Overall Mage Knight design discussion

I've played the game enough now, I feel competent in discussing what's really going on.

Mage Knight is a light deck-building game. You'll add cards to your deck, but not every turn. Getting rid of cards in your deck is very rare - you'll add more luck to your deck with more powerful cards. (Mostly an innate balancing factor, you are more powerful, but at the cost of your deck tipping to one side or the other.)

Adding more cards is kind of like winning - you'll get more points for them. You'll also be gambling on big turns more often. If things come together, it will be AMAZING. If it doesn't come together, you'll be stuck imagining what could have been, and hope for it next game.


Sadly, you'll generally need a big turn to take on multiple monsters at a site, or even just a Draconum. What does it tell you when you're an experienced adventurer, but you still choke on turns? Tough love.

Allies are a guaranteed use, once per round. It means you don't need to draw them, or take up precious hand-size. They're even victory points. The silver units are roughly on par with a basic card from your deck...is it worth spending a couple of turns to get them? Maybe not.

Realistically, you'll probably lose a turn or two every round due to a bad hand. Don't have any move? Feel like pitching a hand of combat cards to move one space? Maybe you drew your influence cards after you left civilized areas. Honestly, the move actions are probably the most painful to appreciate. Much like the movement dice in Runebound, it can end your turn immediately.

I think there's a key element of spectatorship in most games. In a game like Carcassonne, another player is placing a tile, there's two elements of interest for you - what you could do with that tile if you had it, and maybe cheering them on for how it can help them. In Mage Knight, there's none of that. Maybe you can offer some critiques on how they can be more efficient, but you won't have knowledge of their entire hand. It's possible you can talk about their options on where to go next. In Vlaada's Through the Ages, it was sometimes entertaining to watch opponent's actions - what are they really valuing? What motives do they have for doing X as opposed to Y?

Overall, the game is pretty solid. The movement issues are mostly okay - it added some design options for extra abilities/spells/advanced actions. I'm frequently sad on other player's turns...nothing to really spectate, and their turn can last 5 minutes or so if they are optimizing.  (And if they are optimizing, they might need silence at the table.)

Mage Knight, 4-player

Soon on the heels of the 3-player game, we taught the game to 2 new players. They're competent gamers, and I had learned how to teach the game. 4 player game took about 3 hours, including explanation...not too bad.

I ended up playing the Elf lord, Norowas. I had last choice of day actions, which led me into going first with card #3. I managed to get to the nearby village and hire crossbowmen on my first turn. Second turn, I beat up the marauders, giving me the free ranged attack skill, and an Advanced Training that gave a white crystal or Ranged Attack 4.

For the rest of the game, I attempted to fight non-fortification monsters...meaning monster dens, dungeons, and rampaging monsters. The second monster den wounded me as I was eventually caught out, but I was able to end the third round very early, discovering the city on my first turn. After end-game scoring, I had 37.

Arythea the Blood Cultist got stumbled in the first turn - it was tough racing ahead, when you start behind. It persisted the rest of the game, trying to get to the monsters that could be defeated reasonably.

Tovak was played by one of the new players - he focused on keeps, no allies, and the backstabbing skills (can't draw on the source and the one that deals wounds for drawing on the non-selected mana). He finished second with 36.

Goldyx had the misfortune of battling a summoner-type in a fight for a mage-tower during the first Day round. Brutal 5, when you're not ready for it, is messy. (6 wounds. Fortunately he could heal two immediately after combat, but the others would be more painful to cure.)

The Tovak player embraced a healthy strategy - try a specific strategy, even if it fails, he's learned something.
The Goldyx player played an open game - go for whatever feels most easily scored. There's nothing wrong with this, it just means the player will miss out on deeper strategies until later.
My focus on ranged attack was pretty good, although I wish I had picked up my opponent's discarded range attack skill...that would have been +3 ranged attack, every turn, night and day turns. It was definitely painful, where I couldn't pick up keeps or mage towers. I had a lot of influence, but the monasteries were usually full, and the mage towers were scattered to the edge.

I'm looking forward to trying some of the new-to-us scenarios. I might like 2-player a little more in some ways - 3 and 4 ruins at least one player because they get shut out of explores in the normal wedge shape.

Mage Knight follow-up, 3-player

We played a 3-player game last night, where we taught a new player the game. Rob is a pretty relaxed and easy-going guy, but he can get frustrated if the game is messy. A test of teaching the game, as well as introducing it to a new player.


A three-player game was tough - monsters get wiped out much faster, allies are purchased earlier...going last in a round can really be a hindrance.

Elle grabbed a keep in the first Day cycle, while I managed to snag a Mage Tower. For Elle's level-up, as the blood cultist, she could pitch wounds to other players, which was pretty nice. Rob managed to beat up a couple of marauding monsters.

The Night cycle is pretty awesome for spells. I picked up a fire-based spell that blocked damage, and if I spent a red and a black mana to do it, it destroyed the opposing creature - no Attack damage needed. The second Day felt less exciting - we got stuck without moves or without attacks, leading to a couple of dead turns in the beginning.


