Review - Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends - Legendary Summoner Promo

Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends - Legendary Summoner Promo
Designed by Vlaada Chvatil
Published by Czech Games Editions
For 2-4 players (used in conjunction with the base game)

Not legendary enough to summon clothes, I see...

Pop quiz...

1. Is a single promotional card worth £5.50 (plus postage)?

2. Is it worth reviewing a single promotional card?

You have 30 seconds to write down your answers. No conferring...

[Cue Countdown music.]

Okay. Pens down.

If your answer to both questions was, "No, it's only a card," you're wrong.

If your answer to both questions was, "Yes, but only if it is a promotional card for the exceptional Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends," then congratulations. You've won yourself a teapot.

You see, here's the thing... I'm not keen on promo items. They are usually only available by visiting conventions in a country where I don't live, by pre-ordering something that might not even be very good, or by paying an obscene amount of money to someone on the Internet.

Furthermore, promos can seem odd or awkward. They may be silly in-jokes that are jarring with the theme of the game, or they may be wildly imbalanced or overpowered. After all, it's only a promo so it doesn't have to be balanced, does it?

I don't like the idea of components that enhance gameplay only being available to a certain few people who are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, or who happen to have a lot of spare cash to throw around.

I really don't like the idea of paying a lot of money for something which turns out to be a bit rubbish.

I really, really don't like the idea of paying a lot of money for what is, essentially, "only a card."

So, I don't really like promos.

But there are always exceptions.

The Legendary Summoner card for Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends is that exception.

For a start, this is a promo that was (and is) readily available through Spielbox magazine. Just purchase Issue 6, 2014, and this little card is snuggled away in the centre pages. Okay, I ended up having to pay £5.50 plus postage for a magazine I wasn't that interested in, just to get the card I was interested in, but at least it was easy.

Spielbox, Issue 6, 2014.

Most importantly for me, it is a promo that integrates seamlessly with the original game. It is simply a new legendary creature that you shuffle into your legend deck at the start of the game. It is the same card quality as all the other cards in the game, it has stunning artwork by David Cochard, who illustrated all of the cards for the base game and the Everfrost expansion, and the only hint of an in-joke or knowing wink is the fact the creature is actually the same one that appears on the back of the legend cards.

However, I do think the card might be slightly overpowered. With a formation of four heroic pieces, it is possible to summon the Legendary Summoner. You then gain an action, and for the next being you summon that turn you get to use any pieces on the board, regardless of colour. This makes it pretty easy to string together some really nasty combos, summon over the top of enemy pieces, blow apart tight formations, drop pieces into the perfect place for even more summoning mayhem, or secure points based on mission cards.

But it's a one off.

And everybody has a chance to draw it from the communal legends deck, so it isn't giving a distinct advantage to any one player.

And there is a chance nobody draws the card throughout the entire game.

And when I think about it, quite a few of the legend cards have the potential to turn the game on its head.

And it's only a promo so it doesn't have to be balanced, does it?

Besides, if you are worried that drawing a certain type of legend gives any one player a distinct advantage you have the option to use the variant version of the rules published in the Spielbox magazine.

Rather than players drawing legends into their own hands, there are three communal legends that any player can summon if they meet the criteria. Whenever a player summons a legend, a new legend is drawn and added to the communal offer.

This variant helps to level the playing field between novice players and advanced players. Seasoned veterans can often tell what legends a player is trying to summon, based on patterns on the board, and this gives them a distinct advantage over novice players who do not know what patterns to watch out for. However, with the new variant, everyone knows what legends are up for grabs, and what patterns are necessary. This makes it easier to screw up an opponent's pattern, to prevent him or her from getting a legend on the table, and it is much more difficult for seasoned players to disguise their moves.

In my experience, the variant makes the game more aggressive. Players tend to spot what opponents are trying to do, and they go to extra lengths to smash up formations. It's very cutthroat, and it makes getting legends onto the field trickier (and more satisfying).

Interestingly, the variant also makes the Legendary Summoner slightly more powerful. This is because all of the players are going for the same legends, so there is a better chance there will be pieces on the board in a formation that you can make use of.

To be honest, I'm not that keen on the variant. I feel it tends to draw the attention of the players away from the objective of the game (killing opponent pieces, or meeting the criteria of mission cards), so they start to focus instead on preventing legends from coming into play. It makes the game drag a little bit, especially as players spend a bit longer trying to figure out if an opponent is about to summon an available legend, and you get less of those "a-ha" moments, where you pull the wool over your opponent's eyes and bring out an unexpected legend.

Still, it's nice to have the option of a different way of playing, and the variant does make the game feel different.

But really, nobody is going to buy Spielbox for the variant rules.

It is all about that card.

