First Play of Conan

We played Conan for the first time this week. There were five of us so we started with "In the Clutches of the Picts". I took a few photos of the board set up before the other players arrived.

 

This scenario involves three or four heroes attacking a Pict village. Their mission is to rescue a captive and kill the leader of the Picts (Zagor Sag), bringing back his head as proof of his death. There are Picts, hyenas, and a giant snake occupying the huts as well as Zagor Sag.   

The giant snake is the toughest creature the overlord controls in this scenario. The overlord can choose where the captive is held and secretly notes which hut she is in, so the heroes have to search the huts and find her.

Two of the heroes:

 

 I played as the overlord, and placed the captive in the obvious place, in the hut with the giant snake. The heroes injured Zagor Sag early on but he managed to escape to safety. The heroes searched nearly every hut and finished off most of the Picts before Conan entered the hut with the giant snake. He slayed the snake in one huge blow, and after stopping for a rest, picked up the unconscious girl captive, and then went to finish of Sag, leaving one of the other heroes to recover his head, before just making it off the board on the last turn. 

We all enjoyed the game and the scenario seemed well balanced. The activation mechanics for both the heroes and overlord make for a challenging and interesting experience, with constant decision making about how much energy to expend on actions throughout the turn, and how best to utilise the actions.

We made a couple of rules mistakes. The first was caused by a translation error from the original French. Conan has an ability which allows him to burst through walls, and he used this to get into the hut occupied by the Pict leader Zagor Sag on the first turn. However, this was a stone hut and the ability is only supposed to apply to wooden walls. Sag is deliberately positioned in the stone hut so Conan cannot get to him in this way, so it would have had an impact on the outcome. However, we thought the turn in which the heroes escaped was the last turn, when they should have actually had one more turn, so they would probably have completed the mission anyway.
Even though it was the first time we had played, we got through the scenario in reasonable time (probably around 90 minutes) so we had time for another game. I would have happily played the same scenario a second time, but the other players wanted to try a different one, so we played Hunting the Tigress, which uses the board with two ships. The setting for this scenario is that the heroes are on Belit's ship, and it has been grappled and attacked by an enemy ship. The enemy pirates with their captain, Zaparavo, and a wizard (who can sacrifice himself to turn himself into a winged demon) have to kill Belit within 8 turns. As well as the heroes, Belit also has a squad of guards to protect her.
We had another enjoyable game, but this one seemed a bit one sided compared to the first. The heroes won quite easily, and it seemed like it would have been very difficult for the overlord to win this scenario. Some other players have posted similar observations on BGG about this scenario.
My overall verdict is that is an excellent game, probably the best of this type of game  I have played. However, it needs more scenarios. You only get a handful with the base game, and as they are each designed for a particular number of heroes, there are only two or three for each number of heroes. So if you normally have the same number of players in your group, you only have a small number of scenarios to play at present.

Crom ! It's finally here!

After a year and a half waiting, my Conan Kickstarter package has arrived. And it's a big package - no sneaking this one in quietly past the wife!

 

 I went for the "basic" Barbarian pledge, as this seemed to offer the best value in terms of number of figures, scenarios and gameboards for the money. Most backers seemed to be going for the more expensive King pledge, but I figured that I'd get plenty of play out of the basic game and all the kickstarter extras, and if I wanted more stuff later I could always buy it at retail.
Inside that huge package are two very large boardgame boxes.

One box is the base game, and the other contains all the kickstarter extras.They are nice sturdy boxes (which they need to be) with attractive artwork.

Inside they are both packed full of goodies - rules and scenario books, cards, thick cardboard tiles and markers, gameboards, and lots and lots of plastic figures.

I had a quick look through the contents and read through of the rules last night, and it's mostly very impressive. The double sided gameboards are very nice, and most of the figures look to be very good sculpts. There has been some discussion online about the varying quality of the figures, and it is true that a few of them are made from a different plastic and are noticeably worse, with softer details. Unfortunately, these are the hero figures. They are not terrible, and if all of the figures were like it, they would be acceptable quality for boardgame miniatures. It is a little disappointing though because of how good the majority of the figures are, and the fact that it the hero figures that are worse. I haven't painted boardgame figures before, but I think I will probably paint the heroes at least, so hopefully they will look better when painted and the difference in quality won't be noticeable.
There has also been discussion about the quality of the rulebook, and I believe a new one is being written. I'm not sure how this is going to be distributed to buyers though. From my quick read through last night there wasn't too much obviously wrong with it, but maybe some of the problems only become apparent when you play.
Hopefully I'll get to play in a week or two, and I'll post more pictures and thoughts then.