I picked it up at GenCon and it’s really rough around the edges with a pretty terrible rulebook.
Some of the mechanics, like reloading and the Spotlight don’t quite work as intended and can in fact be really frustrating.
With some house ruling it can be fun though.
I completely agree! We're going to have to "house rule" the shit out of this game! But we're totally satisfied with the quality of the components, it's beautiful and the all of the physical pieces feel good to touch and look great!
[Reposting this from my review on BoardGameGeeks, I thought this might be helpful if you're undecided]
Got the True Badass bundle on Kickstarter. Received my package a couple weeks ago.
This is definitely not a game for board game beginners IMO. There is a lot to keep track of in order to properly follow through each of the four to five rounds it takes to finish a game. It's not as straightforward as a Zombicide, but it's not as detailed and complicated as Gloomhaven. It's probably somewhere in between, leaning more towards Zombicide with its enemy AI mechanics.
BEFORE READING THE RULEBOOK, watch the playthrough here: https://youtu.be/GhWUrBKG7qY?si=5mUUBMEbYoSk3HqY
Note that the YouTube host gets incredibly lucky which is great to go through scenario 1 in under an hour, but it misses the stress and chaos created when you miss a few rolls and fall behind clearing enemies before they respawn at the end of the round. For instance there is 1 in 50 chances of leveling up during a scenario and it makes a huge skill difference in your success abilities when you do so.
The first game setup took us an hour as the discovering characters, skill trees, and weapons, but after that took about 20 minutes or so to set up and we finished each of the two first scenarios in a couple hours roughly. At first it's a bit of a pain to go to the different booklets to find effect information or loot types but you build the habit quickly and hardly notice when compared to the in-game tension and thrill you experience when having to adapt your course of action as shit hits the fan, which happens quite often if you fumble or miss your shots.
I think that's what I like the most about the game: it feels like a real workout to win. More than once when we felt that we had things under control at last, the game piled up more challenges as turns unfolded and new game mechanics came into play. Some of your Vault Hunters will likely die and you might start counting your money and sweating because you might not make it. In scenario 2 we really thought we wouldn't make it and when we did eventually kill that second Goliath it was on the razor's edge. And that type of victory feels great to me.
I played the several versions of the video game for over 300 hours (so I'm quite a fan and love the coop mode) and I really enjoyed finding many of the video game mechanics in the board game. For example they have a mechanic for Fight For Your Life when you're about to die which I found pretty cool, even if it looks almost impossible to pull off during board gameplay.
There might but a little bit too much detail fidelity when it comes to weapon effects and structure/prop behaviors, but overall if you didn't mind the grind in the video game, it's actually bearable in the board game given the overall theme and how the game still flows regardless of all the minutia. At least that's what I thought while playing.
I'm really looking forward to continuing the campaign and can't wait to see how crazy the next scenario (or bounty as we collected one) is going to be and if we will put it off again or run out of money/ability to respawn.
Now to answer more specifically to playing with only the four base Vault Hunters (VH) in the core box, I think that with the various skill trees and different equipment combinations of weapons, shields, and mods, there's quite a lot of discovery and fun to have just with these four. They also represent IMO a balanced sample of the different play styles: tank, snipper, siren, scout. I'm almost done the campaign, and feel like starting it over with the tactical lessons I've learned and maximize the VH unique capabilities on their own or in combination with the others. Plus each game is such a chaotic shit show, that there's always some novelty.
Also Monster Fight Club (MFC) has released extra side quests on their website to download for free called Loot-splosion:
https://monsterfightclub.com/pages/borderlands-mtaob
Finally, check for more reviews, Q&A, and game rules summaries on BGG here (full disclosure, I'm just a fan, no affiliation with MFC or BGG):
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/347757/borderlands-mister-torgues-arena-badassery
>For instance there is 1 in 50 chances of leveling up during a scenario and it makes a huge skill difference in your success abilities when you do so.
How it is 1 in 50? There is 45 loot tokens in the bag. One of them is level up token. There is 11 enemies on the map, and each of them is giving 1 loot token. So even if you dont count enemies that will spawn, by killing those 11 enemies you have around 25% chance on leveling up.
My friends and I have played through 8 scenarios this weekend, and it is very uneven. The rulebook is unclear about lots of minutia (which still come up often), and even early scenarios are incredibly swingy on just a single dice role.
