Episode 335: Emberheart and Casual Games For The Holidays
Hey now and Season’s Greetings, Cabalists! Today the gang celebrates both the holiday season and another successful Kickstarter! The fellas dive into some of the games they’ve been playing, including Nemesis: Retaliation, Thiefdom, Food Chain Magnate, Oltree, and Epochs: Course of Cultures, and they feature Emberheart from Mindclash, designed by Rob Fisher and Adam Porter. Then Tony T hooks you up with some festive news about big game publishers going out of business, and finally the Founders talk about playing games with their families over the holidays and give you some casual game recommendations.
Timecodes
Nemesis Retaliation: 00:07:43
Thiefdom: 00:17:21
Food Chain Magnate: 00:26:30
Oltree: 00:39:05
Epochs Course of Cultures: 00:49:36
Emberheart Review: 01:03:42
News with Tony Y: 01:41:39
Casual Games For The Holidays: 02:38:09
Opening Banter and Reviews
Feature Review: Emberheart
The mystical island of Emberheart is home to the last dragons. They were living in harmony with the villagers until poachers from the Distant Lands arrived to capture, raid, and plunder. To keep the island safe, the Dragon Ambassador now seeks the King’s support. As one of the King’s champions, your mission is to join forces with the villagers, rescue and protect the dragons, and stand against the evil poachers. Emberheart is a quick-playing, medium-weight worker placement game . As one of the King’s Champions, your task is to recruit heroes, rescue dragons and expand their preserves, train your own dragon companion, and oppose the roaming poachers. On your turn, you can either take an Aide token (granting you a unique bonus for the round), or send a party of hirelings to one of the locations on the island. The number of hirelings you send matters just as much as where you send them: the more you commit to a location, the earlier you get to choose from its limited rewards, and the less likely your opponents are to outbid you with a larger party. There are various hirelings at your disposal: Grunts are versatile but single-use, while Scouts, Rangers and Wardens are permanent, but limited to specific locations. Your Dragon Companion can also join a party of hirelings as you place them, giving them various bonuses based on how you trained it. The locations’ rewards allow you to recruit Heroes with unique abilities, rescue Dragons from the poachers’ grasp to get them to safety in matching Preserves, and launch counterattacks against the poachers. In the heat of some actions, and during the Poachers’ Raid at the end of each round, you may get burned, and advancing too far on the Flame track will take its toll at the end of the game. Rescuing Dragons, recruiting Heroes, training your Dragon Companion, and keeping your Flame low will earn you Glory at the end of the game. After five rounds, the Champion with the most Glory wins, inheriting the title of Dragon Ambassador.
Designed by Rob Fisher and Adam Porter
Published by Mindclash Games
Gaming News by Tony T
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The Secret Cabal is so pleased to be sponsored by the great Restoration Games! The name says it all, Restoration Games is dedicated to bring back to market games that all of us loved from decades past. The games we grew up with and have been missing from the world. Justin and Rob believe that "Every Game Deserves Another Turn"! Please take some time to check out their website at RestorationGames.com.
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