Now, here's the thing: I was predisposed to like the Legendary Summoner. Tash-Kalar is one of my favourite games ever. I acquired the original version as soon as it was available in the UK, I jumped at the chance to playtest the Everfrost expansion, and I purchased that expansion and the base game upgrade kit as soon as they hit retail. I had to have this promo card to add to my collection, and would probably have paid even more for it than I did.

It's nice to have more variety, and at a time when I am starting to guess which legends my opponents have based on the formations they are making on the board, even a single card helps to shake things up.

But does this single card really enrich the experience?

Well, no. Not really.

It's only a card, after all.

Review - Tash-Kalar: Everfrost

Tash-Kalar: Everfrost
Designed by Vlaada Chvatil
Published by Czech Games Editions
For 2-4 players (in conjunction with the base game)

The new race tokens.

I'm not a big fan of expansions. Often they add a lot of unnecessary bloat, with new rules, and new options, that dilute the original game and detract from the core beauty that made me enjoy that game in the first place.

Plus, I have real trouble writing reviews for expansions. I have already used up all my "witty" jokes and "meaningful" insights in the review for the base game, which puts me in an awkward position.

I bet Vlaada Chvatil wouldn't have that problem if he wrote reviews.

Vlaada is one of the most inventive games designers in the industry. Even when he produces a game I have no interest in, I have to stop and admire his handiwork because it contains such a startling amount of originality. Every game he produces is significantly different from the last. Every game is inventive.

And his games are funny too, dammit.

I reckon if you were to jam a spigot in the back of his head, you'd get enough frothy brain goodness out to fill a bathtub.

(Don't try that, for God's sake.)

So, yeah. I think Vlaada would probably have something fun and creative to say in his review for the awesome Everfrost expansion.

But you're stuck with me. Deal with it...

The Everfrost expansion is actually the kind of expansion I really like. It doesn't overcomplicate the base game, or add lots of fiddly new rules. It just gives you a bit more of the stuff you already like. In this case, if gives you a new race deck to play with.

With an ethereal, wintery vibe that is just right for this time of year, Everfrost immediately stands out as one of the most attractive card decks available for the game. The artwork is from the talented David Cochard, and it evokes the magic and mystery of the ice-bound creatures perfectly. From the lithe winter fox to the gigantic glacial giant, every card is a joy.

A fox in socks on icy blocks.

The Everfrost deck once again exhibits Vlaada's ability to blend rules with theme in a seamless way. For example, this deck contains creatures that are almost the embodiment of a glass (ice) cannon: They can destroy other pieces, sometimes even legends, but in doing so they shatter into pieces.

However, it is the way the cards work together that truly highlights the beauty of the design. Study the shapes you need to make to create each creature, and then consider the powers each creature has. To get your "creature engine" up and running, you need an "ice block" in a 3x3 grid, and then you can grow outwards like ice crystals by utilising the sliding abilities that many creatures possess. There are even powers that allow you to downgrade or upgrade creatures, perfectly encapsulating the freezing and thawing aspect of the winter wastelands.

It's freaking beautiful, and I am totally in love with it.

And I haven't even mentioned the one new rule this deck introduces: The frozen effects. These are abilities on creatures that you do not have to trigger immediately, Instead, you set them aside, and you can activate them whenever you want at a later date (this is known as "thawing" a frozen effect). This is a tricky and nuanced new mechanism. Just when you think you have grasped it, it slips through your fingers like a snowflake. But if you can get the hang of it, if you can resist the temptation to fire off the abilities as soon as you can rather than biding your time, this is a deck that really brings the pain.

The new frozen effect rules.

It takes time. It takes patience. The deck moves like a glacier as you slowly build your position of power. But when it strikes, it strikes like an avalanche.

I have always been a huge fan of the Forest deck, but at the moment Everfrost is a close second for me.

The wintery scoreboard for the expansion.

And of course, one of the best things about this expansion is that it negates one of my few complaints with the base game. Originally, although four people could play, two players had to play with identical Empire decks. Now, it is possible for four unique factions to battle it out in the arena, which is a far more exciting prospect.

But the very best thing of all?

I got a credit in the rules booklet for being one of the lucky folks who got be involved in playtesting the new deck before it went to print. (I am credited as RedMonkeyBoy, which is my www.BoardGameGeek.com username, rather than my real name; but as I was not expecting any credit at all, I'll gladly take it.)

Hey, there I am!

It does give me a little warm glow inside to think that in some tiny way I may have helped to shape the final product.

It's almost enough to melt my heart.

Review - Tash-Kalar Upgrade Kit

We interrupt your regularly scheduled broadcast to bring you this public service announcement...

I received my beautiful Tash-Kalar Upgrade Kit from the good people at www.BoardGameGuru.co.uk It was thrown in for nowt along with my order of the Tash-Kalar: Everfrost expansion (more on that another day).

It is my understanding that not all online companies are offering the upgrade kit with the expansion, so if you want to make sure you get a copy, you know where to shop.

