The year has
just begun but I already think I've found "game of the year"
candidate. While taking a trip to the hobby store for me to purchase "the
Witcher: Adventure game" my girlfriend picked up "Alchemists".
Alchemists is released by CGE (Czech Games Edition) which is the publisher of
another favorite of mine (and Caroline's favorite game) "DungeonLords". The artwork style and colors are similar to that game as well, so
are a few other mechanics such as worker placement/resource gathering.
The game has
each player take on the role of an alchemist trying to gather the most
reputation at the university, outdoing his scholarly colleagues by unlocking
the secret alchemical formula that make up the 8 different ingredients in the
game and then publish their findings to earn scholarly acknowledgement. Just
like Dungeon Lords this game plays 2-4 players, however you don't use "AI
players" to fill up the seats if you play below the maximum number of
players. Having played the game some 12 times since we bought it (a week ago!)
I can say that it works very well for 2 players.
The game
spans 6 turns, and the player with the most reputation points towards the end
is the winner. Each turn players place small "work cubes" on the
board in locations where they want to do their actions. The turn order is
decided by the players themselves as they place "turn order tokens"
on a track. The further down on the track you place your turn order token the
more "freebee" resources you will receive, however that will at the
same time punish you since player higher up on the track will be able to place
their work cubes on the board before you.
Each
location on the board has a limited number of spaces for work cubes, and
furthermore, players placing first also act first - which is often a huge
advantage as you may cherry pick resources in the forest or be the first one to
sell potions to adventurers, buy items or test new concoctions on your
students!
The game
sequence and locations on the board are played in this very order:
1 Placing turn order token on the turn order track to determine who will be
placing cubes on the board first, and then you pick up any "freebee"
resources.
2 The first
player places ALL his cubes on any locations of his/her desire. Then the second
player places all of his/her cubes and so on - starting with ....
The FOREST
where you gather resources. 5 ingredients are placed face up at the start of
each turn, you can also pick random ingredients from the ingredient deck if you
don't want to pick any of the face up ones or if there are none left to pick.
Ingredients are mixed with one another in order to deduct their alchemical
formula so that you can publish theories on the subject and earn reputation.
You will need 2 ingredients at any time when you are mixing potions and
deducting the result.
The SAGE
allows you to transmute 1 ingredient to 1 gold coin.
The SELL POTION TO ADVENTURER location allows up to 3 players to sell one of
three potions each to a random adventurer. Adventurers have their favorite
potions and the better you can comply to their demands the more gold they will
pay you. You need to offer them a guarantee before you sell a potion, and this
ranges from "Exact match" to "Something in a bottle". This
location is great for early game testing of potions if you don't mind the risk
of getting paid less and potential loss of reputation.
The MERCHANT
location allows players to buy a rare artifact, 
these provide end game
reputation bonuses as well as in-game bonus effects that are very valuable.
The DEBUNK
THEORY location allows a player to debunk a published theory of an opposing
player if you can prove that the published theory is wrong. A successful
debunking gives you reputation and the debunked player loses reputation. You
can also "counter publish" your own correct theory ahead of the other
players located in the PUBLISH THEORY location should your debunking be valid.
The PUBLISH
THEORY location is where players go if they know, or if they think they know,
or if they just want to make everyone else think that they know, the correct
formula for one ingredient of their choice. Publishing theories provide you
with a reputation boost for the publishing alone as well as points for a
correct theory at the end of the game. However should your theory be wrong then
you will lose reputation at the end of the game! Players who placed work cubes
in this location can also endorse a theory, no need to know the correct answer
- but if you endorse something that end up being wrong then you lose reputation
at the end of the game. Also, publishing theories about ingredients that belong
to the same "group" will earn you a grant from the university for
your 
dedication. This earns you additional reputation points at the end of the
game as well as some gold.
TEST POTION
ON STUDENT is what it sounds like, you mix ingredients and try the effects on a
student. If the result is positive or neutral nothing more happens. Should a
negative potion be mixed however then the student demands money to continue
drinking your concotions and has to be paid 1 gold coin per potion thereafter.
Finally
there is the DRINK POTION space. Running out of options, or money, you may end
up having to drink your own concoctions and find out the effects 
yourself. If
they are negative you can be punished by losing reputation (for running naked
through the streets after drinking an insanity potion or becoming paralyzed and
have to place work cubes last in the next turn.
