Episode 05 - Aeons End: Straight Outta the Breach

Welcome back to another episode of Board with Each Other - the board gaming podcast where we discuss games through the lens of playing as a pair. 

On this episode, we discuss the spell chucking deck builder Aeon's End. A firm staple in our collection, and one that adds some truly tasty mechanics to the standard deck builder tropes. But is it good with two players? How good of a game is the core box? And will Al ever get to grips with the discard order mechanic? The answers to some of these at least are within!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Board with Each Other, the podcast that looks at gaming through the lens of playing as a couple. So whether that's with uh your other half, uh a very good friend, or the person that delivers your board games that you now just won't let leave. Uh I'm joined as ever by my wife, player two, and co-host, Hannah.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Hi guys.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

And my name is Elle Simpson, and today we are going to be talking about Aeon's End. Eon's End. I will keep calling it Aeon's End. I'm sorry about that. Sorry, not sorry.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

It's a whole side side thing over again, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Yeah, I always get the two mixed up. But Eon's End is a cooperative deck builder in which the players play as breach majors in a dark fantasy post-apocalyptic world where they are protecting the last bastion of humanity called Gravehold from a horrendous large big bad demon monster thing known within the game as the Nemesis. The game itself basically works as each player chooses a character, which have all have sort of different uh abilities that you can charge up over the course of the game. And you start with a rudimentary, sort of basic starter deck of cards, as you do in many big deck many deck builders, and you purchase cards from a marketplace. The marketplace is a grid of nine cards, three of which are more sort of resource currency cards, two are relics, which are things that just sort of help uh manipulate the game mechanics as such, and four spells, which is your your main means of doing damage to the enemy. There's two twists to it in comparison to a lot of normal deck builders. The first one is that the turn order is not set. Each turn you have a deck of cards that basically randomise the turn order for that round, and each player and the nemesis goes twice during that round, but you never know which order that's going to occur in. The other twist is when you discard cards at the end of your turn, you choose which order to put them into your discard pile. So you can basically um it cuts down on the luck. You you basically can uh construct your deck in a way that you you kind of know what's coming, and you can kind of put cards next to each other that play off each other, which is an interesting mechanic. Once you've chosen the the nemesis and they all play the same but slightly differently, they all have different sort of win conditions and different ways and means of sort of beating you up, basically. You can either choose to populate the marketplace from the the bank of cards that you have, or as we often do, you can randomize their grid, um, occasionally with the odd mulligan when we get something that we know is just not going to be workable at all. And that's basically how the game plays. You the way the way you basically cast spells is you have uh four breaches on your your playmat. They're called breaches, and they're almost like uh spell gates. And during your turn, you can prep a spell to one of those gates, and at the start of your next turn, those spells all fire, so it's not sort of instant. You need to you take two rounds to actually do damage to the the enemy. You usually start with one of those breaches open and usable, and you have to spend currency to open the other ones during the course of the game. And the ones at the end, which cost the most, add damage to your spells, they basically buff your spells. Each turn that the nemesis goes, it draws from its own deck and it will do things uh dependent on which one you're playing. So whenever they attack, they have they have different mechanics that they they fire off. Each player starts the game with 10 life, and if that life's depleted during the the course of the game, you don't get knocked out completely. You can carry on playing, but uh your your usefulness is vastly diminished, uh which is how it does a few times. You also have a life counter for Gravehold, which is your home, and regardless of the win conditions, if that ever gets depleted to zero, the players lose the game. Sometimes you can win the game by running the Nemesis deck out, other times you lose the game if you run the Nemesis deck out. It completely depends on which one you're you're playing against. But that's basically it in a nutshell. Um anything that I've missed? Anything you want to add?

