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The friendly guys at Steamforged Games (who make one of my favourite board games Resident Evil 3) very kindly sent me the Godtear starter which contains 2 champions sets and 5 expansion champions for review. This does not affect my opinions or views on the game but, you should keep this in mind when reading my review.
What Is It?
This is a skirmish hex battler and not really a game that I expected to enjoy due to its perceived complexity. But, in actuality it is a hell of a lot of fun. You can increase or decrease the complexity easily by varying the hero count. If you play 1 vs 1 then I think you could easily play this with a younger audience but, to increase the complexity you can play anywhere from 1 vs 1 up to 4 vs 4. The optimal experience is said to be 3 vs 3 and the synergy, crazy battlefield and powers/abilities being used in these games make for quite the spectacle. Each game is completely different depending on your play style and the champions you choose.
How It Plays
The gameplay is fairly simple to follow; player 1 does their planning phase, then player 2 does their planning phase and then each player takes it in turn in the action phase to activate either one of their godly champion figures or all of the followers of one champion and then player 2 chooses to active one of their gods or sets of followers (this stage repeats until all groups have activated once). When this is done it is the end of the round and the player who has the score marker further on their side wins.
The player who lost the last round chooses if they wish to go first or second, with the first player of the next round starting 1 place up on the round tracker in the next round but being unable to react as much to the opponents moves. There are 5 different rounds; the first and last gives the players 1 point, the second and fourth give 2 points and the third/middle round is worth a huge 3 points. First person to 5 points wins the title of Godtear Champion.
Can you respond to what your opponents doing or even manipulate their play in order to bring your own dastardly plans to fruition???
Points System
Players move the round token in various ways and each occur during or after the action phase normally:
- Knock out an enemy champion - 4 steps
- Knock out a small enemy follower - 1 step
- Knock out a large enemy follower - 2 steps
- Make a claim action during the plot phase - 1 step
- Have a friendly banner on an objective hex during the end phase - 4 steps.
The Champions
Each champion has a main type out of 4; Guardians (blue miniatures), Slayers (red miniatures), Shapers (green miniatures) and Maelstroms (yellow miniatures). Guardians gain a bonus point when scoring for having a banner on an objective in the end phase. Slayers gain a bonus point when they knock out an enemy champion. Shapers gain a bonus point when placing their banner on an objective hex in the plot phase. Maelstroms gain a bonus point when they knock out a small or large enemy follower. So, as you can imagine there is a huge variation in how you play and what synergy your team has depending on which Champions you choose to fight with.
Last Gameplay
In my last game I played as 2 new to me characters; Grimgut and Morrigan. Grimgut has a lot of health and good attacking power but, very poor movement speed and his minions are quite weak but, they do not allow the enemy any points if they are killed whereas Morrigan is a de-buffing demon and has decent movement and attacking ability.
This was a fun team to play but, in the end Grimgut's poor mobility lost me the final round as he was 1 hex away from being able to do some devastating damage. My opponent played as Shayle and Lorsann; Lorsann was the MVP and did great ranged attacks and damage whilst Shayle has a huge minion Landslide that kept getting killed but, also had an insane ability that moved all of the Godtear tiles around and made it impossible for me to re-position my troops in time for the finale. Even though I lost, I still has an amazing time and could not wait to play again!
Components
The components are good with nice card art and the icons quickly become easy to follow. When attacking you have to roll to first make sure you are hitting the character and then again to see what damage you do (if any). The dice are of nice quality and add a lot of tension to the battles as even a strong warrior can miss, or a weak warrior can hit for good damage with a lucky roll.
The miniatures are really nice, as expected from Steamforged Games, and they are all unique with unique banners. Even the minions are all different and this really adds a lot of flavour to the battle. I think that if painted these are going to look incredible. My favourites so far are Mournblade, Blackjaw and Skullbreaker. How about you?
Adapting On The Fly
The game is frantic, fun and often requires a lot of problem solving and adapting your strategy based on what your opponent does to try to stop your plans or in order to try to advance their plans. There is a lot of push and pull in which both camps feel supremely powerful and have a fair chance to win throughout. Learning the characters, their powers, their weaknesses and how to best manage these is phenomenal and one of the most fun game experiences I have had in a long time. I will always be down for a game of Godtear!!
Even gods have Flaws
The main negatives that I can see are that the game may be a little hard to get into if you are low on funds. The base set only comes with 2 champions, therefore meaning that if you wish to play at the optimal 3 vs 3 then could also need to buy a further 4 fighters. This means you are most probably looking at spending at least £120/$150 if you want it all now which is a lot these days. But the game is great and you will not regret spending that much. I got most of my stuff for free but, have already bought some other stuff to increase the variability for myself even further.
The game page on BGG says it plays up to 8 players but, for me this is a 2-player (1 vs 1 player) game only and I doubt I will ever play it at any other player count.
Final Impressions
"I have been incredibly impressed by Godtear. There are varying champion counts that you can play at making it easy to learn. When ready you can increase the difficulty, vary the champions, work out some team synergies and most importantly try to figure out the crazy combos and tactics for your favourite characters. This game is an absolute blast. You have plans, they quickly get messed around so must come up with new plans to stop your opponent and each hero is cool in their own way. The system in this game is great and really flexible.
Once you know the basics you can play with ease but, there is a tonne of depth and strategy to learn. Are you going all out attack, do you want to be able to out manoeuvre your opponent, are you going for the big hits whilst losing manoeuvrability or will you use magic to manipulate the playing field? This game has it all and it is more fun than riding a giant orc into battle with your Hobbit friends.....is that just me??? Oops. This is an awesome game and I cannot wait to dive in further and try more heroes"
Your friendly, aggression style fighting warrior, DB.