Now this in
itself may not sound super exciting, but the game has a very nice and clean
deduction mechanic which uses random attributes for ingredients by having players
use an app (free for Android/iOS/PC )that randomizes everything at the start of
each new game. The use of the app is wonderfully well integrated with the
gameplay and only one device is needed for all players to use. What you do is
that you have your "deduction" triangle and a "deduction
sheet", these show all possible mixes and matches that you can make with
all 8 ingredients.
You then
pick 2 ingredients in secret, mix them, show the result to the other players so
everyone can see what result you got, and then fill in the result on your deduction
sheet and triangle. For instance if you would mix a Frog and a Root you may end
up with a Red + 
potion. You would put a Red + token on your deduction triangle,
and cross over all Red - spaces on your deduction sheet since you would know
that neither ingredient has a dominant Red - attribute. Should both
ingredients be the perfect opposite of each other you put a neutral token in
your deduction triangle. This will allow you to figure out what the attribute of
both ingredients is down the road.
After a few
experiments using the same ingredient crossed with a couple of others you will
be able to tell the exact makeup of, for instance, the Frog. Being certain of
the attribute you should be quick to publish a theory of it, since someone else
may guess that the Frog is a different mix of attributes and then you will
first have to debunk a theory before publishing your own.
This may all
sound a bit confusing and truth to be told Alchemists is just as complicated to
learn in one go as Dungeon Lords ever was. This is a game where all players
need to know everything before you begin to make it a fair competition. But
once you know how the deduction system of the game works it is a very fast
paced and fun game that flows incredibly well.
The more you
play the better you get on deduction, and you may start playing advanced
guessing games to outpublish your opponents, take full advantage of the
publications of opposing players to cross-reference with your own deduction
sheet and theories in progress etc.
Having
played 12 or so games Caroline commented on wanting to have "one more
step". That she felt that mixing and deducting potion attributes felt like
the first stepping stone and that she would have wanted maybe one additional
thing to do with the information you get out of it. And while I can agree
somewhat
with that thought I also believe that the game is written in this particular
way to allow players to get a full grip of the deduction mechanic. Once you
know exactly how it works, then it will be a test of wits where you try to
outpublish and outguess your opponents at a much earlier stage and faster pace
that you would in your early games when you wanted to be absolutely sure you
had everything right before publishing theories.
At any rate,
this is seriously a very good game - a bonus is that it does not take many
minutes to setup and you can play a 2 player game in roughly 1 hour once you
get the hang of it and a few games under your belt.
Shortcomings
of the game is the need for the app, though as I said it is free and available
for all operative systems/devices. There is actually an attribute randomizer
triangle that can be used to preset everything manually, but this requires one
additional non-player to keep track of the ingredient attributes and in all
respects act as a "human version" of the app whenever people are
mixing ingredients.
Alchemists
has quickly become one of my favorite games, and certainly the one game that
has seen most playthroughs in the past year despite only being in my collection
for about a week!
The score: Alchemists a logic driven game where the victory/defeat is more based upon your own skills
I say 9/10
Caroline says 8/10
(and as a bonus our score for Dungeon Lords)
Dungeon Lords a game that revolves more around planning your actions, but where victory/defeat has a larger percentage of "chance" to it during the core action planning sequence.
I say 8/10
Caroline says 8,5/10
Next two miniatures painted up for Empire of the Dead. These two Order of the Dragon thugs have been slightly converted, I added the crossbow and club combo on one, and the bow on the other to give my vampire gangs a little medieval weapon support. Not that these weapons are super efficient (except for the club), but they add a lot of flavor and. I really enjoy painting the Empire of the Dead minis, they paint up quickly and the sculpting is great!
A while back I tried out
the very intriguing division led by prince Boguslaw Radziwill published by
Wargamer.pl in PDF format. The division has a base of Lithuanian/Commonwealth
troops, but can field Swedish allied regiments as add-on regiments. Imo you can
play this army as a Lithuanian army loyal to the commonwealth - or when playing
with the add-on Swedish forces play it as the traitor army that fought against
the Crown with the invading Swedes during the Deluge.
start the battle you must roll on a chart and check the mindset of
the army. The results range from no effect, to a single or all regiments except
prince Radziwills own cavalry regiment be "insubordinate" and very
hard to control.
The prince however does aid
your army with a pretty good rule, "Stern", which gives every
regiment in your army +1 to their breaking point threshold. This is a welcome
bonus, especially if you have small regiments such as the dragoons.
I was tinkering with my Empire of the Dead miniatures a week ago, and the rulebook for the game was also in front of me when Caroline asked "what's that game?". She had previously only seen me paint tiny 15mm soldiers for By Fire & Sword and other historical miniatures.
