Dwellings of Eldervale - Round One by Man vs Meeple (Breaking Games)

welcome back to MVM and round one our series where we play just the beginning of a game to give you a taste of what it's like in today's episode we will be playing dwellings of elder Ville an epic one defy player worker placement game from the creative minds of breaking games and designer luke laurie an elder ville each of us will control one of the many unique factions who seek to adventure and dominate over the eight elemental realms dwellings is a fascinating game the cohesively blends not only worker placement but also area control and engine building each turn players will either place one of their unique workers in two elder Ville and take the associated action or regroup by pulling back all of their workers and activating their tableau of acquired venture cards in front of them this turn structure not only provides the tactical Evan flow of a round but also provides an engaging sense of timing to every decision that you make you'll witness every move that we make and after the dust settles join us as we discuss our entire experience and find out which of us came out on top welcome to our table today we're going to be playing the dwellings of elder Ville this is a brand new game from breaking games and designer luke laurie which borrows from some of the mechanisms from his previous game but at its heart it is a worker placement game in which each of us is going to be representing one of the many factions in Albertville using our player abilities to interact with the modular board trying to gain control this area however it also has a little bit of area control and also has some engine building yeah this game has a ton of different mechanisms but like we said at its heart it's a worker placement game you're gonna be placing workers of varying types out into Elder Vale which is a modular board made up of these hexes but then you're also gonna potentially be bringing them back or regrouping leader workers and using them back here your player board that's right there's actually only two main mechanisms in the game that's placing your workers out or pulling them back and when you pull them back you're gonna be interacting with your sideboard or your tableau of cards that you've acquired adventure cards to the game so you're gonna have all these varying abilities they're gonna be getting through the course of the game as well this is the side board and on the side board there's a variety of different things we're going to talk about through the course of the game but the main thing you need to know is it has the victory points around the outside everyone's going to be competing for victory points it has the elemental board there are eight different elements that are represented in outer veil we're going to play with six of those that's because each of us is going to represent one of those four main ones that are tied in with our faction two of them have been picked randomly and then two of them aren't going to be used at all and we'll be going up these tracks trying to gain a victory point multipliers at the end of the game for what we have acquired in our tableau and the dwellings that we built out into elder bill itself also you're gonna have a glory track this is tight and very specifically to the combat that we do in the game and then across the top you have the orb rewards there's various times in the game as a reward you're going to gain these orbs that you see randomly throughout the game these can be turned in as well in order to gain some bonuses to the game yeah and we'll be talking about a lot of this in more detail as we play the first round or so but right next to the sideboard is elder veil itself like we said earlier this is made up of a bunch of different hex tiles there's two different types one are the elemental realms these are the colorful realms that you see dispersed throughout then you've got these sort of tan or beige tiles those are ruined tiles the ruined tiles are gonna be places where you go to do very typical mechanical things some of those abilities are also reflected back here on a card that every player has next to the board at the very very beginning of the game when you go to an elemental realm you're simply going to take the little resource token add it to your player board or turn it in for the resources immediately when you go to the ruin tiles you're going to enact the power of that tile there is fighting like Jeremy said the fighting is going to take place after you do the tile so the fighting doesn't it doesn't prevent you from doing anything you want to do but it may get in your way a little bit one of the unique things too about the tiles themselves as David already mentioned you could turn these in to gather the tokens that they represent on them however they can also be combined with the adventure cards that you acquire in order to give you abilities when you regroup it's very unique you also have this stack of cards here these are the magic cards that are gonna provide a range of abilities to the course of the game yeah there's three different types of magic cards you've got spells of course those are magic those are going to be used many different times throughout the game you can really pull those out and kind of really turn things on its ear you also have quest cards the quest cards are gonna be cards that you can fulfill throughout the game for victory points or other sorts of rewards and then prophecy cards are end of game scoring you're going to start with five of these and you have a hand limit of seven so the more of those prophecy cards you have or unfulfilled quests the more that hand is clogged up all right so the program is called round one however we're going to kind of break it up into however many turns we feel is appropriate that's because of the way that the game system works we already mentioned that the game doesn't have a typical turn structure that's because some players may be taking an active turn with their workers add-on to elder vil and some may be skipping their entire turn in order to regroup and take all those workers back to kind of refresh their ability on the next turn so we'll decide when we're going to stop however we've already been playing for a little bit we actually had a peaceful time at the very beginning yeah the time of peace is how