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Um so the Nemesis deck gets progressively harder as you move through the game. Um it has uh level one cards, two and three. Um and there are minions as well that come out of the Nemesis deck, so not only are you fighting the Nemesis, you're also uh fighting his subordinates.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

So yeah, I mean I think this is one of the first deck builders, proper full-on deck builders that we picked up. Um I think it'll always have a special place in my heart because it was the first board game you ever bought me without asking me what I wanted. Yeah, you went off and did your own sort of research, and so it was a complete surprise. I'd never heard of it before. You just you just got me out, I think it was for a birthday or something. Um so yeah, it's got I have I have a bit a lot of affection for it because of that.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

I would also point out that I didn't buy him a damaged version. So if any of you have listened to our Star Jew Valley episode, yes, it it wasn't a damaged version, but yes, I think we've had this game for quite a long time, I think, in terms of our board game journey.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

I think you bought it quite early on after its release, retail.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

It was, it was really new, I think, when I when I bought it, and um so we've played it an awful lot over the years. Um, and yeah, I think yeah, I've got a very fond memories of it.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

We only have one expansion for just for the the listeners uh awareness, which is one of the small ones, I think it's called the Long Dark. You can get there's a whole lot of expansions that basically come with one or two new nemesis, a couple of new breach majors, and uh as is the way with car games, a whole bunch of new cars that you can add to it. So yeah, what are your general what's your general experience with deck builders? You're quite a fan of a deck builder, aren't you?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Yeah, well this was the first one that I'd I'd played, and I think like Star Realms. Oh yeah, perhaps maybe Star Realms we played first, but I definitely think I instantly fell in love with it because it's quite a quick, fast-playing game. I was very rapidly able to construct my own deck and do my own thing. I felt like I had a lot of agency, and I I I definitely really fell in love with this game um quite quickly.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yeah, I think my I my my feelings were similar. I I hadn't got obviously I played a lot of uh collectible car games and things like that, where obviously you go away and you construct your deck and again Marvel Champions, which we spoke about in an earlier episode. But this is the first sort of aside from Star Realms, the first uh game I play where you construct your deck during the game. Um so yeah, again, it's got a quite a big soft spot in my heart because of that, because that's where I first sort of learnt and experienced that mechanic, which has become one of my favourites.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

And it's also quite challenging, I think. So it's not one of these games that's really, really easy to win every single time. And even now, after playing it for years and years, you know, we still struggle to beat the nemesis and Yeah, I mean I I think it's got the You say that.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

I think in terms of difficulty of the co-ops that I've experienced, I would say it's on s I put it if I had to split them into two in the hard and e the harder and easier camp, I'd probably put it in the easier camp because I do think we'd win roughly half of our games. Well, this is true, you are very good, yes. But aside from your general genius, um if you look at a lot of the other co-ops that we really love and enjoy, I'd say it's more sort of 70-30 split to win and lose. Whereas this I would say is roughly 50-50. I would say we win this more than we win champions.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Oh really?

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Yeah, yeah, looking at our stats.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Uh yeah, so our has stats. I don't.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

I am a stats nerd, but yeah. Yeah, from when I've started recording them, we do tend to win this about half the time.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

But that's not to say it's easy. It is challenging. And it's not a complete cakewalk. And uh, if you ever did feel that it was becoming a bit of a cakewalk, there's there's really neat ways to up the difficulty. Uh that come in the rule book, so you can push the difficulty up.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Maybe we should do that.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Yeah, we could always try that, yeah. I mean, I also just, you know, really like to win. I I I need the wins.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

I know, you've got to take them where you can find them right now.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, exactly. Right, so should we get on to scoring and having a chat about the game itself, whether it's any good?

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

I mean, I think there's a there'd be a bit of spoilery chat. We obviously both quite like it, but I think we'll go into the specifics a little bit. So, as ever, do you want to take it away? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

So, under our general category, the first one that we have is components, so the box itself, including things like board space and set down, set up and stripped down. Yeah. Um, so I have to say the artwork on these, on the cards and um the player mats is really quite exceptional. I really like it. It's very thematic, definitely makes you feel like you're in end times. Lots of fire and brimstone and smouldering stuff and crystals.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Yeah, it's all very grimdark fantasy, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Yeah, plays in my aesthetic.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Yeah, which I obviously love, and uh, I mean the the the box art which I'm looking at now looks like a gigantic Satan with four arms. So, you know, if that's your bag, I know it's mine.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

