DOOM the board game

I'm really liking the move away from time sensitive missions like in Imperial Assault. The Overlord role seems more like an actual player instead of a DM, which I also like. I only wish it could play solo.

Yeah it's good stuff.

I wish I could have talked about this in my review (word count limitations bah), but the way it handles that time element of missions is clever.

I'm not a big fan of Imperial Assault's hurry up and don't waste a single ounce of time having fun. But I also don't like endless meandering. Doom bridges the gap by providing a timer not hard-coded into the structure of the round, but in how it doles out the progress and adversity.

The Demon player is only spawning so many dudes and you're either cutting through them or you're dying 6 times and the game is over. Additionally, you can catch up to where you left after you die by activating those teleporters.

It's just simple, smart decisions.

Still think the deck-building via weapons is the most genius thing about it. The handling of the weapons is apropos to FPS gaming with a very dynamic, lively feel. It reminds me of Adrenaline in that regard. Glory Kills finish the whole thing off.

Thanks charlest. I'm even fine with Joel's comment of a lack of narrative throughout the missions. What are your thoughts?

Dr. Mabuse wrote: Thanks charlest. I'm even fine with Joel's comment of a lack of narrative throughout the missions. What are your thoughts?

I haven't watched Joel's review yet because I was finishing up my own when his dropped (I try to avoid others thoughts usually before writing a review). I like Joel's reviews quite a bit though.

There's not much of a narrative from a structured sense. But I do think there's somewhat of a narrative if you piece together highlights of a particular game. This mostly occurs because of the power curve as you pick up those Chainsaw/Minigun/Rocket Launchers. So I tend to get somewhat of a story about those marines scrapping it out and pushing through a choke point to grab a high powered weapon or two and when those weapons come together for large rounds with a lot of destruction, I remember those and they form a light story.

It definitely doesn't have the same narrative feel as Conan though.

I think Doom is more about that feeling it gives you, attempting to tie into the emotions of the video game and how FPS games tend to give you a rush.

Anyone coming to Doom for the story is doing it wrong.

hotseatgames wrote: Anyone coming to Doom for the story is doing it wrong.

Doom's complex story and narrative: kill shit.

Played last night with 4, and we were all pretty much bored to tears by the first scenario.

The strategy boils down to: Demons mob one dude until you frag him. There are a lot of little tricks like stunning to prevent defense pulls.

But the game also includes SO much detail that really doesn't matter that much. Terrain...everything has a mix of movement and ranged attacks that are pretty expansive considering the small rooms. You can generally get a shot on anything without cover except in the largest rooms / halls.

The cards are potentially cool, but a hand of three means that your and is kind of forced....there are some differences in range and movement and the odd special power.
The demon player on the other hand is wading through 6 event cards per turn. Extra defense point here, reroll there.....

It is like it wants to be a really quick playing beer and pretzels game and a pretty intricate simulation of the video game. And ended up being surprisingly, spectacularly mediocre. Even with all of the nifty new bells and whistles.

Adrenaline, btw, turns out to be a lot more fun. Which is weird. Adrenaline is the least aggressive, most massively euro-style majority-scoring game ever made about shooting people in the face. I SHOULD hate it with every fiber of my being.

Did you play any other scenarios? I only ask as most scenario based games tend to have weak intro missions in, order to get players up to speed with the game moving parts.

I'm not sure. Missions are basically Lego blocks. The elements are:
Map
Objective (6, I think)
Spawn Card describing the actual monsters which spawn from portals.
Another Card Name which describes the rules for how monsters spawn (3 ) and if they can open doors
a combination of 3x6 event card mini decks for the Demon player.

Each mission basically just shows the map, and lists "suggested" choices for the others. There really isn't much flavor text at all or additional rules--the rules are all on the Objective and Other Card Name.

In practice, I can see that:
The demons ALWAYS have an objective to kill 6 marines.
The demons have a reach of 10 or so spaces in a turn (move + shots). That's perhaps a third of each map.

The marines are mostly concerned with objective markers: Reaching, collecting, killing a marked demon, escorting a slowly moving marker, defending against waves.

The first scenario definitely has a weak design. It has 3 demon groups in a bottle. Pop each bottle (open the sealing door) in turn until you kill them. I don't see any sign of a timer. Once a room is cleared, the Marines basically have unlimited time to prep. (I think....I can't find the rule that really forbids that).

Seeing Demons spawn in different ways is interesting. I also dig the hand management of the Demon player as you want to discard cards for Argent power.

I like Adrenaline quite a bit, but I think Doom is way more interesting.

I agree that the first scenario does suck. The Marines don't have unlimited time to prep though, at least not without cost. If they sit back, the Demon player should be discarding the majority of their event cards and gaining tons of Argent. This will cause serious issues for the Marines.

Play some of the Hell missions in the second campaign, those are awesome.