the big game the game begins every single time you play it the good news is there's no fighting we don't fight each other we don't fight these little monsters here or big monsters here either this is the chaos beast and then our game this is the first monster that's gonna be out on the board every game of dwellings of Elder Vale is going to have one of the monsters out there each of the elemental types has a monster associated with it and they're going to be coming out throughout the game when we add tiles to elder Vale but at the beginning of the game there's no fighting the monster doesn't rush until we've all regrouped at least once and we've got a game in progress here so we're cheating a little bit some of us have regrouped Ryan and myself have regrouped Jeremy got an extra guy somehow how do I get an extra actually we went to the portal it's one of the locations on the board where you can expend some of your resources and recruit some of your workers those being the dragon the warrior the wizard our additional workers and I think Ciaran did as well but you did it differently yeah I used one of the magic arts yeah well there's a magic card that just let her recruit so they got extra guys so they're lagging behind a little bit so they still after a group and we're back to Jeremy's turn yeah so we're already out of sync and my turn has to be a regroup action but before I get there each of us is playing a unique faction I'm playing the blue faction which is called the Pirates of nightmare Cove this is tied in to the blue element that we see right here and you right here on the track that's because I specialized in that element which means I'm a little bit better I start at the beginning with some of those resources and a multiplier for into the game scoring plus I have two of my four characters that have special abilities that's my warrior and my wizard and my warrior has the special ability where he can actually contribute dice in adjacent locations and not take wounds which is fantastic for him yeah that'll become clear when we get into a fight and then my wizard special ability is the ability to actually be brought into the game in two locations where I already a.m. that's because when you take a work or action in this game the first worker that you bring out to the board has to be to a unique location where you aren't already are and then you have to start chaining these guys around you can't just place wherever you wish to place in the game but my wizard can alright so let me get into my action I have to regroup I have no more workers no more wizards no more dragons to place so I want to pull back my workers so you can right from the start see what I intend to do so let me grab that guy off the portal right here alright and anytime you pull back your workers you're allowed to place them on your starter card here this is going to start your tableau or your engine of adventure cards that you'll have each of these has three different areas that you can go to right here I can place a worker on the regroup to gain a resource and we all have different resources that we can gain however I've slotted this with a tile that I got from the very beginning so when I place my worker here I'm gonna be able to draw one of those magic cards that we talked about that'll be big I love drawing cards and games I love the abilities that they provide also have a mill here which is gonna allow me to actually build one of the dwellings we'll talk about those when we get to them and then the final one is a area that's going to allow you to recruit more people the more people you have obviously the better off you are for positioning within the game so this guy's going to go right here and I'm going to draw card of course and I'm simply gonna add it to my hand I'll look at that later and then we'll just start pulling guys off I'm gonna pull this guy off here and I think I'm going to recruit mice what my fifth worker yeah and I'm gonna go with a scroll and one of these mana potions and acquires two of any type that's because it's the second of our the second of my available workers that I have to recruit and he's going to come right out into the and then I can't build anything so these guys are probably going to be wasted no they're just wasted when they come back to the game so all their workers come back and now I have five workers to use on the next time I've got a lot of guys I'm trying something different we played this game several times at gamma we've taken to a couple retreats so I'm gonna try something completely different that is interesting I've got five workers I've got two right right that's shows you how different this game can play out I'm playing the ember crush ogres these are a kind of combat focused group and my special ability is on my workers and these workers roll two dice in combat as if they were warriors which is really nice because I don't have to move my warrior around as much but my warrior also has a special ability if he's involved in a combat win or lose I get a victory point so the game wants me to get out there and find a bunch but I didn't have as many workers so I actually had to regroup last time and when I regrouped I did go to that mill and I built a dwelling already and I built a dwelling in my home room which is fire and the reason I did that is because it moves me up the elemental power track each one of those tiles has symbols on it and you move up that many spaces it's like Jeremy said a victory point modifier so people at the table can tell I'm kind of going heavy on rent a little bit but now that I've done that I only have two workers left to place since I don't have any on the board I can go anywhere so I'm gonna go to that portal because I want to summon my warriors that cost me two hammers and a sword I only have one hammer and one sword but I do have a tile I can turn in that is two hammers no I'm actually gonna get one of those hammers back but I wanted to show how that works okay awesome so not gonna take my word and he's ready to place one of the things I forgot to mention on my turn when I regrouped I was the first free group I did of the game I had to take my token and put it down here on the glory track that means three out of the four of us have ended our peaceful phase once the last person does to does so we're going to immediately start into combats