I'm pretty sure that's Diablo.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

It does look a bit like that, doesn't it? Yeah. But yeah, I'd agree. The art the artwork's great. I mean, you artwork if you if you're playing a um a mostly card game, artwork's always going to be quite important, isn't it? It needs to look good on the table, and it does. Um I also really like the actual breech mage mats, the nice thick, weighty cardboards, um, like the decent player mats.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

What I will say is that you so you get a whole bunch of tokens that come with it, so some are for um like power counters or or various other bits and pieces. Your life counters, particularly the one life and charges, which is something we've not actually talked about, um, are really quite small and tiny. Very fiddly and timing. Yeah, they're really fiddly. And in fact, I think probably a couple of months ago I stood up and just had a whole bunch of charges just that have fallen on my lap and I was sort of shutting charges around the house.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Um so if you've got perhaps maybe um arthritis or something like that, then it's gonna be really fiddly and difficult to play.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Or if you struggle a little bit with with eyesight, to be honest, um because they are they are quite small, so it's something worth uh raising up. The other slight issue I have with it is um the teardown, the strip-down. Because you have to construct the decks, particularly the nemesis deck. Um it c it can take a little it feels like it's too long for the type of game it is.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah, I also feel that's partly my fault because I've never ever set up or stripped down the nemesis deck, so I looked at it and was like, nope, but that's an elm jar while I swanned off and poured myself another glass of wine and did whatever it was that I did. And therefore you get saddled with a majority of the and therefore also putting everything back into the box.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Yeah, I mean everything does fit back in the box nicely, which is always good. Um it comes with sort of it one of the few card games I've ever seen that actually comes with dividers, which is really, really nice uh as a named dividers. Yeah, well let's not talk about that too. Um but yeah, the the the teardown can take a little while. Setup is super quick.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

And I really like that they have randomizer cards. In fact, I wish that they had randomizer cards for the nemesis and the majors. Yeah. Obviously, we we do randomise it and we just shuffle the actual mats themselves. Yes. Um, but it would be it would be a nice little touch, I think.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Also, a couple of the nemesis, um, the big badge, they they've got lots of little things that go on their mats, so I'm thinking about Or extra mats. Or extra mats. And that's a bit fiddly, so I'm thinking about the one that has all the last buttons or something like that, I think. Um, and that's just a bit messy, but I don't think that's necessarily a problem. I think that's more my OCD status. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Fair enough, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

I think to keep things neat.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Um it does feel a little some some of the stuff does feel a little bit cheap and cheerful, but that's not a real impediment to me. You know, if you you like your deluxification of board games, this might feel a bit a bit retro, but I I don't particularly have a problem with that. Um in terms of uh board space, it's it plays fairly fairly compactly, it doesn't take up a huge amount of room, easily plays on Law.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

And I think you could probably strip it out of the box and travel with it quite easily.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Yeah, yeah. I mean trying to find somewhere to actually play it would probably be a bit more challenging, but yeah, it it's quite it's got quite a small footprint in that that regard. Um so yeah, I think overall, mainly because of the the the tear down, I have given it a six.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

So I gave it an eight, and that's probably because I don't do the tears down. Quite possible to set up that problem.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

So so there's a there's your tip. Uh avoid the strip down, you'll you'll be a lot happier. Um right, so on to complexity. So just as a reminder, with complexity, we don't rate things highly or lowly just for being complex or simple. It's more about how well the complexity suits the game and whether it's sort of worthwhile and earned. You know, you can get some games that are incredibly complex, but you just feel like this is fiddly for the sake of fiddly. Um and we also talk a little bit about analysis paralysis and and uh arguing. My own nemesis. Yeah, your own your nemesis. Um so yeah, how do you feel about the complexity of it?

