Head to Head! Goblins at War!

 
So you want to succeed your boss who will soon be retiring? You'll get your chance if you manage to kick everyone else's Robot's rear in the mechanical-robots-of-doom contest. Unfortunately, your colleagues are not going let you get ahead of them without some grease and mud stains on your face.

So you work up the courage to ask one of your so-called Goblin comrade to join you as partner in this contest. Two robots will go head to head. Each team will control a giant robot equipped with wimpy weapons pointing at different directions coz they could not make up their mind as to where they'd like to fire and then they ... fire. The last robot standing has its controllers declared the winners.


How do you play? 
In each round of three, each team builds a robot made up of weapon, armor and decoration tiles on their own construction yard based on the blueprint card that shows the shape of the Robot.

Each player receives 7 hidden agendas, 3 of those are discarded just before the battle, the remaining agendas could potentially score points for specific tiles that fall off their opponents robots (destructive agendas), or score points for tiles that remain on your robot at the end of the combat (defensive agendas),  or score points by accurately predict an outcome of the battle. The interesting part is that your partner might not be working for the same agendas as you, in fact he/she may very well works against you.

The construction begins with one partner in each team picks up and look at 5 tiles from the face-down common pile and swap with each other 2 of those tiles. As they are building the robots with tiles, the other partners pick up  tiles and swap. So the tiles selection and tiles placement actions continue alternately until all the empty spaces on the construction yard are filled up with tiles. After that, each player places 2 goblins in the cockpit. They represent the hit points of the robot.

Three tactics cards with various dice modifying abilities and special abilities are turned up before the combat begins. One player from each team will take the role of tactician by secretly choosing one of these tactics card. The other players become the Pilot who secretly determining the angle the robots rotate and the directions their weapon will face. Each teams gets to roll as many dice as their weapons pointing at the opponent's robot. Each dice roll represent a hit on the correspond rows indicated on the constructions yard. The battle lasts the maximum 4 turns. If both robots are still standing, the robot with the most tiles and goblins on board wins.

If your team won, you score 2 points for each of your goblins and 1 point for each of your partner's goblins. And everyone gets to score their hidden agendas. Yes, you'd heard right, everyone, including the losers.



Introducing U and Meeples Review:
Meeple is a family gamer who loves ... hmmm of all the games who would have thought- Carcassonne, and Ticket to ride. She prefers a lighter rule set and games that last around 30mins to an hour.

U is gamer who likes games with little more "depth", not necessarily heavier rules set. Games that he would break out once in a while to annoy others.
 
How do we feel?
Meeple: Now this is Galaxy Trucker on steroids. You are not struggling against some unknown elements but the robot right in front of you. You are trying to survive against their direct attacks yet at the same time trying to crush them. Yes, this is not a passive aggressive euros but full frontal confrontations. I find myself second guessing where my opponents' robot will turn, and to position our robot to gain the maximum hit on targets that will yield the most points for yours truly only. Even during the robot construction phase, I constantly watch what  the others are building. If they are so strong on the engines and the weapons front, I might consider betraying my mate by giving away the battle but getting away with points scored from my hidden agendas. 

 In sum, it's about managing the hidden mission cards along with watching your opponents robot as they are building, deducing their potential attacking facing, as well as the reaping the points from the destroyed and retained components. Lots of luck but I really like this game. It is fun, fun, fun!

U: I agree with most of Meeple's comments. However, the choices of how one should manipulate the robot is pretty obvious. You would want to have the most guns pointing at your opponent. Well, being a traitor will score you some points but not enough to compensate the points lost. The tiles drawn, the hidden agendas and the tactics cards are all random, not to mention the dice. I feel like there is very little control over what I can accomplish vis a vis my agendas. Having said that, as strange as it may sound, I do enjoy the ride; the immense satisfaction of knocking off those vital tiles that completely decimate the robot and seeing their expressions of ... (evil laughter trailing off)

Is it fun?
Meeple: We've answered that, haven't we? 

U: This is a light filler for me. Can we play Galaxy trucker now?

Meeple: Oh! Hang on! I've got something to add ... those who fear randomness and unable to cope with changing situations ... run for your lives! Avoid this at all cost. Your loss!

The day after heavy snowfall in Vancouver - pictures of Alien Adam enjoyng the snow coming up.

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