Sentinels of the
Multiverse
There have been a number
of different ages in comics, from the golden age that started it all, to the
modern age that we find ourselves in now, and while I don’t read them much
anymore (got bored of people getting killed one week for shock value and
getting brought back a month later), I do recognise that things have evolved
somewhat.
At one point, the comics were little more than “Villain of the month”, nicely contained with a swift moral message at the end of it, usually something about a previous conflict or whatever was a hot topic at the time, and for many (Myself included), that was more than enough.
Sentinels of the Multiverse is the game of that era of comics, and it draws from the influences of such comics as the Avengers, the Justice League and the Squadron Supreme, where the villains were usually strong enough to take on several heroes at once, and it was only through teamwork that the heroes stood any chance at all.
The premise is easy, take
a single super villain, all the players take the role of a hero, and then fight
until there’s only one side standing.
The villains actions are all pre-programmed, so all the heroes need to
do it co-ordinate their own attacks to ensure that they make it through.
Simple enough?
The interesting thing here
is that as players, just like many of the heroes of old, you know what the villain is going to do
next, you’ve got their Modus Operandi written on the card in front of you, so
defeating them should be a matter of simplicity…
Except it’s not…
There is the matter of the
location where the heroes must face the villain, which carries complications
all its own as the villain is unlikely to let the players have a go at them on
open ground with no civilians around.
Then there’s the matter of the environment around them, as no battle
ever occurs on a sunny day with icecream for everyone…
There are several decks of
cards to be managed, which sounds strenuous, but really isn’t, each deck is
only used once a turn, the modifications to the game are applied there and
then, and they last until the next round when the deck is drawn from
again.
All the villains have a
deck of cards filled with minions that they summon in the case of Grand Warlord
Voss (Who really isn’t Thanos, honest!), to various bits of technology and
mysticism in the case of Baron Blade (Who really isn’t Doctor Doom, honest!),
and these cards are drawn every turn, adding to what the heroes have to deal
with. In the case of some villains, the
cards make the villain harder to hit, or make them hit harder, and the game has
been scaled so that many of the abilities that the villains have increase as
the number of heroes ranked against them increases. It’s possible to get a lucky victory once in
a while, but it really is once in a great while that luck plays any part in the
game.
The Heroes are very much
like those found in the Silver Age, usually with a single power or defining
characteristic that marks them out from the others, some of the heroes are
stronger all around than the others, such as Legacy (Superman) and Expatriette
(Punisher), with some of the others being a little strange to say the least,
such as the Scholar (clearly the Dude from Big Lebowski) and Absolute Zero (Mr
Freeze, who can only damage things by hurting himself…). Most of them have co-operative abilities that
complement the group or can hit really hard by themselves but need the support
of others to make sure they don’t go down too quickly.
Given that all the actions
that the players can take are drawn from a deck, it’s possible that a bad
shuffle will wreck the chances of the players getting the early start on the
villain that’s needed to stand a good chance to win, but the more players that
you have, the less chance there is that you’ll all get a bad shuffle in the
beginning. The final kicker is that even
when a hero is taken out (as invariably one will be, we’ve only ever had one
game where all the heroes were still standing and everyone was in low single
digits of hit points), their character card is flipped over and they still get
to contribute something each turn that will be of use to the group.
The game plays quickly
once you’ve got the hang of it and it’s possible to play a game of it in less
than half an hour, but expect the first game to last
Production values are good,
the cards are all full colour and neatly laid out, the boxes are designed to
make storage of the cards easy and it’s possible to transport all the various
expansions in the two main boxes.
Sentinels has been going
for some time now since winning the best game award at Gencon 2011 and there’s
been a number of expansions for the game as well as limited edition cards and
an evolving storyline that is added to with every new release. It’s a game that anyone can pick up and run
with and even if you’re not a fan of comics in general, the way in which the
game is presented makes it easy for anyone to get involved.
Either way, for an occasional bout of villain bashing, it's hard to beat...
