Argent: The Neutrally Balanced Arrangement of Business

I am revising the Barnes Position on the expansion. Go ahead and get it.

It's REALLY good, and it actually doesn't make it more complicated. "In for a penny..." and all that.

It's set up in modules, so you can season to taste:

- Technomancers, which is a heavily information/research geared faction with their orange mages and some quite useful abilities, two new characters/spells. No brainer addition- you can alternately swap out one of the other factions for them if you don't want to use them all.

- Scenarios, which I love. Basically, these replace the plain ol' round cards and give more of a setting and usually some per-round effects. The one we did started everybody off with a powerful magic item. There's one where you can actually assassinate the voters and another where crazy shit happens like unoccupied rooms flipping over. It adds just another layer of setting to it all. They also modify the overall tone and goals.

- More Bell Tower cards, which I also love. This is a deck that replaces the standard Bell Tower cards. These are cards you can pick up as an action. The new ones expand the options there. Another very easy to implement addition.

- New rooms with awesome powers. Make golems and dump assets to synthesize magic items, for example. The rooms are more complex than the base game's, so these would be more for an "advanced game" session.

- A new elector that has a staff you have to control to get her vote at the end of the game- we didn't use this one, but it looked cool.

- New vault cards/supporters/spells- no brainer additions, just mix them in.

None of these increase playing time or rules overhead. Some of the new rooms are more complicated, but mostly everything is seamless. It's the right kind of expansion, offering a little more if you want to go for it.

One thing I am sort of not-so-positive about after a couple of plays is that there is a LOT of built-in redundancy. Like, there's 50 ways to wound a mage. It seems like there are too many sources for everything, at least in some configurations. There's almost always a way to get something you want/need, it's just a question if it's efficient enough to be worth it or if doing so is going to keep you from doing a different action.

Also, "Larimore Burman".

This game is sounding so much like Harry Potter I'm surprised no cease and desist from Rowling yet. /sarcasm

With a big dose of bad manga/anime art.

The art so far is the main detractor for me -- final decision will be made after I hear Gary's take.

Let's all agree to not talk about the artwork while we are having a big ol' Argent hugfest, shall we?

When I take over, there will be book burnings that will include all extant English language copies of "How to Draw Manga and Anime Characters".

Michael Barnes wrote: One thing I am sort of not-so-positive about after a couple of plays is that there is a LOT of built-in redundancy. Like, there's 50 ways to wound a mage. It seems like there are too many sources for everything, at least in some configurations. There's almost always a way to get something you want/need, it's just a question if it's efficient enough to be worth it or if doing so is going to keep you from doing a different action.

You can sort of see why they had to do this. They literally *could not* have games where, like, you couldn't do any researching of spells. Rare and ass backwards way of doing it creates a charming corner case game that everyone at the table remembers, but getting rid of some game element entirely for a match is different.

I got out Argent and played one of those schizo solo plays to make sure I got the rules. The dude with the fireballs vs. the one who can banish and then wound someone. It was quite cool, but it's hard to express just how mean this game is. It simultaneously has finely balanced and critical timing elements (resolution stage with merit badges, gold earnings, subsequent buys that require just the right amount of gold, mana or badges, etc---stuff that make placements depend on one another) while having the ability to simply torch the opponent's workers with spells, etc. I can see why no-one on BGG is really talking about this game. It's not chaotic, really, in the actual sense of the world---you're not sitting around rolling dice to see if something works, it is a question of if that guy across the table is going to spend some resources to throw a fireball at your perfectly timed engine---it's just so unforgiving. The twist is that it is simultaneously unforgiving for all the players and there are steps you can take to protect against the take that but you have to really prioritize what parts *have* to work. So I think everyone at the table has to make their resolution phase as resilient as possible to the 10 things your opponents could do to fuck it up.

Anyway, that's not an endorsement. I have no idea if the game works in real conditions. But it is interesting when you see a game played. In the setup I had, there were no extra ways beyond the required room to get supporters but there were a fuck-ton of resource, spell and vault stuff available.

I appreciate all the replies too. I'm so close to pulling the trigger on this one. The only thing holding me back is the fact that this may not go over with the majority of people I game with, but there are a few folks who would. I think I will end up getting it most likely and all this information has been very helpful.

airmarkus wrote: I appreciate all the replies too. I'm so close to pulling the trigger on this one. The only thing holding me back is the fact that this may not go over with the majority of people I game with, but there are a few folks who would. I think I will end up getting it most likely and all this information has been very helpful.

Yeah, I'm in a bit of the same situation. My guess is it'll go up like a lead balloon with my spouse.

A question about strategy (maybe about rules?), maybe someone could clear something up---

The Wall spell (there's a green one too) that prevents the opponent from using spells on your guys. Lvl 2 prevents any harm to your dudes from any source. I don't understand why you'd ever bother with it even though in theory it seems cool. It's an "Action" (not even a fast action) and it gives immunity to your dudes until next turn for one mana. But... since it's an action to use it, why would you ever use it? You surrender the ability to do anything but fast actions for a turn, then the next turn you're in exactly the same position as you were before. You can't even run down the timer in the meantime while you protect your mages since it's an action to take the cards.

It has the reaction shield on it, I assume this just means its power works like a reaction, not that it's played like one?

Thanks for the tips. Spells do seem of limited utility until you consider that they're the victory condition for many of the voters. Thought of as a sweeting of the pot for spending resources winning...

Also, another thing about the spells is that it takes an entire action to use them. I can see that being another pretty steep cost since the game doesn't guarantee you have time to place all your workers.

This game looks fuckin' rad, and as it turns out a buddy of mine has a copy that he's going to bring to our game night this week. He also said he is bringing the "summer break" expansion, which sounds lame/great. From reading this topic, I am afraid some of the resident pacifists in our group will have a hard time getting over the aggression, unless I can somehow justify it thematically or point out that the "aim of the game" is to get points, and that any "meanness" is a bi-product of trying to get points, or something.