and then because our fighting one yeah so I'm looking forward to these guys you're done I'm done that's it all right well I'm playing the elves briar Dale so the earth element is my element and I have my special folks are the wizard which is a wandering sage so he gets to move into an adjacent hex when he's out without any worry about triggering a battle which is pretty cool and then there's my workers which I really like the workers because they are they belong both so they can actually contribute to a battle without moving into a tile which is gonna come in handy later I'm sure of it so what have I done so far so I'm out so I'm now about to in my period piece and pull back my workers one of the things that I did early was I land in a tile and I actually upgraded my tableau to take where I would have normally gotten a hammer if I put my worker here and put a gold coin instead which is a wild and I really yeah that's nice wild about the wild so I'm gonna go ahead and pull back and take one of those gold coins can act as any resources yes and then I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to dwell here three hammers so one of the things you have to notice as she's doing this any time you dwell you actually physically have to have a person in that location to do so it's not pulling off its meaning you're activating with a different worker or dragon or whatever so be happens to be and then using the one that's still located there so there's a lot of timing on how you place things on the board and when you pull back in the group then I'm going to - oh great so now I'm now I'm placed on both my element because of my starting tableau and on the gray element and then the last thing I'm going to do is pull back my last worker and I'm gonna bring out my dragon oh no my wizard Oh two potions I was looking at the wrong resource two potions and that's cool ask Earl before we get into David's turn it should be noted that each of these three actions although there's multiple icons on here can only be used once per turn so you can only recruit once even though you have six different positions and and now I'm on the glory track my period of peace is over everyone's pitiful time yeah so my first my first turn on camera here is gonna be the first turn where fights are possible now the way fights are gonna work like I said earlier they're not going to happen until after you've used the tile that you place on I can place anywhere where it's unoccupied right now which is pretty much almost anywhere on the board right now if I place a Jason to one of these monsters though that monster is going to rush now some of the monsters rush differently but all of them typically will rush into that space and then fight you afterwards so we'll see if that's what I choose I actually could I'll get to that in a second but I recruited my dragon for this very purpose because my dragon is one of the special units for the clerics of dawn who I'm playing the clerics of dawn have a special dragon and a special worker my workers I think I think I like I'm better than even yours yeah but I'll start with my dragon like Ryan's warrior my dragon win or lose when he goes to the underworld and we haven't talked about the underworld but when you lose a battle all of your units that you've lost are gonna go to the underworld when I go there with my dragon I get a victory point when my workers go to the underworld they only stop there temporarily grab a sword which everyone grabs when they go to the underworld but then they come right back to me otherwise units that you have an underworld are gonna stay there until you regroup and then when you regroup you're able to use the unit's out of Eldar veil on your cards here and your tableau but you cannot use the ones out of the underworld that way yeah so my turn I want us I think I want to start with my dragon I am actually going to place right here with my dragon and I'm like because I want I want to gravely want to fight that guy I want to grab these two Scrolls yeah and remember my dragon gives me a victory point if SB has a special ability they don't forget going anyway anyone that fights that chaos beasts win or lose that unit dies exactly so I'm getting a victory point no matter what I also main take out the chaos all right so I'm gonna pull the chaos over here and I'll roll for him now we're going to do combat so combat is resolved with dice you're gonna roll an x number obviously any of the monsters are gonna have that pre-printed on their sheet themselves and then the characters that you're rolling is going to roll up to a maximum of six that's because we each have six dice in front of us each of the different characters that we have our workers our warriors our wizards and our dragons roll an X number of those in your case you have a dragon which has three dice that he's doing to rule right and when battle starts you're going to do a couple things the first thing is I've initiated it so I took the action of the space and then I'm gonna go around the table starting to my left to see if anyone wants to join the battle now they can only join the battle if they're in an adjacent space right now there's no one adjacent to me so that would go all the way around the table I would also have the opportunity to bring guys in but I don't have any guys out either then we do the same thing to see if people want to use swords who are in the combat I have one sword so I want to use my sword to increase my die from three to four so now I'm matching the chaos beasts die alright so combat is resolved simply with the highest die there's obviously some magic cards that you can use to manipulate those dice to the game but right now if I'm only rolling one die and I roll a six and he rolls no sixes I'd still win so obviously you want to go into combat for just the chance of rolling high and I've got some great magic cards but I can't use them on you real first almost see what you get here oh all right so I lost the battle so like we said win or lose my dragons going to the underworld I'm not going to be able to go up on the glory track how'd I beat the chaos beast I'd have the option of going up on the glory track or going up in his respective elemental color on the elemental track right all right it is my turn I've got nothing but a bunch of workers so can you give me a victory point dude