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Um so each turn um of combat, whether that be the nemesis phase or or or your your player phase, um, is fairly quick and fairly rapid. Um and therefore the rules I think are quite straightforward and quite simple because you can't have really complex rules when actually turns so quick and fast-paced. Um as with most, I guess, card or deck builders, the devil is kind of in the actual cards themselves.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Yeah, the complexity comes from the cards. Yeah. But saying that, I don't I find the cards and thus way more simple than a lot of other card games. Like they are fairly they are fairly obvious rules. They're not there's nothing that's like, oh, well, you know, what does that do again? There's there's not there's not loads of keywords and things like that where you're like scratching your head and trying to remember what they do.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

And when we did have the expansion, when we bought the expansion, there were a couple of new rules that were introduced that were really, really simple and straightforward and just slotted into the existing gameplay really really easily. And actually, where there was a bit of ambiguity, so for example, when you deal additional damage based on you know discarding cards, for example, um, the card itself made it really clear whether that was cow covered over like carried over onto your open breaches. So sometimes your open breaches give you more damage. Um and I think it made that really really clear. I would say we check the rules less and we certainly go to Google less for this game than we do for a lot of our games.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

I think pretty much most of our games, I aside from the back page to remind myself what the nemesis construction, the nemesis deconstruction looks like during setup, I very rarely look at the rule book and that's during a game, very, very rarely. And it's always been that way. It's not just because we played at loads, and even if we leave it for months and we come back to it, it's straight back into it and without having to swat up, basically.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

And actually, I mean that's that's a point to note, really, isn't it? When we've gone back to Marvel Champions after a short hiatus and actually we've gone back and gone, um, what does that do again? What does it do? Yeah, it's just not the case at all.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

So I don't think it it's not overly complex, it's not complex for the complexity's sake, and it's not also too simple where it just feels rote.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Um I think it absolutely hits the nail right on the head in terms of its level of complexity.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Yeah, and I think again the a lot of the complexity comes from your own making, and complexity is working with a marketplace, constructing a deck that works on the fly, and again, putting the cards in order on the scarpile. I mean, talk about me and my my very many failings. I cannot wrap my head around that. I always mess that up. I can't envision the phase of flipping the deck over and it being in the other direction. It's almost like some kind of uh mental block I've done.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Because when you discard them and you you build rebuild that deck, you have to build it face up.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

So yeah, that you flip it over before you actually get to it. So yeah, that always flomes me, but that's that's definitely a me problem. Um so yeah, what would you score it?

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Eight.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Yeah, same. Just so absolutely eight. Alright.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Alright, so our next category under the general um general theme is shelf life. So we talk about things like value for money and replayability.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Yeah. I mean, it's great. I I I to put it in a word, uh I never tire of going back to it, and I think I've played this game probably more than any other without the constant expansion itch.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

I guess because there's so many different permutations just in the basic box of the various cards that you have in the marketplace and the different ways the nemesis's nemeses play. BBGs. The BBGs play. Um, I just I'm still as excited about it as I always was, which is immense shelf life.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Like Yeah, I would say that the original box that we got, we played and we we played it really thoroughly and we played it well. We definitely, I think, we're ready for an expansion. Yeah. Um but I mean partly because we took a bit of a hiatus for various reasons, um we're still playing, there are still cards in there that I've never seen before.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Exactly, we play and things come out that we've never seen before.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Yeah, and I think in some ways, yeah, that replayability is is absolutely there. I would like a couple more nemesis, BBGs, at this point. But again, I mean, how long have we been playing this? What seven, eight maybe years?

SPEAKER_00 17:23

No, not quite that long. Probably about five, five or six, I think. Anyway, well, what is time? Um yeah, but yeah, I I would agree. I I I think more expansions always be great. There's always the the temptation, especially with car games, I'm a car card completionist magpie. Um, but yeah, I haven't had the the same pull as I get with, for instance, Marvel Champions, where everyone constantly want new content, but with this less so.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

So when rating this, I found it quite tricky because I rated Marvel Champions, which I love, a little bit on the low side, which I maybe in my insight probably shouldn't have done because I felt that there was a bit of a con there in terms of having to buy all the cards so to have a functional deck. And I think Marvel Champions is meme is more replayable than this. Um so I kind of whilst I actually want to rate it higher, I've only rated it a six because I feel like actually it should sit beneath Marvel Champions, and perhaps in hindsight, maybe I should have changed my Marvel Champions rating.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

I think you should probably draw a line under Marvel Champions and just rate this. We're reviewing this today, not in comparison to anything else. So rate it, what do you think you should rate it?

