Set A Watch & Swords of the Coin TCbH Review

well after two and a half years of trying my best to dodge it i have found myself in the baleful grips of covid all together i'm fortunate i'm in otherwise good health my symptoms are manageable and the downstairs that serves as tcbhq also has a bathroom guest room my work office and a door between me and the rest of my house so i can quarantine for my family safely now why is this relevant well today we're taking a look at set a watch swords of the coin the stand-alone but combinable sequel to 2019's set a watch which like the original technically scales up to four players but this is one of those games that sings in solo proving to be a perfect company to keep in isolation system wise swords of the coin is virtually identical to the original well except for the whole coin aspect which we'll get to in a bit regardless of the number of players four heroes embarks to seal away the darkness where each round all players roll their dice then one hero manages camp in a light sort of worker placement mini game played over the oh so cool roll out of the game box prepping the other heroes stoking the campfire charting the stage of upcoming rounds using their own unique camp action and casting powerful runic spells to ward off the forces of darkness meanwhile the remaining three heroes are on watch combating the evil that comes in one of the coolest moments of thematic resonance and gameplay each round lines up a number of face down baddies and depending on the strength of the campfire the baddies closest to the fire are revealed and the heroes allocate their dice to directly attack the enemies or spend those dice or voluntarily take damage to use their unique abilities if all the monsters are slain then you move on but if the heroes run out of dice the remaining enemies damage the heroes then join the horde a sort of reserve of lingering enemies added to the final battle the thing is damage to heroes comes in the form of exhausting their ability cards which are precious few and cannot be used until healed which aside from one recovery for the hero maintaining camp each round healing can be hard to come by if all heroes on watch have all their abilities exhausted you lose surviving eight rounds with each hero taking two turns at camp brings you to the finale a ninth round where a huge line of ghoulies and all of the enemies that made it into the horde do battle with your full team of all four heroes if you manage to survive the finale the darkness is sealed and you win everything i just covered is true about this new release as well as the original there are some differences that make swords of the coin a little bit more nuanced and interesting but ultimately the system is the same which like i've said on this channel about the original is a thoughtful crunchy and spectacularly presented puzzle best enjoyed solo the thing about the game is that whether playing four players are one you have the same number of heroes the same opportunities the same enemies and the same information and this is a game where every action has stakes and precise allocation of every single resource at your disposal is so paramount that introducing more players to the pot can get a bit hairy this game is hard very hard and there's not really enough room to not analyze every single action that each of the heroes can take and what order you're going to operate in which as you add more players greatly ups the opportunities for quarterbacking endless deliberation and analysis paralysis your mileage may vary i've had fun at two players but i definitely think that this game is best at solo but now let's take a look at what is new in this specific release the major change to the system is that swords of the coin introduces a market where coins built up on unused action spaces in camp and earned through a few other card effects can be spent to buy special items these items have ongoing one-time or exhaustible effects that could be huge game changers not only do they make the game's former just short of unpleasant difficulty more manageable but i love that they can be used to complement your loadout of hero abilities speaking of which let's talk about the new heroes swords of the coin comes with six new heroes each with five abilities that on the whole feel a bit more specialized and interesting than their older brethren the monk can permanently upgrade their dyson camp the hunter bags trophies from the enemies they kill for a variety of effects the barbarian rocks huge dice but must exhaust abilities to use them the heretic manipulates the graveyard and the unhollowed the mini bosses seeded throughout the game the artificer manages a permanent staff that ebbs and flows with charges and the witch though rocking small four-sided dice is the queen of consistency for performing the doubles required runic actions in camp and she is able to manipulate the line monster deck and nullify various effects not to mention she offsets her low dice rolls with a cat or raven familiar that can make additional attacks okay so i like both these games quite a bit but that doesn't mean that i don't recognize their rough edges as i said they don't scale well and even at solo with nine rounds where each hero gets two turns at the camp it ends up feeling a little bit longer than you want it to and particularly the first one had a lot of language inconsistencies necessitating some hefty faqs which fortunately the sequel addressed but the challenging puzzle the symphony of your powers and the dice working in conjunction to chip your way down the line is gripping and while bad rolls and bad card flops can definitely turn things for the worse the game empowers you with so many options that success and failure feels earned i like that both are compact they have a great aesthetic and it has a little bit more of a gothic almost diablo-esque feel to swords and honestly i am a big sucker for the magnetically snapping lid that unrolls in order to make the game board gimmick which it is a gimmick but it's a damn good one as a standalone swords of the coin is all around better it's more robust has more dynamic characters and i don't see myself playing without the market again as an expansion i don't think either one is absolutely necessary if you have the other both have a lot of variety and loads of gameplay within but it is a game where a lot of the joy comes from the various combinations of characters and abilities so if you're seeing a lot of mileage out of the game having a full complement of 12 characters along with more enemies locations and unhollowed is very welcome and the market is a pretty desirable upgrade if you just have the original but either way you go set a watch is well worth your consideration if you like puzzly and particularly challenging co-ops and is very welcome company if you find yourself whether you like it or not in a position where you're going to be playing some games alone and that's our review but i want to hear from you are there games that you've played that scale up to any number of players but you find actually play better at solo and did you find yourself in quarantine and having to dive deep into your solo collection if so what were the bangers that you ended up having hit the table the most as always thanks for watching thanks for supporting and thank you for all the well wishes on social media it means a lot and i am glad that i'm able to safely quarantine and hopefully will be out of this soon as always i've been jack for the cardboard herald

Channel: The Cardboard Herald

Views: 2,417

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Id: z7xnkryahuQ

Length: 8min 10sec (490 seconds)

Published: Tue May 31 2022