I did I'm sorry I didn't see Ryan do that I'm gonna go right here and any time you see a tayo with a couple icons on it you got to go for it so I'm gonna get two swords and they're just gonna sit there and question is do I want to try with this chaos beast I think the answer is Nate it's a big in yes actually I'm gonna go to that middle there and take that tile guys are messing with fate I know I am some of that chaos appeased in all right now there's a reason I'm doing this it's first of all it's because my worker counts as a warrior kind of and he gets two dice already plus I have a dwelling adjacent so I get one more die from that dwelling mm-hmm plus I can move my other worker in and I'm going to do that all right I'm gonna get two more so give me five times three four and then five five is four I'm liking my odds but the odds you never know no hero oh I got it oh five six five six four three four both my guys so when any die ties the sixes time then they went to their lives and days tide and then Kyra had a four which beat his three so yep peace reigns supreme all right well before I got I got too excited bugging me a wizard out and I forgot to ask Ryan to move me up for dwelling on the squirrel I forgot to move yeah so much probably talked about that a little bit about how the scoring works yeah no I don't hear more points for that in four because you're gonna get a two points for every ruin tile adjacent to where you build as well as two points for any other dwelling adjacent where you build regardless of whether that dwelling is yours or not okay so like Jerry said it's hard to pass up a tile with two on it so I'm gonna risk a battle right now to come out and take this scroll slash Jim a battle with Jeremy battle with Jerry our very own chaos beast that's true all right so my wizard only rolls one I have three swords I can add well that's right I forgot to get a sword when I went to the underworld did you get your sword good good I can't move anybody into the position which is my opportunity to do so first no one else is surrounding it Kira's got no one around there so now it's spinning swords I could do so first I'm gonna say no I'll roll a single die okay I'm gonna go and spit one sword second role to see one of the good things too is if I do lose my guys removed and that go anywhere I want true so I kind of want to lose this you know one not a good roll one you lost it hold on hold on let me see if I you want to win it got a little combat trick could you win it if the magic cards as Jeremy is looking at them really change this game up there are some wild magic cards that do anything from swapping your units from your player board to elder veil to letting you manipulate the dye and there's even some that create a massive fight in one tile where everyone in elder foil joins the fight now I'm gonna go here and get a sword alright so can you move the glory track cuz you want to fight like a - no - victory points that's great and I also get to move my wizard without triggering a battle if I care to which is really really nice as well that's pretty cool yeah that could come into play when you're trying to spread across the board all right your turns done is all right man I really you know what I'm gonna go here put that coin I'm probably gonna slide it here but I'm not gonna do that just yet want to give myself some options all right I'm gonna do something on here okay you're gonna fight the kiss I'm gonna go here I'm gonna collect this you know what no no no I'm sorry I'm so sorry put that back that goes on top I'm gonna go I'm gonna go right here I want to show you guys something a little bit different I'm gonna go there the first thing that happens is you always get it take the action your combat doesn't mess with that you always gonna take the action of the spot you're on this looks going to allow me to flip one of these tiles and place it out and it is another monster this is the dungeon that's the only the first step of what you do with this tile so get is that the death Reaper there's these two go out on that spot and the death Reaper comes into play the death Reaper if there's a battle trigger with the death Reaper additional units cannot join the battle so your honor Vaughn your own there with the death Reaper yeah so as you can see the monsters can start populating the board and creating all sorts of havoc until you get them off the board and there's even some cards that allow you to take control so the second action I'm going to do is I'm going to spend tokens yep and I'm going to buy a card and that is allowed because I went to that spot and that's gonna allow me to buy up to two cards when I look at the display of cards you're gonna notice that the there's six that are face-up that's because we're using six of the eight elements each of them has a cost in the upper right hand corner and these are cards that we're going to add to our tableau that's going to give you additional abilities when you regroup so I'm going to take this card right here you're going to notice that this is from the yellow so I'm gonna move up on the yellow track so I'm gonna simply take this here and go like that that's because I've acquired this type of card goes into my tableau and I could acquire a second card if I had the ability to do so is there a double sword out there can anyone see couple hammers double potion double gem the double mana I just want to burn that card and that's an option that you also have if you don't decide to buy a card so it's burnt and my turn is done now I am forced with fighting something awful yes alright so you're gonna fight okay I'm gonna be the chaos piece this time yep I'd be rolling one die you have a choice though there's always choices right okay always turn I have a card you gotta fight him yeah you know what I'll find who knows you may real haul ones Oh No you'll be Fira around the table here oh and be the first person to have the option to enter the battle as well with your wizard I'm good my wizards are gonna come out where my wizard is and then that's it really there's no there's no drawings no run I'm sure to help you it's just you're one worker against the chaos most 6s so I can't do that no matter what alright so my guy dies I get another sword alright so I don't want to fight that thing I'm gonna go to the dungeon as well but I'm gonna come to this