(Although, having said that, you might want to contact them first, just in case they have stopped the offer by the time you read this.)

Right, that's that out of the way. Let's talk Tash-Kalar...

I read today that Internet folk have started to use the word "firstable" in place of "first of all." It's like a language upgrade or something: Rolling words together into a completely nonsensical sound to make it even quicker and easier to send messages over the big Worldwide Interweb Super Highway Thingy.

Soon the human race will be able to communicate with a simple series of grunts, and our devolution to Neanderthals will be complete.

Yeah.

I don't like it when things I love get changed.

Well... With certain exceptions, of course...

Here's the scoop: If you know me, you know I am a huge Tash-Kalar fan. You can catch my review here if you like, but you would actually be wasting valuable time you could be using to purchase and play the game.

However, the first edition of Tash-Kalar had some minor problems... A not so minor price tag, and production quality that was a little lacking.

That was a real shame, because it limited the reach of this really rather lovely game; a game I think everyone needs to play, even if it is only once, to experience the sheer brilliance of a theme so completely integrated into the rules that it is almost impossible to separate the two.

But all is not lost.

It has been an exciting time for Tash-Kalar, with a new expansion (which I will be reviewing shortly), and a second cheaper edition hitting stores. Best of all, for people like me who already own the game and don't want to buy it again, there is the Upgrade Kit: A set of stunning new tokens, cards, and boards to give this incredible game the glitzy finish it deserves.

That's the kind of change I can get on board with (excuse the pun).

Now, if you have played Tash-Kalar and you don't enjoy it (what is wrong with you?), the Upgrade Kit is not going to change your mind. But if you own and love the first edition, you are going to want these spangly new components in your life.

First up, you get a new board. It's the same size as the original, folded in the same way; but it has stunning new artwork that really pops. Best of all, it is made of thicker card, so it actually sits flat on the table.

It's like a tunnel for ants.

Who would have thought that the ability for a board to sit flat could bring so much joy?

If I have one problem with the new board, it is that the shadows are a bit heavy, which makes them slightly distracting at times.

Shadowy

The new sets of tokens for all four races included in the base game are also on thicker card with better illustrations. Rather than a simple texture with a silhouette, the new tokens have some real depth, which makes for a much more impressive look. Of course, I would have paid through the nose to get these tokens in Bakelite, but now I'm just being picky.

It's all too beautiful.

There are also new scoring tracks for the four races. Functionally, they are the same as before, but the imagery is more vibrant and detailed. Everything just pops a little more.

Score another one for the Upgrade Kit.

Finally, the upgrade kit contains an overhauled deck of Flare cards and Task cards. These have the same text as the original cards, and they are the same size, but they have a new graphic design that makes the originals look so boring you might mistake them for history teachers.

Can you tell which ones are the new ones?

I didn't think the task cards needed upgrading until I saw this.

In fact, the only components that are not upgraded are the decks for the races, because they were already beautiful, and the rules, because they were already excellent.

So there you have it. Let's sum up...

Firstable, the Upgrade Kit brings nothing new to the table except a better quality of component material and graphic design.

Secondable, what the Upgrade Kit does bring is the kind of beauty that should have been there from the start, and which surely every fan requires.

Thirdable, by getting the Upgrade Kit, I now have enough components to play two games of Tash-Kalar simultaneously. You know, in case I want to.

Fourthable, for God's sake, stop saying "firstable," whoever you are.

Review - Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends

Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends
Published by Z Man Games
Designed by Vlaada Chvatil
For 2 - 4 players, aged 13 to adult


I'm a storyteller by trade, and that's one of the reasons I like board games so much. A board game is just a story in a box, waiting to be told. Board games with a strong theme are my favourites, of course; but theme is a funny old beast (like a platypus), and it can be difficult to nail down (like a platypus).

Theme is more than having a bit of backstory to describe what is going to happen in the game, because a game can abstract that story to the point where the story is almost inconsequential. The wonderful Ghost Stories is a fine example, where a very strong story of monks defending a village from ghosts is abstracted into a nine-square grid surrounded by different coloured dots that require dots of the same colour to remove. Wow... I just made one of the my favourite games sound awful... Never mind, moving on...

Theme is also more than having little plastic miniatures to push around on a board. Sure, it helps if the minotaur you are fighting looks like a minotaur, rather than a red wooden cube, but that isn't the same as theme. That's just window dressing.

And theme is more than having a bit of florid text on the cards in your hand, because let's face it, after the first game you are never going to read those few lines of italicized text ever again. It will just fade away into the background, lurking behind the mechanisms of the game.

