Wednesday night at Scimitar Wargames Group saw my first play of the much anticipated follow-up to Columbia Games Hammer of the Scots, Richard III: The War of the Roses.
There has been a lot of buzz about this game, and I was very keen to try it.
My Reaction? To be perfectly honest, somewhat mixed.
The game itself is actually very good. A simple and elegant card-based system, which gives a lot of freedom for tactical play. The combat system is quick, easy whilst still leaving you with several considerations.
And more to the point, it fun – I really enjoyed myself.
However, this is offset by the poor production quality of the game – any game that costs in excess of £40 and doesn’t even have a mounted board, let alone a ‘proper’ box, is seriously lacking, IMO.
There wil be a full review of this game in the next Meeples & Miniatures Podcast episode.
The above picture shows the ‘Battle of Coventry’ – 2 major field armies clash in turn 5 of the game. The Lancastrians (Red) are bested on the field, partly due to the treachery of Buckingham, but manage to withdraw in good order.
November 10, 2009 at 1:22 am |
Having received my copy today, I can say that the component quality is equal to previous Columbia releases. The map even feels a little better than previous maps, but I haven’t pulled out the other games to compare.
Not that it is anything to write home about, but for people used to GMT/Columbia/MMP offerings it is not terrible. Card quality has always been my beef with the Columbia games, but given that you don’t cycle through them multiple times they still hold up.