dungeon since I've known on the board right you have this blue tile let's just put it right here yep right there's fine blue a stack of blue and you get to buy up to two cards I do and I'm going to spend three potions okay I've got two plus this tile which is three okay and I'm going to take this purple one here since I've taken a purple card I'm going to move up the purple space here and I'm going to set that there okay and then I have to I can't afford another ones I'm going to burn one let's burn that red one down there at the start just burn that all right yep so now all right so I'm gonna go ahead and take one of my workers and I'm gonna go here but I'm not triggering a battle because I have this lovely faerie charm which keeps a battle from being triggered I'll take this double sword he still rushes the ocean yes he rushes he says hey what's up hey buddy my friend and that is my whole turn nice it's kind of interesting because you can manipulate the position of those monsters potentially without triggering battles yeah yeah maybe clogged up a space that you think other people are gonna go to I've got one worker left here yeah I think I'm gonna go safely right here I have to place adjacent to where I already have a guy so I'm just gonna grab this tile and that that'll be my turn Jeremy all right I am going to go down here I'm going to collect this and I am going to make friends with my death Reaper what's that Oh rushing into capture him by spending two swords oh and now what happens the card the death Reaper is now my buddy so I now have a guy that's going to roll four dice for me every turn and do awful things to you that's called donating a monster and when you do that that monster is basically his unit until it's killed yes it's killed that's taken back out of the game it won't come back what what happens because that thing is a literal monster it very much is alright I have no guy's level his units big as you joyously pointed out I have nobody left I only have one guy left on the board so when I regroup here I only get to trigger one action over here yeah and the action I'm gonna trigger is actually to make a worker because I'm so short on workers so here's a resource sorry any one resource I'm gonna take one of my workers place it here this guy comes back and then my two guys return from the underworld and do you know I do nothing they just hang out because they was had stories of the underworld to share yeah there was a dragon down there and stuff there's a cool dragon go ahead and go to the mill someone's willing sorry actually I think I'm gonna wait I'm gonna wait though I'm gonna wait though because I'm a prime real estate got a little ahead of myself I meant to move my wizard my last turn here's what I was thinking because I was gonna try and go over here but I need to figure out where I can go and get some stuff I'm gonna fight no matter what at this point is what it looks like it does look that way yes and I'm going to bring out my dragon nice dose yeah just the right and then the opportunity to bring her other range actually tributes I don't have any dwellings nearby so those don't contribute but I do the desert with two dice I do have four swords and I'm considering using oh you have four swords holy cow we break this into two all right take one back and I'll have one that I'm adding to the battle to roll through here in a roll three three dice against these three - it's not good fine I can't beast is chaos beasts well done everyone alright my turn I have to regroup so let's do this go ahead and give me my dragon back I can't do anything my wizard I'm gonna take this opportunity to slot this gold coin over here nice I'm gonna bring this guy back here to grab a gold coin and then I'm gonna bring this guy back here to grab another worker and I'm gonna go ahead and use one of these two Scrolls to get another worker so I got that worker okay comes back this guy comes back all right you're good shape I'm in pretty good shape I've got workers galore I'm simply gonna go here and collect this gold okay oh nice I now normally so I can come out the board anywhere right now because I have no guys on the board except I can't go somewhere that somebody else already is unless I go with my warrior which I'm gonna worry so everyone's a morir on that blue spot right there everyone's warrior's innate ability is to enter on their first placement into a place that is occupied otherwise you can I have that double the one with the scroll and the potion and just give you the scroll I better have both honestly I'm going to immediately slot this onto my adventure card over here okay all right so that's a fight I only get two dice to roll a little man yep that's fair um I can take that card is you better I'm going to fire ball before rolling dice in battle I may roll to additional dice so I will roll for oh nice okay are you gonna use any swords I'm not using you know what I'll use a sword roll three alright I'll stick with four okay you looked in my hand I'm sure you've got some combat trick card that you're waiting to play yes combat trick cards that's fine I just wanted that double tile I rolled a six I will use this to Rio three am i dying oh we're all all three of your dice six you got it all right that's fine my god dies but see became either way I get an X power victory point almost at XP I get a victory point so I get two victory points Melora track yep nice but I got what I needed which was that double-talking card it's really interesting how this plays out because you brought that extra guy in so that it did set up this space for you to go to he said you can place anywhere so you could good good if I'm gonna do that now David you won the battle against me so you should be a from the glory track as well right did you give me my two points earlier right I believe you were rectifying the score in a favor indeed in my favor all right so it's my turn right yes okay so I'm gonna bring out my friend we're gonna go over there I'll take that potion please and thank you and that's it and that's it no fancy little cards to play Oh fancy cards to play okay but I will move him here that is wizard powers pretty cool mm-hmm I ain't Gandalf riding his horse to the he teleports he's a teleporter I am going to go to the mage tower all right at the mage tower you can trade in any two types of resources