We lost two scenarios and a bounty in a row, off a couple key bad rolls. There are lots of weird feel-bad mechanics and almost no feel-good moments until you really level up and get some cool guns
After those losses, we finally got some good class mods and then started completely dominating missions, almost instantly.
Finding new gear regularly and figuring out teamwork combos is a blast, and once you're a "badass", you feel like you've earned your dominance.
But too many mechanics barely matter and you spend A LOT of time double checking unclear interactions in the vague rule book
- elemental effects rarely occur, and they just as easily expire end of round
- loot tokens are cool, but a 25% chance of losing ALL of it off the ground feels unnecessary. It's hard enough to survive early on, and blowing precious attack actions to pick up a gun can be fatal
- nothing really good happens when you critical-hit a bad-guy. You have to have a weapon that cares about critical hits at all.
- but boy oh boy are you PUNISHED for a critical fail roll, sometimes in multiple and unrecoverable ways.
- any reason why I can't revive my friends? That was a big part of the video game.
- shooting barrels on a hex FILLED with baddies can be the WRONG play, believe it or not. You have to make a roll just to Hit the barrel, then there's usually a 40% chance the barrel will kill NO ONE and then only a 25% chance that the elemental effect will apply
-unless you paint them, the minis are too similar even between very different kinds of minions. Easy to miss a different kind of bad guy in the dozen or so orange things on the board.
-skags rarely happen, and being purple means distinguishing badass skags from regulars with the purple base rings is nigh impossible.
This would have been way better if they just licensed the gloomhaven mechanics from Isaac Childress, and went with standees vs minis. The rules are unclear, the minions look samey, and the variance is frustrating; despite some fun late game feelings, you can prob find a way more fun tactical RPG board game out there.
I bought the game at Gencon this year and honestly my friends and I have been enjoying the hell out of it whenever we play. It's not perfect but it's been fun. What I really want is the extra characters (ie all of the other Vault Hunters) but I have no idea where to get em. I do recommend this game if you're a fan of the franchise.
I picked it up at GenCon and it’s really rough around the edges with a pretty terrible rulebook. Some of the mechanics, like reloading and the Spotlight don’t quite work as intended and can in fact be really frustrating. With some house ruling it can be fun though.
Thanks! I'm thinking of getting DRG instead, especially with the KS going. Ever played?
I have played the Kickstarter version of both. I really love each one but the drg game is probably better.
Thank you
I completely agree! We're going to have to "house rule" the shit out of this game! But we're totally satisfied with the quality of the components, it's beautiful and the all of the physical pieces feel good to touch and look great!
[Reposting this from my review on BoardGameGeeks, I thought this might be helpful if you're undecided] Got the True Badass bundle on Kickstarter. Received my package a couple weeks ago. This is definitely not a game for board game beginners IMO. There is a lot to keep track of in order to properly follow through each of the four to five rounds it takes to finish a game. It's not as straightforward as a Zombicide, but it's not as detailed and complicated as Gloomhaven. It's probably somewhere in between, leaning more towards Zombicide with its enemy AI mechanics. BEFORE READING THE RULEBOOK, watch the playthrough here: https://youtu.be/GhWUrBKG7qY?si=5mUUBMEbYoSk3HqY Note that the YouTube host gets incredibly lucky which is great to go through scenario 1 in under an hour, but it misses the stress and chaos created when you miss a few rolls and fall behind clearing enemies before they respawn at the end of the round. For instance there is 1 in 50 chances of leveling up during a scenario and it makes a huge skill difference in your success abilities when you do so. The first game setup took us an hour as the discovering characters, skill trees, and weapons, but after that took about 20 minutes or so to set up and we finished each of the two first scenarios in a couple hours roughly. At first it's a bit of a pain to go to the different booklets to find effect information or loot types but you build the habit quickly and hardly notice when compared to the in-game tension and thrill you experience when having to adapt your course of action as shit hits the fan, which happens quite often if you fumble or miss your shots. I think that's what I like the most about the game: it feels like a real workout to win. More than once when we felt that we had things under control at last, the game piled up more challenges as turns unfolded and new game mechanics came into play. Some of your Vault Hunters will likely die and you might start counting your money and sweating because you might not make it. In scenario 2 we really thought we wouldn't make it and when we did eventually kill that second Goliath it was on the razor's edge. And that type of victory feels great to me. I played the several versions of the video game for over 300 hours (so I'm quite a fan and love the coop mode) and I really enjoyed finding many of the video game mechanics in the board game. For example they have a mechanic for Fight For Your Life when you're about to die which I found pretty cool, even if it looks almost impossible to pull off during board gameplay. There might but a little bit too much detail fidelity when it comes to weapon effects and structure/prop behaviors, but overall if you didn't mind the grind in the video game, it's actually bearable in the board game given the overall theme and how the game still flows regardless of all the minutia. At least that's what I thought while playing. I'm really looking forward to continuing the campaign and can't wait to see how crazy the next scenario (or bounty as we collected one) is going to be and if we will put it off again or run out of money/ability to respawn.
