Rank the boardgames of Nexus/Ares

I've been curious why I don't hear much about The Battle of Five Armies. Was it no good?

Who's excited about the upcoming expansion for Age of Conan? Anyone back it?

Thinking of the the team of: Roberto, Marco, and Francesco....I've only played two of their boardgames, War of the Ring and Marvel Heroes. To be honest, I really enjoyed Marvel Heroes with its unique and well thought out combat system, but found War of the Ring to be a slog.

So, do these guys still have a good track record with you or are they a one hit wonder with WotR? For those that have played several...how would you rank them and why?

War of the Ring is by far the best game they have/are producing. It's deserving of it's high regard. The rule book, like most Ares/Nexus games is a mess but worth the time and effort to learn. It is the best Middle Earth themed game as well. Accept no substitutes.

Battle of Five Armies is a good game. I have not played it enough to proclaim it great. It's got a lot more subtlety than one would at first suppose and while it is similar to War of the Ring in many respects in is substantially different in others. Enough so that the ownership of one should not preclude the ownership of the other. Now regarding it's long term replay value, that I cannot say not having played it often or long enough.

Age of Conan I have played once and I thought it was very fun. It got a crap reputation somehow, perhaps because it wasn't War of the Ring 2, but it is entirely undeserved. It's one of those games that really needs to be played with the full player count, four, so that's a bit of a limitation. Other than that, it is well worth your time to check it out. I look forward to the expansion.

Ad Astra is a long forgotten game by most but I really do think it's a great iteration on Settlers of Catan. I don't know if it was the first game to have the concept of a card having two functions that you could choose from and allowing you to perform it at full strength and others to do so at a reduced strength (I take "mine" and get 3 resources, you can mine as well but only get 1 resource) but it was the first time I encountered it. Did I mention it's set in space? Well it's set in space.

Galaxy Defenders man am I conflicted on this one. It has so much super awesome stuff in it and yet it is a complete cluster fuck in so many ways. The graphic design is atrocious. The board is confusing to the eye, the player mats/tiles are confusing, the cards have 63 different fonts each in a different color. It hurts the eye. The rule book, again, is a disaster, and yet...I want to love it. It deserves to be loved.

Pretty much everything Repo said. War of the Ring is _the_ LOTR game as far as I'm concerned. I'm lucky enough to have played it enough have gotten tired of it, but that took a long time is likely temporary.

Battle of Five Armies needs to be played more. I really like it. Quite different than WotR.

I've long been an Age of Conan apologist. I really like it. Backed the expansion. Can't wait.

Everything else they've done is rather weak. Marvel Heroes has a couple neat bits but the end result sucks and is a piss poor excuse for a supers game. I've decided I can't overlook the graphic design and UI of Galaxy Defenders to give it a pass.

Similar impressions as Repo on WotR and Galaxy Defenders. I also liked Marvel Heroes, but I've got a weakness for superhero games. I've never played the other two.

I also liked Conan and backed the expansion. I think the big knock against it was that people wanted to be able to play as Conan(?).

I'm curious about their Sword & Sorcery game kickstarting in a month. Looks like it is a fantasy themed Galaxy Defenders (they're calling it an evolution of the system). early figure images are a bit Warcraft-y for my tastes, but I'll be watching for it.

knock on conan is that you spend 3/4 of the game fighting neutrals, rather than other players. it is a slow game.

lj1983 wrote: knock on conan is that you spend 3/4 of the game fighting neutrals, rather than other players. it is a slow game.

I've seen this not happen on several occasions.

Wasn't Wings of War a nexus game? And Wings of Glory an Ares game?