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Feeling a physical present: Ten summer games and gadgets
Something for the silly season, Sir? Maybe robots versus ferrets?
Star Wars Armada
It could be argued that you’d need a Whipple Shield to navigate the Star Wars universe as it’s becoming the cultural equivalent of a space debris field, but if you have ever wanted to take control of a Star Destroyer now’s your chance. Along with a whole fleet of capital ships and swarms of TIE fighters, Bombers and Interceptors, it’s time to go head-to-head – as either The Empire or The Rebels – across a tabletop star mat, in an epic space battle.
The gameplay consists of four simple phases: assigning commands, activating Capital Ships, activating Squadrons, and the status phase, where I reset for the next turn. Each player takes turns moving their ships, so the gameplay can be surprisingly fast and furious as I try and outmanœuvre the enemy ships and gain the dominant firing position.
There’s some tactical depth to building my fleet, as I need to spend time thinking about choosing my captain, crew and additional weapons. A single ship can change the course of the whole battle.
Fantasy Flight are keeping this game relevant and replayable by constantly releasing new ships, encouraging me to buy into this collectible game. It’s on-going and not cheap (probably similar to Han Solo’s bounty) and just around the corner is Armada Wave 2 that includes a micro machine version of the Millennium Falcon. Certainly, I’m looking forward to see how this expands the gameplay. It’ll keep me busy until I get my hands on a PS4 copy of Star Wars: Battlefront and on eyes on The Force Awakens.
More info Fantasy Flight Games
Marvel Dice Masters: Age of Ultron
Collectible card games are super popular with millennials (see Magic: the Gathering and its 20 million players) and Dice Masters spices things up by including all your favourite characters (including rocket raccoon) and some good-looking colourful dice.
Each player starts with the same pool of eight custom dice in a bag and 15 dice that make up my own team of characters. These are placed on my character card until I can pay the appropriate power cost to recruit them into battle. The Characters all have their own dice plus different rules and abilities.
Pick four random dice per turn and use them to attack, defend or to bring (hero) dice into the game. Marvel Dice Masters is suitable for all ages, as well as being easy to transport and an entertaining quick-fire game. Now I just wish I could avoid spending all my hard-earned pocket money buying booster packs whenever I visit my friendly local gaming shop.
More info WizKids Games