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Okay, well I will change my rating then.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Um I'm probably going to rate it an eight.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Okay. I would also rate it an eight. Yeah. It's an immensely replayable game. I mean, I don't value for money, I'm not too sure to be honest, because I don't know how much the base game goes for these days. If it's still available, I'm not sure. Um so difficult to jump with.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

It's three kids, so I probably had a lot more disposable money.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Yeah. Um so difficult to tell with that one, but just on the replayability alone, I would absolutely it's an eight.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Okay. So final one. Is it any fun?

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Well, I don't know, absolutely. I uh the fact that we've played this so many times, the fact that we're still playing it now, it is absolutely a whole world of fun. Um, I quite like that the games are relatively short. We didn't talk about average length of game. No, we don't. I reckon it's probably about 45 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Yeah, yeah, it usually runs about 45 minutes. With so it's set up and tear down, you can get the whole thing done in an hour usually.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Yeah. Um so I quite like the fact that it's quite quick. Quite often we might start off with one of these and maybe go on to something else a bit shorter afterwards.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Um, and I have a lot of fun playing it. I love the fact that I'm managed to flex and think, do things on the fly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Yeah. Um yeah, I mean, one of my favourite things about it is the randomness of the turn order. I find that consistently nail-biting and exciting because you do not know who's going to get to go next. And you can end up in a permutation where the nemesis goes four times in a row because it will go twice at the end of a round, and then it'll have the first two turns in the in the next round, and that's brutal. But again, when that happens, you then know you've got four player turns of breathing room. So it's this constant push and pull mechanic of it that I just I absolutely love. And uh, as you if you listen to the previous episodes, you'll know I love a bit of random in my games, and that that that gives me that that hit a random where I don't you can plan all you like, but at some point the game might screw you over, or you might get blessed with this incredible like six-player turn run, which is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Um and I definitely think as well when you get towards the end of the game where you've got some really good spells in your deck and you start churning it out, you s you start to real feel really powerful, and everybody likes to be a fabulous wizard.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Yes, absolutely. Um I I think the the variability of the characters, because every character is basically we haven't we didn't talk too much about I didn't talk too much about charges and the the intro, but basically you can spend resources to charge up your special ability. So instead of buying cards, you would add a token to your mat, so they all have sort of five or six slots to activate, but they tend to be like specials where you do something really, really cool or powerful, and some of those are really fun when you get them going, like really good fun. Um, and it just adds uh a level of sort of individualness to each character that they do play quite differently. They also have different costs to open their breaches, so some open their breaches easier than others, which makes them slightly better in the mid-game. There's just so much variety there. Um the one thing we haven't really talked about, I guess, is is is theme, which is quite an odd one, this one, because I usually love a bit of theme and I like the whole setting, what have you, but I haven't really read the back of the cards where they give you all the individual storylines.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

We did to begin with.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Because I'm using a complete stickler for that.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Yeah, um we absolutely did to begin with. I suppose because it's quite a fast paced um sort of card game, I don't know how much I feel like I'm in an apocalyptic end well, it doesn't feel Feel that bleak, it feels actually quite happy.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

That's because you enjoy playing it, okay?

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Um, but yeah, I mean it's it's a great fun game. Emergent storytelling, perhaps less so, I guess, than some other other games that we've got. Um, I don't think we we we we sort of have the mind's eye RPGness of like, oh, I've done this, and you know, seeing it not even Champions does that, which this doesn't really. But again, that might be our own fault for not delving into the law enough or whatever you. Um, but yeah, overall I would give it an eight for fun.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

So I would give it a seven.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Yeah, fine. So if we top up the scores, that gives us a total of seven point six, and as always, we round up. So that's a general game score of eight out of ten, which I believe is our highest so far.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

I couldn't possibly comment.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Statsboy says yes, it is. Um right, so on to our couples and two-player ratings.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Okay, so our first rating under this is table talk. Um, so that's how much dead time there is on the board, how much you're talking to each other, like getting to know each other. Um, so what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 23:04

I think it's really good for that, mostly because it's so snappy. Um, the turns move along with such a clip. Um, you're always asking other advice about what to buy from the market, like do you think that's a good thing to get, you know, all that kind of stuff. Even during the setup phase, if you are doing sort of the random approach, there's there's there's talk there. Um, you're constantly discussing strategy and what you should do next.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Or lamenting that the big bad has done something horrible to you, yeah. Um, or that Gravehold is rapidly dying, and are we going to get through this?