and get magic cards this is the main way that you're gonna be able to gain more magic cards in the game so I'm gonna get rid of let's see this sword and this scroll to draw three magic cards one two three and then I have to discard any one magic card okay so I got my cards I'm on get rid of one of these and now you can get rid of anyone not just out with the three guru exactly exactly I'm gonna get rid of a lot of game stuff in here so I got my magic cards of course the chaos me wanted to rush me yep and fight my dragon again yeah let me roll my dragon is the three I don't have enough to play that card but I wish I did uh yeah I have no cards to play so I'm just rolling three all right give me roll all sixes six and three Oh No oh that doesn't I don't like that give your XP just sorta get a sword and I get a victory point for my dragon going I'm stuck saying XP way to go you know what I'm thinking combat what do you run at the other combat expect you know what really quick on my turn before you go I'm going to play holy word holy word is simply I have to spend a scroll unless I'm up on the yellow track which I am and then I can do this for free I simply move up on the glory Troy whoa so my yellow get a free resource you get a free resource it cannot be a gold unfortunately but I am going to take a sword of all things all right I'm going here and I'm gonna take this tile and I am done nice I don't want to start a fight but I am gonna do this I have a card called blood rage and I'm up on the red track so I can play this for the reasons for that hey blood rage I first of all I gained one of a victory point anyway and then this we fight with everybody in the underworld as if it was a combat cost to swords whoa or having beat three up on the top everyone in the underworld everyone in the world is gonna battle you can spend swords as necessary you can even send guys from elder Vale into the underworld to help in the fight if you wish interests there's a reason I'm doing this so we're all in the underworld yeah the main reason I'm doing this is because this is another fight and I have my warrior in that fight so I'm gonna get another victory point just for being in the fight is it for being in the fight or for wintering and losing each time I'm in a fight I gained one VP whether I win or lose okay very nice so does everyone stay in the underworld yeah we're just fighting in their interest you can bring in new starting with Kira cuz she has someone there you can bring your whole crew if you want into the underworld I'm just gonna I'm just gonna focus guys are you gonna I don't have any guys I don't have any guys out right so I'm rolling two dice throwing three I am going to play this though aerial assault Oh aerial assault costs two swords for me and it says play during the join phase of battle which is what we're in up to two of your units from you're ready area join the battle oh right back anyway well I think it's the right back when they die that's true now they're just stuck there alright I'm fine I'm gonna handed this to you but I wanted that extra victory points so 306 I definitely didn't beat that I'm gay alright so David wait I still got my victory point but David you get to move up any one of these elemental power track you know what go ahead and move me up the yellow again please yep and I have something to announce everybody Oh I've completed the dragon war quest to complete this quest you must win a battle with your dragon ice my dragon was in the underworld so I completed that quest for 3 to 3 points well done and then that was so that was just that was an action action that was just a card you couldn't play spells for free so my action is just to go on the board and there's nothing out there that gets you two of two different kinds of resources right but I know better than to go anywhere near that death review that's what Jeremy is gonna do he's gonna use that money learn I'm gonna go to that yellow space and take the dagger slash gem right there all right I'm gonna go ahead and bring my dragon to the mill so that I can do well I'm gonna pay two potions to do it with this feller here and that's gonna get me quite a few points Oh so two four six eight ten nice that was a big all right well my turns not gonna compare that I'm just gonna place here take that a free card all right I think that's we've been around the table several times let's have a very good understanding of how the game actually structurally plays obviously the further you get into the game the more combos of cards that will come out that you'll be able to use to your advantage we're gonna turn off the cameras we're gonna complete the game then join us on the couch at the very end to find out who came out on top yeah I think well anyone's game right now Jeremy's in the last place but I bet he's probably got some tricks up his plan catch you guys soon all right well we survived elder Vale and elder Vale survived us but I don't think any of us survived this guy over here he he and his death yeah that death was their death paper ran away with it but we all the three of the rest of us were pretty close but Jeremy ended up over a hundred points we were all in like yeah but yeah he used that death Reaper in a way that I don't know that any of us expected where he was going around the board and just kind of like using it as a bodyguard so if someone was gonna take a spot he would join the battle and he was a tough tough customer yeah yeah that death Reaper can really like bounce around the board a lot like that's something you don't think about when you're looking down at this board is the fact that you can move your workers from one battle to the next means and you use this a couple times that means you're freeing up that spot you used to be in so that you could place another worker there and take that action again I don't think that's a main part of the game too is the manipulation of your pawns before like not only where you go but the combat that you get into because you're right you can free up areas and strategically move into those locations to get tiles that you can use at another location what I find out in this game now we've played this game combined maybe a couple dozen times yeah and I am finding that the game isn't just about engine building or core placement the timing aspect of this game is so crucial