 out for show, you could go through a significant drought of Captains. The Mixed Arms optional rule allows a flushing if 3 of a kind (captains or companys) is showing.

> 30 VP's is too easy to get to. In our game, albeit we were playing too defensively, only 2 Captains came out for the entire game. One player started on a papal tile (2 VP's per turn) and started buying VP's almost immediately (for 5 Florins, you can buy 7 VP's). By the time he was at 20+ points, we were still floundering, trying desperately to get a Captain in order to build a decent army. The game lasted 6 turns before the game was over. Like I said, we played defensively, growing our domains, when we should have been more aggressive and attacked. But with lone companies to send out for slaughter, it would have been suicide. Only 2 of us had Captains, so that a decent sized army could be mustered.

> The Army and Company tokens should have stickers in order to read the numbers on them. On the board, you can't really tell your #2 Company from your #3 Company. Simpy having stickers applied to the tokens would make things easier. So much easier.

> Card timing. Nowhere in the instructions does it mention the use of the Conscription cards and their timing. My opponent had a card that had "Administration" in bold. Do you play the card during your turn in the administration phase? Anytime during the phase? At the start of the phase? At the end? It made a difference as it was a "rob your opponent of 2 Florins" type of card. At the START of the Administration phase, there wasn't any money to be had (you get your Florins during the administration phase). So when his turn came (he was 3rd in the order), and wanted to rob the 4th player, can he? Can he use his card any time during any players Administration phase? We came up with our own ruling, but it would have been nice to see it in the rules. An example or even a sentence or two.

And no, I don't expect FFG to issue a FAQ or anything like that. They've already shown (with ToI) that FAQ's aren't their style.

For $80, I would have expected better.

I'd like to respond to Scammer's concerns.

I definately agree the rule book needs work and the lack of the tiles in the book is lacking, but overall, most are fairly understandable. I'm sure someone will post a reference soon on this.

I also agree with the 30 VP's if you are buying them. We are planning on imiting this to 3 Florins (4VP's) only. Still, the game is really designed to be moderately agressive - Almost chess like in it's attacking probes. You are missing out if you don't have some agression.

The army numbers being difficult to read is unfortunate. I've taken to painting them white. Much more readable.

Lastly - Card Timing. There is a table that shows the Phases and Steps in the rulebook. Use this as a reference right back to the cards and when they can be played. Each card is playable at any time during the phase (or step) it refers too...and you are good to go.

All in all, I think the game has lots of potential...don't give up on it because of these relatively minor and repairable hiccups.