Assault of the Giants (Premium Edition)

Board Game Geek Reviews

1. 5 out of 10

   Ezel

   2017-03-20: Yes, it is a bit eurolized and the mechanic of 'some cards give bonus for playing early and some for playing late' is a very interesting one. But in the end this is basically a "I attack and roll dice to see if I win" game. It also drags on a bit too long, but not terribly so. The more I play these the more I'm convinced that I've grown out of it. The 'excitement' of rolling a critical die is almost 100% irritation nowdays. Other things excite me in boardgames now like the "oh! oh! oh! I see an engine opportunity!" and "Hope he doesn't take that tile before me. . hope! hope!" and "Hmm, If I place here, he doesn't get to use his special building. muahah". Initial rating: 5 (the interesting card-mechanic lifts it a bit, would very much like to see it in another game)

2. 6 out of 10

   imaginaryforce

   The game has sparks of brilliance with several good ideas, the hand management, the strong theme, victory points turned into game timer, public quests etc. Unfortunately the hand management, although interesting in theory, is way too limiting to offer any meaningful chances to out-manouver the opponents which I believe to be a paramount necessity in an asymmetrical dudes on a map game. I don't necessarily agree with the comments about the game being unbalanced. I see what the designer had in mind with creating the different giant races, going from quantity to quality and everything in between. I think that could work amazingly but the problem lies in the hand-managment that is way too limiting. You realistically get to do every action a couple of times and some are so crucial to the game, like recruiting or attacking that they are simply not enough. I feel like an expansion or a new version could easily make this game perfect. The game also offers great value with good components and art at a 40$ price range. I would still choose to play this game over most dudes on a map game, like Lords of Hellas, Blood Rage or Dominant Species but it doesn't even remotely compare to the absolute benchmark that is Forbidden Stars.

3. 6 out of 10

   GSReis

   Very asymmetric "dudes-on-a-map" game with some Euro mechanics. Each player has a set of command cards that limit their actions in a good way (they can't just attack every turn) and provide bonuses according to the number of cards played before or after. This creates some interesting decisions but also a bit of a script, as you will usually want to play certain cards early and others later. Victory points are gained by defeating enemy units and completing private or public events. Public events usually consist of moving to a given region and spending a rune of the indicated color. That brings a very significant randomness, both in where the events must be completed and in the runes you get. With fewer than six players, you are strictly limited in the selection of races that can be played. In a three-player game, for example, you must play with fire, frost and hill giants. This is somewhat frustrating, but it's supposedly required for game balance. However, the game is still not properly balanced, which has been acknowledged by the designer. The unplayed races have some units put on the map during setup, causing an odd situation in my three-player game. As it was less risky to attack those neutrals, there was no combat between players. The combat system is well done, but with spells, special abilites, bonuses, rerolls and changing of results, I feel it takes longer than it should and really slows down the pace. A more streamlined system would have worked better. We finished the game a bit under two hours, but it felt like more. It takes longer with each additional player, since the victory point pool that serves as a timer increases, and I can't imagine playing it with six. The highlight of the production is, of course, the miniatures. Some are really large and look very imposing on the board, especially next to the giant slayers. The problem is that there are just two of these champions for each race (and it irks me that the two are different for only for one race). All other units are represented by cardboard tokens that don't mesh well with the miniatures and obviously don't look as good on the board. I honestly would have preferred regular-sized miniatures for every unit.