when you regroup where you place your guys when you pull back up how you move your guys around the board that's almost as important as how big of an engine that you build probably in most cases more important than that yeah for me too especially because with the wizard and being able to move my wizard on a return and then with my workers being able to hit from afar like really spreading out on the board and then also with the dwellings I think that really helped me capture a lot of the board and at least attempt to keep up with Jeremy this time around yeah you that wizard you've played it before and you didn't play it you use that power I think my wizard out yeah I didn't my wizard out as early in previous games as I and it was one of those things where I thought about how much I was losing out on not getting the wizard out so I made sure to get him out early this time it was really cool the way just you when you read that ability you don't know that it's as powerful as it is because at the end of every one of your turns right you could simply move him another space so it and no man oh yeah it made it so that once you place that first worker you're usually kind of limited to just growl from there and there's something could could be across the board that you're not ever getting to but the wizard can help you get there the dragon has that ability to fly two spaces away when you place him so yeah I agree I've played this game a ton and there's still stuff today that I'm seeing happen for the first time and strategies that are people who are using Ryan had a magic card like we said during the play there's tons of crazy magic cards what was the name of that blood rage card blood rage it brought everyone who created a battle that was taking place in the underworld and then anyone an elder Vale could join the fight and then I actually happened to have a magic card that allowed me to bring ready players from my our units from my ready area into the fight but what ended up happening is that he was able to potentially use that before he took his turn and lure people to come to that fight off of elder Vale opening up spaces that he could then place him which was something I hadn't really I don't know that that's what you were going after I'm not just that it was something interest well like I said on when we were filming it I really just wanted the XP everything are the victory points everything else that happened was kind of a secondary benefit but I also I used my warriors ability a lot I use my workers ability a lot to use roll two dice and I use my warriors ability did you guys use your abilities as much I you know what I did you didn't I didn't use no I mean my my wizard I never even got out this is the second time I played this faction and the second time I haven't used my wizard at all what was the wizard would allow you to bring them out to the same location where he already octal I mean you can double up on tiles you didn't really need it once you got the right day I found out that you know the card play if you can get a healthy hand of cards you can make your you can mitigate your turns to almost fall on your favor when you need to yeah but you have to kind of use your turns in order to do that I also found in this game carting kind of derailing the subject here but I also found that I went completely different in this game and the fact that I went really heavy with just people at the beginning of the game like I made it a point that by the first three or four regroups I had all but two people so I could stay out on the board longer and kind of manipulate the chains longer which also means that I could use that death Reaper to be in the right position at the right time and on the other end I was watching you kind of suffer from that because you only had two or three people and once they were in the underworld you were capped like you couldn't do anything else yeah I had to get my my other guys out but that time and what you're describing there is something I didn't realize at first but we you talked about this I think David about sometimes you want to put your guys up early and regroup early you're tempted to just get all your guys out there and regroup because you're going to get tons of triggers on your engine but when you wait that extra turn I had that happen where by the time I got back around to me all of my guys on the board had died yeah so if I had just regrouped I could have used them but since I waited that one extra turn I had nothing yeah so sorry for derailing I did not use my guys the way they probably were made to be used what about you guys I definitely use my the workers whenever they go to the underworld I can choose if I want to to have them just come right back - that's an awesome power it is an awesome power there are times though where so that makes me really cavalier about going into battle and then I find myself when I was regrouping not really bringing as many people back as I wanted to to activate the cards that had on on my tableau I did have one magic card at one point that was raised the dead I think it's what it was called and it allowed me to when regrouping I could play this card and it was a free card to play it allowed me to use any of the unit's from the underworld as though they were from elder Vale so I could activate my tableau so in that case I was actually letting my workers stay there which I think some of you are like wait don't you want your workers back I'm like I'm good but then I brought him back and was able to use like two workers and my dragon which was super satisfying because I didn't typically get my workers back that often because they were just recycling it's like it's always fun to find those calm you look at a card initially and you think this isn't really for my faction and then when it hits on your faction this it's like perfect for that right what about yours yeah I definitely used my abilities normally and this particular faction I focus really heavily on the workers for getting that wizard out really allowed like I said earlier allowed me to spread out on the board I got my dwellings out and I really had spread out across the board which couldn't put me in a really good position anytime a fight broke out because I had plenty of extra dice to roll yeah yeah I think that's something that you don't think about when you're look