We Could Be (Crisis) Heroes

After the disappointment from finding out how Heroes really work in Star Realms, I have been itching to play the expansion correctly. It's the only way to be sure, right?

I was finally able to sit down with Noah and play the game it was meant to be played.

Aaaaaannnnddd....

It's not bad. I have to admit, Heroes coming directly into play for offer some strategic options that otherwise would be unavailable. That twist alone represents an additional dimension of play.

In addition, the small bursts of allied power can provide some assistance in the early game, when resources are limited and allied bonuses are difficult to come by.

They are also completely blanked by a card like Machine Base, which triggers all your allies all the time. That isn't a horrible thing because it means that the strategy becomes deeper but it was a moment where I realized that I wish I'd made some different decisions, having both heroes and the base out at the same time. The Heroes are also not extremely useful in the late game but you can't have everything.

The expansions are still too damned expensive, though. $10 for the whole kit-n-kaboodle and I'd say that's fair.

House Rules

Holy moly is this new record by Heiress ferocious. Seriously! I likes the heavy metal and they do the heavy metal I likes. Moving on.

While playing Star Realms with Noah, we had a disagreement in regards to how Heroes worked. He thought they could only be activated to trigger an allied ability that hadn't gone off, while I thought they would re-trigger all allied abilities that had happened.

The rules are pretty unclear here (Crisis isn't great about communicating those rules) but in the internet age, I was able to ask the people who made Star Realms! Truly, we live in an age of wonder.

And they told me: they only trigger abilities that haven't been activated.

Well, that's lame. I'm going to have to run a few games with only Heroes from the Crisis expansion, just to see if they have an impact under those rules. Maybe they were just being overshadowed by all the other stuff!

But if they suck? I'm totally going to house rule those so they do what I want them to do. Because my way is awesome and their way is pretty weak.

Star Realms: Crisis

Two firsts happened this week: I got to play with the new Star Realms expansion cards and I got to play my first multiplayer game.

Multiplayer games still go pretty rapidly I'm glad to say, especially when everyone has a feel for the game. This is a nice change from epic Commander multiplayer games. The addition tactical decisions about where to spread your resources can make for an interesting dilemma, too.

After only a few games, here's what I can tell you about Crisis:

1) Heroes do not make their use immediately apparent. They're cheap to acquire, which is good, but they don't feel useful at first. Of the cards in this set, they are the ones that I think will need the most testing. I had two available to me at one point and I hesitated to use them. Noah had a similar situation and I think it's because Star Realms is about balancing when expend those scrapable resources. Some are obvious (Explorers) but bases or ships? This is harder to figure out and heroes fall under that category. Jury is still out.

2) Events are very cool. These are the impact cards, the ones that can sell the set. They're just random enough and the immediate impact feels pretty fair so nobody gets completely burnt.

3) The additional bases and ships don't suck but they don't light up the eyes. There are some interesting dimensions being added but at the moment they seem like 'win more'. For a first expansion, that seems about right. I don't need to get excited about what bases or ships do again, I'm already psyched.

4) This is absurdly expensive. $20 for 48 cards is pretty crazy when you can get the base game with 128 cards for $15. And of those, 110 are the ones you need to play the game-so what gives with this price point? If this doesn't balance out soon, I can see myself skipping out on future expansions. Because my money > less of my money.