Real Talk By: Haggy

DOOM: The Board Game, is another entry by Fantasy Flight, and it takes place in the DOOM series by Bethesda and Id Software with one player controlling a hoard of Demons while up to 4 other plays play marines trying to accomplish an objective on the modular game board.  The game is a hoot to play, if a bit complex and pricey, but as far as Fantasy Flight is concerned, that is the norm.

Starting up, players will first see the fantastically designed models and game board pieces.  The models themselves built very well and honestly showing just how much detail can be made into a board game.  This of course leads some hobbyists to want to paint the models if they wanted too, but all the same.  The game presents itself very nicely.

Next, the players will be introduced to the sheer amount of pieces, cards, and tokens.  This isn’t so bad compared to games like Eldritch Horror, Kingmaker, or other extremely complex games since a lot of these are the well detailed minis, but set up time does take a lot of time so please be sure that either the entire party helps set the game map, or that there is something to do while people wait.

Finally, the players will get into the game rules and the game itself, and what a game it is!  Players take it in turns to do one main action and however many bonus actions are in there hand when their initiative card comes up.  During their turn, they can move, attack, and score their objectives as best they can while when it’s the Invader’s turn to move one of the types of demons on the board, they will be trying to stop the Marines from accomplishing these goals.

The game actually starts going by relatively quickly, and if you do want to do a campaign of missions, make sure to have a nice sound track in the background. I would definitely suggest Metal, or the Soundtrack of DOOM itself.  However, with this game play comes a slight caveat.  The Invader is not a GM, and is in fact, trying to win as well.  This also means that the Invader is not only obliged to, but also recommended to be as mercilessly dickish as possible to kill the marines.  Just make sure all players know that whatever happens in DOOM stays in DOOM.

In Summary, DOOM: TBG is an excellent design of asymmetric  game play on table top, and is one of the perfect ways to get friends into board games as long as they don’t mind the occasional frustration and the long set up times between missions.

DOOM: The Board Game Gets

4 out of 5

 

What’s Legit?

+Fun to Play with Friends

+Provides Great Service to the DOOM Franchise

+Fairly balanced

What’s Perpetrating?

-The Game at Times Takes Too Long

-A Mission Can be Quite Exhausting

-Occasionally Might Lead to some Bad Mannered Play

#Doom @PlayLegit