[…] continues to expand, like Tobias Beckett and Enfys Nest. We strive to bring content like the Rob Daviau interview and we appreciate the many who visit this site with Epic Duels as the primary […]
I made a Gollum/Smeagol deck that I really liked. It involved a card that allowed you to pick the personality that you wanted. In doing so, you had to discard the specials and power cards of the personality you gave up, but keep all their basics and gain health points. If you didn’t choose then it made it easy to destroy both personalities if you played against it. Gollum was doing more damage and Smeagol was more utility but the increase in damage from Gollum’s basic deck made it worth taking Smeagol and being able to keep Gollum’s power combat cards and specials plus adding Smeagol’s health made taking Gollum worth it as well.
I’ve tried making a Sauron deck and I used him as the only character. I included the One Ring as well but it exists without any HP and only has Normal Specials to play so it continues after Sauron’s physical form is destroyed. It doesn’t do damage so if it were the only thing left then the other team would be able to claim victory. Just my two cents. I love all of these decks on here and I discovered them after making about a dozen of my own LOTR decks lol but great alterations came of my discovery so thanks so much.
Hi Parker, thanks for your interest. We’d love to see your LOTR decks! You should upload them to the Wiki and I’ll create a section for them.
There’s a LOTR board game, I think it’s called the Lord of the Rings board game, where each player controls a hobbit, and you play cooperatively to defeat Sauron. The game comes with an Eye in the Tower piece that I’d love to see a deck for. Perhaps you could convert your ideas to fit Sauron as an Eye, where this version is intended to be the Sauron from the very start of the FOTR movie.
[…] Another Uwe Rosenberg game, you grow your Viking tribe, build boats, go on raids, and bring back trophies. You also explore various new lands like Iceland or Greenland and conquer them. Ultimately, you emigrate your people to new lands, like Led Zeppelin’s The Immigrant Song. Read the full review. […]
[…] that stated, Orléans is one of my 3-4 favorite games of the past five years or so, as stated in my review. It’s that good. I feel about it much the way I feel about Puerto Rico, except there is […]
[…] no secret this is one of my favorite games, to the point where I’m running a GenCon Tournament for it. I’ve gushed about it in a review, and included it among my favorite Solo Games. […]
[…] Star Wars Epic Duels I’m not going to write more about this game than I already have, but when it’s at it’s most fun, it feels like a cinematic battle unfolding, and if you want to get really epic, you can do 20 vs 20. […]
[…] It’s a different kind of do-something, but as covered in my review, Gloomhaven is some top notch monster slaying. Through cooperation, you can set up and execute […]
I’ve been thinking this over. Beckett isn’t really a “loose cannon” — he’s calculated in what he does. At the same time, the deck could fit him in that he’s only in it for himself. It’s definitely a fun concept to install but it might a forced fit here.
Actually yeah, I think this is a good idea after all. I’m not all that interested in playing this deck without a little more “do-something”. Beckett is a gambler, so his using a dice roll makes sense, and you kind of never know what he’s going to do next.
Not only is Bang! a classic, but there really aren’t many good games for 7 players. Caverna and Secret Hitler are among the few I can think of that even allow for 7.
An interesting deck for sure, I actually have at leas one major question: What is hold the line supposed to acomplish? I beleive the wording is not totally clear (at least for me). Does this mean all adjacent Troopers gain an additional 2 on defense for the rest of the game? This would be the only interpretation that comes to my mind that makes sense.
Have you playtested this deck a bit as I’m not sure if it really works the way it is right now.
HOLD THE LINE would be played as a defense by a single Stormtrooper. The defense value of the card is increased by 2 for each Stormtrooper adjacent to the defending one, just that one time when the card is used. There is nothing in the wording about adjacent Troopers gaining any benefits.
We’ve played this a handful of times over the years so I don’t really know how well it works without more feedback, but I have seen it both win and lose so I think it’s fairly balanced. If you play it, let us know how it goes for you.
Of course you are absolutely right, somehow my mind made it more complicated than necessary. 😀
Okay, I’ll try it out. I was just afraid that the troopers just would die like flies because they have so little defense and staying power but it’s possible I’m wrong.
I think they probably will die like flies! But there are 4 of them. Just a couple of them need to stick around to give the deck a chance to win. It’s not supposed to be very powerful, but just having 4 minors should make him a good 2v2 teammate.
It just occurred to me that the third Star Wars game that Rob Daviau was working on, DID see the light of day. The Queen’s Gambit! Shame on me for not reminding him.