Theme is basically a bit of all the above, plus a set of mechanisms that make sense within the confines of the story being told. It is really tricky to do. Take Arkham Horror for example. Last time I played, I was a hardened detective who had seen too much horror. For my starting item I drew a bottle of whiskey, and that was it for me: I was "there." That randomly allocated starting item made the theme work, and it was amazing. Now, in the Arkham Horror game before that, where a nun was deputized, drove through the streets in a police car, and mowed down Lovecraftian monsters with a tommy gun... Yeah. The theme wasn't working so well for us in that game. That's the nature of randomness. Sometimes the stars align. Sometimes good nuns go bad.

But then there are games like Tash-Kalar (see, you knew there had to be a point in all this, right?). Tash-Kalar is one of those rare beasts (like a platypus) where the mechanisms ARE the theme. Every move you make is derived from the theme. The two things are inseparable. And that is one of the reasons why Tash-Kalar has become one of my favourite games ever in the world ever, ever, ever.



Tash-Kalar: A game about punching horses. Or making glue. Or something.

You see, the theme of Tash-Kalar is simple. You are a wizard, and you are engaging in a bit of magical fisticuffs with other wizards. You have the ability to create and manipulate casting stones within an arena, and when those stones are formed into certain patterns, they channel the essence of a great warrior or monster, which momentarily manifests itself, does something cool, and then disappears, leaving behind only the stones that were used to create it. You basically have to think of it like those chess pieces in Harry Potter, where they move, suddenly come to life to make an attack, and then return to an inanimate state.

And that's the theme.

The gameplay for Tash-Kalar is simple. You are playing a wizard, and you are engaging in a bit of cerebral fisticuffs with other people playing wizards. On your turn, you can do two actions, one of which is placing a token onto the board. If the tokens you have in play match a pattern on one of the creature cards you have in your hand of five cards, you can use one of your actions to summon the essence of that creature. You play the card, perform the cool action specified on the card, and then discard the card from play, leaving behind only the tokens that were used to play the card in the first place.

And that's the game.

(Do you see what I did there?)



The game has stunning artwork. See the cute little tree thing? Aww...

Literally, what you are doing in real life - placing tokens on the board to make shapes, and then playing cards based on those shapes - is exactly the same as what the wizard character you are playing would be doing in the game world - creating stones in the arena to make shapes, and then summoning creatures based on those shapes.

It is pure genius.

It is also incredibly simple. The game is as a smooth as a platypus' bill. You have two actions: Play a token onto the board, or play a card. Other than flare cards, which are a catch-up mechanism that allows a losing player to take advantage of his opponent's strength to gain a magical boost and pull off some cool special moves, there is hardly anything else you need to know. You can learn how to play in about five minutes.

But that simplicity is part of the games joy. It is so quick and accessible. There is no fiddliness, and no tricky rules to get your head around; and yet the scope of the challenge the game presents is huge. When you start the game you will find it hard to summon any creatures, and you will cautiously place tokens to set up future turns; and then when those turns arrive... Boy. There is nothing quite like being able to string together multiple summons to lay waste to your opponent's forces. It is incredibly exciting, and the tension when you realise you can summon one of the powerful legendary creatures as long as no-one destroys an important piece before your turn rolls around is excruciating.

The game is also surprisingly versatile. Like a... platypus? There are two forms of play: High Form, in which you attempt to make patterns on the board to score points; and Deathmatch, in which you... Yeah, you can probably guess.

Additionally, the game plays with two, three, or four players, and includes team-play rules.

The game has incredible longevity.

And the stories you will have to tell... Honestly. Every game ends with the participants excitedly talking about what happened, where they went wrong, what they did right, and why oh why oh why couldn't they get that one last heroic piece on the board needed to summon the dreaded Bone Catapult or Time Elemental. And yes, you will probably be having this conversation while you reset the board for another match.

Okay, okay. I love the game. I think everyone should try this game at least once. But...

Man, there is always a but.

First of all, the game contains four decks of cards for the different factions you can play. Only, it is not really four, because two of the decks are exactly the same, they are just different colours. Now, I understand the concept of including two identical decks. It means you can play two-player games that are not asymmetrical, and that's a good idea. However, there should have been a fifth deck, so it was still possible to play a four-player game where everyone had a unique faction to work with.

The other problem is that the game is expensive for what you get in terms of components. All of the cards are beautifully illustrated, but the tokens you use to form the patterns are cardboard, and the board is thin and bland, with a tendency to warp a bit.



The game in play really isn't much to look at.

However, the component thing doesn't really bother me, because the game is so much fun and gets so much play in my house that the price is justified. Besides, my wife bought it for me, so I didn't feel the punch to the wallet.

And there you have it.

I am not a Vlaada Chvatil fan boy. I am not even sure what a fan boy is, and I am probably far too old to be one anyway. However, this is the second game of his that I own (Mage Knight Board Game being the other), and both games sit squarely in my top 10 list of bestest besty best games in the world right now, while also being completely different.

Now, you'll have to excuse me. I have enemy wizards to crush.