Marvel: Age of Heroes

The game is fun with clear rules, some complexity, and a unique angle. One disappointment about the game itself, is that the "Superhero Team-ups" it advertises are NOT player-chosen-- they are defaulted to specific pairs of heroes, vastly reducing versatility of play. The game is balanced around those specific pairs however, so it is understandable, just disappointing. The game also takes a bit longer to play than one might suspect, given the relatively simple tasks laid out for you, and while there's very little depth to the strategy or variability of game to game, there is *some* of each. If you like Marvel and/or complex board games (that aren't *too* complex) you'll probably like this one.

From the same designer as the classic Lords of Waterdeep, this game is a worker placement based mostly on a refined system of Waterdeep. But whereas Waterdeep felt like a really bland game of collecting cubes, Age of Heroes is dripping with X-Men lore. From the Xavier Institute, to iconic villains new and old, to allies and team ups that help your cause; every card, every component and every mechanic in game evoke X-Men stories throughout the generations. Some people think there is a disconnect between the game being competitive and the X-Men theme. But I disagree. Many times in comics, various factions of the X-Men have had differing ideological and philosophical world views and have been opposed to each other indirectly, and the game reflects this schism. The game can be quite long, but the publisher has printed scenario options in their website to speed up gameplay. All in all, I highly recommend this game for a mid complexity game that can either be played by casuals looking for a (doable) challenge and euro gamers who enjoy worker placement.

I want to love this game. I really do. My friend and I spent about 2 hours trying to assemble the pieces and understand the instructions, but finally gave up. I think you need a doctorate to play this game. I'm keeping it, hoping I'll find a smarter friend to join us and figure it out for us

This game is from one of the co-designers of Lords of Waterdeep, and as you might expect its core concept is very similar: you place your pawns onto empty board spaces in order to gain resources, and later spend those resources in specific combinations to score points. But there are a ton of little touches here that really feel like they're adding an extra layer of complexity to dig into, and I think that works out extremely well. It's also a joy as an X-Men fan: Waterdeep's buildings are here replaced by "Allies" and "Team-Ups," and seeing the board fill up with classic heroes and teams, often with fun thematic representations of their powers, is a delight. The most obvious change from Waterdeep is that each round now has two phases. In the first, you play your little hero tokens onto spaces in Xavier's Institute to "train" (i.e., gain resources). But you can also play them onto the X-Jet, and in the second phase, any heroes in the X-Jet will get to go on a mission (that is, you can play them onto another set of spaces in order to spend resources to damage a villain and score points). Each villain has a limited number of "slots" in which they can take damage, and all players are competing for the same ones (imagine if Waterdeep's quests were all spaces on the board, and you had to place a pawn on that specific space in order to turn in the quest). Because of this, the order in which heroes are placed in the X-Jet is incredibly important, and there are a lot of wonderfully agonizing decisions to be made: do you sneak a hero in there first in order to have your pick of damage slots, and trust that your other heroes will be able to generate enough resources in order to actually use them? Do you suspect that other players will deal enough damage to flip a new villain card, meaning that you should possibly forgo generating resources in order to throw a hero into the X-Jet just in case something good comes up? There are also "Team-Up" cards, which will typically let you damage a villain for fewer resources and generate bonus effects; but these can only be used on specific damage slots, and again, you're competing for them as you would for buildings in Waterdeep. The turn order is fully dynamic from round to round, which also leads to a lot of decision making as you try to pick the best moment to secure a favorable slot. There are also a lot of little things that, again, add just a bit more complexity: your chosen heroes have special abilities that you can upgrade over the course of the game (Kitty Pryde can sneak into spaces others can't, Gambit can generate more card draw, etc); you get to choose the bonus you get when someone else uses one of your ally spaces, depending on where you play it; you can generate "Students," which are temporary pawns you can assign to the board; and so on. There are also multiple scenarios, featuring different combinations of villains and allies and some new rules; you're definitely getting a lot of game in the box! My one complain is that the rulebook isn't great. It's possible I'm just dumb, but I found myself really wishing it had a glossary, because it sometimes seems to use different phrasing for the same concepts. The board makes heavy use of symbols, making it kind of mind-boggling that there are no quick-reference cards (there *is* a quick-reference guide on the back of the instruction manual). And while the core rules are very intuitive, it could really stand to to have more clarifying examples for a lot of little mechanics (do the end-of-round effects on "Leader" cards apply to all players, or only to players with pawns on them? A designer in a random BGG thread says it's the latter, which does make logical sense, but as far as I can tell the actual language of the game does not specify this anywhere). It's not a dealbreaker, but it did lead to more "I guess it must work this way?" moments than I would have liked. TL;DR: If you're looking for a Lords of Waterdeep with a bit more complexity and decision making, this is for you. If you're a big X-Men fan in search of a solidly crunchy board game, this is for you. If you're both of those things? A match made in heaven. Would highly recommend!

Jogo com tema de X-men competitivo com vários cenarios e mecânica de alocação de trabalhadores. fácil de explicar e jogar. Tempo médio de jogo de 2 a 3 horas as primeiras partidas. Jogo chegou bem embalado e sem danos na caixa.