Yeah, the more I think about it the more I come around to agreeing with you that healing is fine as is. Probably the only thing Epic Duels really needs right now is more players. 😛
Hear hear! Well, we’re certainly doing our part. However, just look around the rest of this site and you’ll see, there are so many great games out there.
Just throwing this out there, but is healing really so important that it needs to be in the game? I mean it’s clear that healing was included only as a solution to what to do with those dead minor cards. Why not have have a rule that once per turn if you draw a dead minor card you can reveal it, discard it and draw a new card? It’s a big change, but it would have the effect of speeding up the game (where as currently healing drags it out).
I think it’s probably fine the way it is. I like the penalty of getting weighed down with minor cards, and the strategy of beating a player by first taking out his minor. For example, that’s about the only way you’re going to beat Gandalf in LOTRED is by taking out Pippin and hopefully water down Gandalf’s draw. If we changed to your suggested rule, you’d no longer have that strategy available. As it is, heal is a pretty weak use of an action but it does come in handy at times, like when facing an opponent who relies on more direct damage.
First, thanks so much for doing this Roman, I’ve certainly enjoyed reading it! I especially liked that now we know what that ED sequel was about.
The only thing I have more than a few thoughts on is how in part two, he mentioned that ED was intended for 8-10 year olds and so they didn’t fuss over little things like trying to find a better replacement for the heal rule. I sometimes wonder what an “advanced” ED would look like, you know if it was re-made, but this time for an older audience and with more strategic depth. I think Mike Maloney has made some great decks that add a lot of strategy to the game without changes the basic mechanics, but that’s not quite what I’m thinking of. Probably it’s just better to let ED be a fun, fast shoot ’em up and look in other places for deeper games.
Glad you enjoyed it! I am pretty pleased with it. It was actually fun to go back and listen to it, rewind, and sort of unpack it all.
Well, we could literally make the heal rule 25% more effective by allowing a player to play up to 2 cards at a time and heal up to 2 instead of 1. But, do you really want to make the games longer, and to drag out what might be the worst part of the game?
This version and Kylo Ren, another forced discarding deck, wreaked havoc on Luke Grand Master and Jyn Erso. Jyn had a bad game, not getting much of anything going, but Snoke’s revised MIND STRIP makes him pretty nasty. Once Rey was gone, Snoke was able to apply some DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR pressure on Luke. I think this is probably a good place for Snoke to settle into, but I’ll certainly accept any feedback.
I played against Luke with the 3 DD version of ILLUSIONARY STRIKE. It’s a pretty good card. I think I played D4s against, it, and it’s like an A7 against those. At the same time, it’s an A3 if you have no defense at all. Luke is still very, very strong defensively and has a deep enough bag of tricks that this is probably all he really needs. I’ll test him some more to make sure he wins a game, but if he isn’t a Tier 1 deck, that would be ok with my group. I think he probably still is Tier 1, though.
Thanks but we didn’t do them. They were done by Robert Moore, Sultan, and some guy named Brian. With the initial 4 maps + 4 Transformers maps + 4 good LOTR maps, additional maps haven’t been a big enough need for us for anyone to learn how to make them.
Hi!
Out of curiosity, how do you determine unit starting spaces with these maps? Can players deploy their Majors wherever?
Also, how do you set up decks with multiple Majors?
Thanks for sharing these, by the way!
I recommend the Epic Duels Online Rules for placement: Major must start on a space on the back line, then you place the minors anywhere adjacent to the majors.
There are some unusual decks: For the Uruk-hai Army, I’d say both majors must start on the back line and the minors can be placed adjacent to either major. For the Nazgul, I’d say one Nazgul must start on the back line but then the other 2 just need to be adjacent to the first one.
It’s probably a good idea if I fetch those EDOL rules and post them before the Yahoo! group that they’re stored on disappears completely.
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From Just a Difference of 12 Cards: Rob Daviau Interview Part 3 – Geektopia
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[…] feel like the characters. And I thought it was nice that we were able to tweak out the feeling of Count Dooku being different than Darth Maul from, I can’t remember now, you probably remember better than I […]
I figured out a potential tweak for the heal rule but as I think about it… it would just extend the game a little more, it would be less of a punishment to the major to have his minor(s) killed off, it would encourage more running, hiding and healing… I suppose it would make movement a tad more valuable but in hindsight, I think I would have told Rob that the rule is fine the way it is.
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