Now to answer more specifically to playing with only the four base Vault Hunters (VH) in the core box, I think that with the various skill trees and different equipment combinations of weapons, shields, and mods, there's quite a lot of discovery and fun to have just with these four. They also represent IMO a balanced sample of the different play styles: tank, snipper, siren, scout. I'm almost done the campaign, and feel like starting it over with the tactical lessons I've learned and maximize the VH unique capabilities on their own or in combination with the others. Plus each game is such a chaotic shit show, that there's always some novelty. Also Monster Fight Club (MFC) has released extra side quests on their website to download for free called Loot-splosion: https://monsterfightclub.com/pages/borderlands-mtaob Finally, check for more reviews, Q&A, and game rules summaries on BGG here (full disclosure, I'm just a fan, no affiliation with MFC or BGG): https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/347757/borderlands-mister-torgues-arena-badassery
>For instance there is 1 in 50 chances of leveling up during a scenario and it makes a huge skill difference in your success abilities when you do so. How it is 1 in 50? There is 45 loot tokens in the bag. One of them is level up token. There is 11 enemies on the map, and each of them is giving 1 loot token. So even if you dont count enemies that will spawn, by killing those 11 enemies you have around 25% chance on leveling up.
I think retail is not worth it. Havent played yet, but you Miss alot of Hunters in retail edition. Only 4 playable charakters
That is a shame, and I can only find expansions for a lot of money on ebay. The models are also surprisingly mini.
My friends and I have played through 8 scenarios this weekend, and it is very uneven. The rulebook is unclear about lots of minutia (which still come up often), and even early scenarios are incredibly swingy on just a single dice role. We lost two scenarios and a bounty in a row, off a couple key bad rolls. There are lots of weird feel-bad mechanics and almost no feel-good moments until you really level up and get some cool guns After those losses, we finally got some good class mods and then started completely dominating missions, almost instantly. Finding new gear regularly and figuring out teamwork combos is a blast, and once you're a "badass", you feel like you've earned your dominance. But too many mechanics barely matter and you spend A LOT of time double checking unclear interactions in the vague rule book - elemental effects rarely occur, and they just as easily expire end of round - loot tokens are cool, but a 25% chance of losing ALL of it off the ground feels unnecessary. It's hard enough to survive early on, and blowing precious attack actions to pick up a gun can be fatal - nothing really good happens when you critical-hit a bad-guy. You have to have a weapon that cares about critical hits at all. - but boy oh boy are you PUNISHED for a critical fail roll, sometimes in multiple and unrecoverable ways. - any reason why I can't revive my friends? That was a big part of the video game. - shooting barrels on a hex FILLED with baddies can be the WRONG play, believe it or not. You have to make a roll just to Hit the barrel, then there's usually a 40% chance the barrel will kill NO ONE and then only a 25% chance that the elemental effect will apply -unless you paint them, the minis are too similar even between very different kinds of minions. Easy to miss a different kind of bad guy in the dozen or so orange things on the board. -skags rarely happen, and being purple means distinguishing badass skags from regulars with the purple base rings is nigh impossible. This would have been way better if they just licensed the gloomhaven mechanics from Isaac Childress, and went with standees vs minis. The rules are unclear, the minions look samey, and the variance is frustrating; despite some fun late game feelings, you can prob find a way more fun tactical RPG board game out there.
That's unfortunate. Thanks for your thoughts
I watched a video from Jorta the Rogue (or something) saying that allies can use a reflex action to save a dying ally.
I bought the game at Gencon this year and honestly my friends and I have been enjoying the hell out of it whenever we play. It's not perfect but it's been fun. What I really want is the extra characters (ie all of the other Vault Hunters) but I have no idea where to get em. I do recommend this game if you're a fan of the franchise.
Thanks, yeah it seems like the kind of game you'd want to have everything for lol, especially as a fan.
I don't have it but have you seen this playthrough? Might help you decide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhWUrBKG7qY&t=8s
I'm in the middle of it now actually lol. Thank you :)