My second dungeon was tough - I had a good mix of Attack and Block cards, but the dungeon spawned a 5 defense (easy), 7 damage monster with swiftness - it was either Block 14 or take 7. My hand was good, but not that good. The three wounds I racked up turned out to be bad for me...my healing spell I picked up went on top of my deck, and I didn't discard enough cards to draw it (I figured there would be a couple of turns left.) Sadly, the final turn came early, as Elle stopped battling and continued to explore - with the first of the final tiles showing the end condition. I managed to heal one of my wounds at a magic glade, but it left me with wounds and the most wounds tile...losing the the game.


I managed to defeat two dungeons, a keep, and a mage tower. Sadly, both dungeons awarded spells - I really wanted an artifact. The keep was stolen away by Elle - only got half fame for the gray monster guarding it, but gave her 2 fame at the end, as well as taking 2 fame away from me.

I still haven't recruited like I should - they are better than spells, in that they don't require you to draw them and usually don't take mana to power them. There was a rules question I got wrong during the game - I wanted to use black mana from the source, during the day, but in a dungeon (dungeons are considered night). Sadly the rulebook uses the words "never" about usimg black mana from the source during the day. Go rules FAQ on BGG!

Other missed rules - when buying multiple things with influence in a turn, your reputation penalty/bonus only applies the first time. Buying spells, you also need to spend mana of the same color of the spell. There are lots of little things that happen in the game - I'm sure as the full rulebook is consumed, there will be dozens of understandings corrected. Clumsy.

Next up, a 4-player game.

Initial review of Vlaada Chvatil's Mage Knight

I'm hugely disappointed that Wizkids doesn't offer rules support for Quarriors - to the point where I'd even avoid purchasing other games they produce, even by a favorite designer. I've mulled over Mage Knight since it came out, but couldn't pull the trigger.

My girlfriend was aware of my "could be good, but not buying it" stance, and just bought it one day when we were hanging out at a game store. It sat on our shelf for several weeks, waiting for the right time to come and play.

It plays 1-4. Word on the street is that the rules and game are dense. I ended up doing a single-player game as a warm-up one day, watched a guy play a single-player on youtube (painful, it's not worth it!), and then played a 2-player with the girl.

The rules are dense and somewhat clunky. I like Chvatil's design for Through the Ages - elegant! Dungeon Lords, Galaxy Trucker, and Space Alert are good in different ways. Mage Knight has so many rules that are not easily intuitive, I'm sad.

** The overview **

Mage Knight is an adventuring board game, in a complex vein of Runebound. Each player has a hero, who slowly walks around fighting monsters, occasionally picking up an ally. There are different scenarios to play, but that's pretty much the focus of the game - level up, take on bigger rewards.

The engine for gameplay is your own custom deck of cards. Everyone's deck is the same except for one card. You'll be able to add more cards to your deck, pretty much at the expense of your entire turn...I think we each added 4-5 cards. Everyone has their own selection of skill level-ups, but you won't see many in a game - maybe 2.

Your starting hand each turn is 5 cards. They can have a range of ordinary things - Move, Attack, Block, Influence, and custom effects that affect other cards. Each of those ordinary effects have a number - Attack 4 is good. Attack 2 means you'll need to add extra cards to make it work. Move 2 gives you enough move into a plains hex, or explore the edge of the map. If you have enough Block, you can avoid taking wounds (that clutter your hand and deck). Influence (combined with whatever reputation you've gained) is used in towns to pick up allies, spell cards, and advanced training cards.

Each card in your hand has a second effect. You can borrow 1 energy die from the common pool to use the second/better effect. If you have other energy lying around, you could boost more than one card. Needless to say, the basic effect of each card is tough to love. (Cards in your hand can be used as Attack/Move/Block/Influence 1. Wounds cannot be used that way.)

It's really about just wandering around and killing monsters. You can attack monasteries, Mage Towers, dungeons, tombs, monster dens...they all give you some kind of bonus, with the more challenging ones giving a bigger reward.
***
That quick overview is about it. The game adds some complexity on how monsters deal damage or avoid damage, as well as rules for playing during the day vs. a turn at night. Overall, it's a lot of fiddly bits.

First - movement is cranky. You thought Runebound was awkward, with rolling dice for movement. If you want to move and attack, you better have exactly the right cards. Mostly, you'll move and then have to attack next turn, because you'll probably need Block cards too (starting hand size is 5 for awhile). Or maybe you just want to move, and none of the cards you drew have move icons - each card can be used as a Move 1...which means you spend 2 to get just one plains space. (Your movement and vision change at night, as well as some spell effects.)

Second - damage is sluggish. You need X to kill a creature - fine. But to avoid damage from a monster, you spend block value equal to or greater than their attack value...or don't spend the cards. How about managing damage? Damage absorption is messy. And what happens if combat goes awry? Your hand floods with wounds, making you unable to draw cards. You spend your next turn, or turns as needed, discarding wounds into your discard pile (so next round you'll be crippled). Amazingly punishing.

Third - it's a deck-building game. You're supposed to add more cards to make your character better, right? The basic game is 3 large turns (Day, Night, Day.) Typically when you get a card, it goes on top of your deck - you'll get it for next turn. It's hard to imagine getting any of those cards in the first day cycle, which means for the effort of buying those cards, you *might* use them twice the entire game. Assuming you don't buy them on turn 3, or buy them turn 2 and not see them in turn 3.

There are variants, which I'm sure we'll explore. And the player vs. player, which they recommend for later games...maybe I'll revisit after some more experience.