by Whizkid
After a second full play, my wife said she was not impressed with the game. I think it's rather close to how I felt about Dominion after a few games. I've come around and now rather enjoy Dominion, but HoMC... well, seems to be lacking something.My wife said it's like Dominion, but it's a race to get the first Province. Yeah, it kind of is. It's kind of fun to race to put together a deck that will give you the 8 (or 9) damage required to end the game with a win, and yet, there's no other score.
There's no second, third, or fourth place. Who starts the next game? The player to my left so I go last? I went last last night and drafted two pretty good cards. Did it help in my win? I don't know enough to say either way right now.
I'd like some way to count points, maybe using defeated minions and villains. This could also be used in tournaments for placing. Say, X points per minion, Y per villain, Z per archenemy/win; or have a separate total for wins if you want to emphasize that. Because Dominion has points, you not only know when you win, you know how badly you crushed your opponents, or eked out that win.
There's no way to specialize, which seems at odds with a superhero theme. I'm hoping a quick expansion will help with that. Physical, Mental, and Elemental damage seem like a good place to start. Maybe defensive cards like Dominion's Duration cards could stay in play between turns, helping out the local superhero community. Just spitballin' here.
There's no way for the good guys to gang up... it's just a big, long, slogging battle with no strategy, just tactics. Well, strategy in buying cards, tactics in playing them.
The rules simply must have a section that details every single card and answers questions about them. Such as:
- Can you stack more than one Spark of Energy? Sure.
- Does discarding two cards boost every copy of whatever power it is that gets boosted by discarding cards? I think so today.
- When using stackable power cards, does the first card "use up" the energy, or only add to it?
- If there are two minions (or whatever) in play, do you roll the green die twice? If not, does the one die stop both?
With all that said, I still like the game and want to play more of it. I like that it takes longer than Dominion, especially because of the setup and teardown durations. I like that the game seems to usually be close so it seems that it could go either way, and I'm actually looking forward to a defeat to see what it takes.
I'm hoping folks will chip in with their thoughts on the game so far.