SPEAKER_00 23:36

And there's a lot of instances where you people take damage, but you get to choose who takes the damage. So it'll say things like any player suffers this. So there's immediately that discussion amongst yourselves, sort of forces that discussion, where it's not just happening to one of you, you go, okay, I'll take that, you know, all that kind of thing. So there's almost this very egalitarian approach to getting mullered by the boss. Yeah. So which is quite unique in its own way.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Yeah. Um, I also think again, maybe this because this is one of the first ball games that sort of we owned and we we played quite a lot. There wasn't a huge amount of getting there was quite a lot of getting to know you. Yeah. So this is when I began to understand a little bit more about your playstyle and how you work versus me, which is much more about manner conservation and sort of trying to make the best choices. You're very much focused perhaps on damage dealing and getting maximum impact.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Um so I think that was quite fun after being together, however many years we've been together. Very many years. Being able to find out a little bit about you and how you operate, which I quite like.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Yeah, I would echo that. So yeah, I gave it a nine for that.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Oh, so I gave it a six mainly because I think a lot of it is around in-game stuff that's happening rather than necessarily um that perhaps emergent storytelling and and that sort of thing. Um I still think it's good and I still think it's great for for couples to play. Okay, alright.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

It's just fair enough. I like quick, snappy, speed dating style conversation. You want something a bit more meaningful.

unknown 25:03

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Noted. Right, so our next one is around either competitiveness or co-op. Um, so when we talk about co-op, how well does it actually work as a co-op? Uh, and what's the capacity for things like quarterbacking, uh, where one person basically just rules the game and says what everybody needs to do. Um, as we mentioned with champion, the Marvel Champions, there's a similar kind of thing here where because you have your your sort of your own deck hidden from the other player, um, I think that does cut down on quarterbacking. I think it's quite a difficult game to quarterback because you you and again the turn order thing kind of throws out the window sometimes. You could try and say, Oh, you need to do this next turn, but what if that next turn is not that person?

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Yeah. You can't plan out your turns, really.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

You have to be quite reactive, yeah, or others for that matter. So is that as you say, reactive? That's a really good term for it. That essence of reactivity kind of cuts down the ability for somebody to do that.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

What I also really like about Eon's End, um, perhaps compared to some of the other ball games that we have, is that I think once you've picked up and you've had your first couple of games and you've kind of got your head around the mechanics and know what you're doing, I don't think it matters if you're playing with somebody who's played a hundred games or whether they're just as new as you. I don't I don't think that matters, and there's a nice balance there.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

That's really interesting. I hadn't thought about it from that perspective. But yeah, I think you're right. I think you're somebody who's played a hundred games quite easy to sit down with somebody who played this for the first time. And you'd be quite even Stevens, yeah. Yeah, they both have a really good time. I mean, obviously there'd be some tactical stuff where the the veteran player could advise on, but I think for the most part it wouldn't cut down the fun of the the newbie as such. So it'd be a good game to sort of introduce to somebody else, even though you've played it loads.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Yeah, and I don't think I've yeah, I don't think I've seen that in other sort of cooperative games um or even competitive games before, um, certainly at a two-player variety. So I think for me, again, if we're recommending this to people who are couples, perhaps one of you has got more experience playing board games, then this would be a really good starting point if you want to delve a bit deeper into absolutely, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

I mean in terms of how well it works as a co-op, I think it it works fine, but there is I do feel like there's an element sometimes of there's not enough card interaction or mechanic interaction between the players. I feel like a lot of other co-ops you can do more for each other, whereas a lot of the time this definitely feels like you're standing side by side funneling your efforts towards beating the bad guy, but there's very little sort of interaction between the two of you.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

There are a couple of touch points, I guess, so that's around your ultimate abilities or the thing that you build up charges for, and I think some of the cards that you've got in later expansions will be the expansion.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Play with that a bit more.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Yeah, they play with that a little bit more, so you were able to cast a spell from another person's breach, for example. Um but yeah, agreed.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Um, do I think it is something that's missing from the game?