at the elves right away and you might think you're not using you're not getting into a lot of combats maybe and it's because when we're looking at the board and I know we had a couple instances you see a spot on the board that looks good but then you realize it's surrounded by elves like I don't want to go in there because here's gonna roll six dice every time she fights in some of these areas yeah you know one thing completely off-topic that we'd forgotten to mention at the beginning that occurred to us while we were playing after the fact was the all the resources that you have obviously you're gonna use all those various resources for a number of different things but one of the resources is also the cards in your hand which is kind of a crazy thing it's hard to remember but you can use those resources particularly on the spaces that ask for any type of two resources like the mage tower or I think I forget the name of it the one that gives you the gold coins in return you could trade in you know a gem a potion a scroll but also cards out of your hand I had one turn just a comedy of like not comedy of errors but it was like a windfall rather where I had cards I was playing cards to let me do more cards I had like ten cards at one point and that same one I had a quest that'll let me score points for every spell that I'd cast that round yet which was what the whole turn was about was casting three spell so I can max that out and get six points those quests are a lot of fun for me I get those quests in my hand and unfortunately those are the sorts of things that will derail my game I'll get less focused on what's going on I'll go oh I got to complete this quest I mean I did but it wasn't enough to win yeah I think the game is called dwellings of Elder Vale and you would think a building or dwellings is the way to were important win the game and while that's the obvious way you're going to get a lot of points for building those dwellings I didn't build a ton and a lot of my points came from in-game cards and you had a lot of points from in-game just using your workers and stuff so you can you can go one specific route or like here did in this game you can diversify and go up multiple different tracks and use those multipliers with what you have there but the cards in your tableau that you build and then the dwellings that you have so you're you don't have to go down one particular path you don't have to go your straight element although it does give you a lug of at the beginning of the game and obviously to tailor some of those later tiles that you put on those type of cards but you can go many different routes and that's one of the things that's super exciting for me about this game is that I played this one very differently than my other games and I was still able to do fairly well in the game and I know just in talking with Luke and braking games that there's a lot of other things that are obviously gonna come out in the Kickstarter that we haven't even seen yet with the game yeah they talked during development they talked about drafting the magic cards at the beginning which would be a lot of fun for us I don't think you'd want to do that with brand new players but with all the plays we've got drafting those cards would be fantastic sure new factions too coming with the fact every showed off four we showed off four I believe there's eight one representing each of the Magic's in the base game and then one of the stretch goals I believe is going to be a double sided boards so each of the elements has two different factions with even slightly different abilities for two of the units which is crazy the variability with all the different factions is amazing right and I think I went really heavy with like for me comparatively to other times I I kind of went off on a little quest thing the last time we played two so I really like that and I like getting distracted and and and going down that way but I did I had seen in a previous game we played like how powerful getting the dwellings out early in certain locations were a great ones in it I think I did a ten and eight and twelve did you know a ten and an 8 is six that's what it was where I had placed him in places where I got that many points because I made sure to continue on that path and that was part of having that wizard out was really getting myself around in order to have workers spread out to the best places to dwell yeah ten point dwelling when you get those points right when you build that's a lot of points in there right well it's the most you're ever gonna get is 12 because that's you got and you got a really time that right well maybe in a game where we were scoring in the eighth 110 points in a single action is great I've only ever seen one 12 point dwelling and I think you've done that's right and that's the great thing about the game too is that it's it's player driven like that tile that I scored 12 points in that game the game could have flown in the exact same way with the same tiles coming out and maybe one scored me six point in a different game depending upon how well people block the area out if they got to in early if dwellings weren't built around it so it's going to change every time that you play it and the people that you play with are going to be aggressive or not aggressive which is again going to change the dynamic of the game yeah so we had a great time as always with this game this we're all fans of this game we're really excited for the Kickstarter if you haven't already it's probably up there go check out the Kickstarter there's probably a lot more information hopefully this round one gave you like we said a little bit of a taste for what the game is like we play it a little bit more than one round yeah but hopefully that just means that you got that much more information about the game check back here next time when we have another round one until then we'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Man vs Meeple

Views: 13,423

Rating: 4.8701301 out of 5

Keywords: Board Games, Kickstarter, Energy Empire, Manhattan Project, Worker Placement Games, Shut UP & Sit Down, Dice Tower, Watch It Played, Game the Game, Game Playthrough, Rhado Runs Through, Table Top Games, Fantasy Games, Kickstarter Games

Id: 4duI--2y6_U

Length: 49min 14sec (2954 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 25 2019