Tail Feathers

Has anyone here played Tail Feathers or seen it up close? I don't know much about it yet, but Plaid Hat Games linked the rule book today.

From skimming through the rules I think it looks charming and tactically rich. However, my only experience with this type of game is with Silent Death (I'm assuming that Star Fleet Battles and Ace of Aces don't exactly count) so I have no idea how it compares with the Star Wars and Star Trek games that are out there already.

What do you guys think? Can this one succeed without a big licensed IP to get and keep people's interest? It does have cute mice riding on songbirds of prey.

I talked with Jerry about it, and it sounds pretty bad ass. He's pretty stoked about the design.

Seems like it's got a sort of Armada movement mechanic where which way you're tilting controls your actions for the next turn, but I'm not 100% on it. Just read some stuff and kind of got a basic premise. It's not Silent Death, not remotely. This is MUCH simpler.

SuperflyTNT wrote: I talked with Jerry about it, and it sounds pretty bad ass. He's pretty stoked about the design.

Seems like it's got a sort of Armada movement mechanic where which way you're tilting controls your actions for the next turn, but I'm not 100% on it. Just read some stuff and kind of got a basic premise. It's not Silent Death, not remotely. This is MUCH simpler.

Yeah, the actual attack/defend/scamper mechanics seem like they're just like in Mice and Mystics--definitely simple. Is it about the same weight as X-Wing Miniatures, or perhaps more of a gateway game?

I really like the image of commando mice riding fluttering leaves from a tree to a ground mission while bird-mounted riders swoop and joust around them. Or the Death Spiral that occurs when one bird attacks another one in flight. It's not dodging a bounty hunter in an asteroid field, but that kind of action gets the imagination cranking.

I have a weakness for cool sculpts. It's a problem. I was sold after looking at the minis.

I'm not sold on the mechanic that the person holding the First Player Token can force someone to tilt their mount. This is probably due to too many years of playing Blue Max and Richtofen's War. I suppose I should look at this aerial skirmish like the Dragonlance dragon battles.

Jerry's involved, so it's not going to be too light, but it also seems to be in that younger target market, so maybe not too heavy. Either way, it's going to kick ass. Bonus that you can use Mice and Mystics units in the game.

Cool to see my game mentioned over here on the fort. Tail Feathers is my mousy homage to Heroscape and other skirmish games I have enjoyed over the years. The system is for players 9+ and has basic and advanced add-on rules to layer on more choices, but nothing is super heavy or complex as it is designed for fun and quick game play with a visual cinematic quality. It's about on par with Heroscape in complexity.

By the way, Jerry, the pictures that you've been posting to the Tail Feathers BGG entry ought to be criminal. I loved the comment in one of those threads where someone said that one of the pictures shows the best painted stick he's ever seen. I agree!