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Yeah, fair enough. Um okay, so what would you give it for that?

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Um an eight.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Yeah, I gave it a seven.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Yeah, that's reasonable.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Okay. Final one is uh FOMO and scalability. So this is around do you feel like you're missing out by playing this just a two-player? And on the flip side of that, would would it scale well if you did have more people over, you know, a group of friends, whatever, and you wanted to introduce it.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

I think it's probably worth noting here that when you play as two players, you have two um in in the in the turn order deck, you have two of each of your player counters and two nemesis decks, but that changes when you play with more?

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Yes, that does change when you play with more. I can't remember the exact makeup. I think the nemesis still gets two turns, but I think you only get one each. You only get one each, so you're playing with three players is actually a little bit harder. I'm I'm not a hundred percent sure on that, but it does change, it does change the makeup of the turn order deck.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

Yeah. So the rudimentary mechanics change, but actually nothing else changes about the games.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Everything else is the same. The the Nemesis deck has more cards, isn't it? Yeah. If you add players. Um I think this is an absolute sweet spot too. I don't feel like there's anything missing from playing it as as a as a two-player game as opposed to more. Um I haven't played it with more people, but I don't feel like it I I'm sure it would play quite fine, but I don't think it would add anything to it.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Yeah, I absolutely completely agree with that. And I look at it and I I think of it as a two-player game, and I don't think I've ever even wanted to try out more people.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

No, not particularly.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

And I think um whereas even champions, I think, I like to play it more with a with a third person. Um and Star G, we talked about that as well. Yeah, but I think it's absolutely perfect as it is.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Yeah, it absolutely runs absolutely fine as a as a two-player game. Um to the point that there's so many other games I would pull out if we had more people around the table.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Because I think there's there's games that really, really sing when you've got a group, and I I just think this this is the same. It's a great game, but you know, the the taking advantage of the opportunity of having more people to play with, I just didn't think it would hit the table.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

So for that reason, I will score it a ten.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Yep, I give it a nine.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

So that gives us a couple slash two player rating of eight. So that's an eight and an eight. Um, which I definitely think is our is our highest scoring game so far. So one that we uh unequivocally recommend for both uh the the game in general and playing it as a pair. Um any other final thoughts? One thing I do want to add is obviously things have moved on since we we got this, and there's now a legacy version of this. Yes, I really much have my eye on because I think the the idea of actually having a sort of a state that moves from game to game and a deck that you keep throughout, I I I love the sound of that, so it's definitely something that I think I'm gonna pick up at some point.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

And the ad advantage, any of the cards that you get from the legacy version you can port straight across into the base games.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Yeah, it just acts as a massive expansion once you're done with it, because one of the things that always gives me the heapie jeebies a little bit about legacy games are the one and done kind of I'm not ripping this card up, I'm not doing it. Still remember taking bar copy of Pandemic Legacy to the tip that day. Which is a very weird feeling. Uh, because we needed the space. Um, so yeah, I I definitely think there's there's more legs in this, and I'm very far from done with it. And I'm I'm yeah, definitely have my eye on the legacy version.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

Yeah, I think this would be one of the last games that we would uh uh get rid of. Should someone come in and steal games that are horrendous board game features.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Please don't don't let that happen. Um right, okay. So thank you all very much for listening. Um obviously, we've got all of our social medias, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, if you want to follow us on there and join uh the community in the conversation. Um podcast medium that lets you leave reviews, a nice review, be very much welcomed, of course. Uh, and until next time, have fun, be good to each other, and play lots of games.