Brotherwise Games – Boss Monster: Tools of Hero-Kind (Review)

Publisher	Brotherwise Games
Genre	Card
Number of Players	2 – 4
Play Time	20 minutes
Initial Review Date	2/15/16
Last Updated	2/15/16
Official Rules	Basic | Advanced

This an expansion for the game Boss Monster. It adds a new kind of card along with a few room and spell cards that interact with the new type of cards.

What’s New

Twenty Item Cards: This is a new kind of card. Item cards come out one at a time and automatically attach themselves to heroes. There are five different types of item cards, fighter, priest, thief, wizard and universal items. Class specific item cards will only attach to a hero of the class type it is for. Universal items attach to the first hero available. Each hero can only have one item each. So, Items could build up in town waiting for an appropriate hero to arrive and, like heroes, items have priority according to the order that they showed up. Item cards make the hero they are attached to more powerful by granting them a special ability. If the hero ends up damaging you, the item is placed face down in your used item pile. If you manage to kill the hero  you place it face up near your boss card. You can then use the boss ability granted by the item the same as you would use a spell card (placing it in the used item pile after use). If you acquire another item card before using the item card you already have, you must choose one to be sent to your used item pile.

Four Advanced Room Cards: There are four new unique room cards that interact with Item cards.

• Burial Mound: Once per turn, you may discard two Room cards to flip over a face-down Item card in your scorekeeping area.
• Orcish Smithy: Once per turn during the Build phase, choose an unattached Item in town. You may attach it to any Hero, regardless of Treasure type.
• Artificer’s Workbench: Once per turn, you may choose a face-up Item in your scorekeeping area and flip it face-down to draw a Spell card.
• Magnetic Ceiling: Once per turn, if a Hero enters this Room with an attached Item, you may place that item face-down in your scorekeeping area.

Two Spell Cards: There are two copies of a new spell called excavate. Excavate allows you to flip a face down item card face up or vise versa. Since this can be used on any player (including yourself) it has both offensive and defensive uses.

One of the problems I have with the room and spell cards is that there is no easy to identify symbol indicating that they are an expansion card. If you look at the cards very closely there is super tiny text that says TOHK followed by a number and copyright. This means that it’s a bit of a pain to sort through the room and spell cards if you decide that you don’t want to always play with the expansion.

Conclusion

The expansion does exactly what it claims to do. It makes the game more deadly. At the beginning of the game it’s pretty manageable, though if you get a poor draw you can easily end up taking damage. Late in the game is when it becomes dangerous, since you start getting epic heroes who have extra abilities. In the game I played it came down to the outcome of an epic hero. If the hero died, that player would win. If the hero survived their opponent would win, since they already had 3 damage. Not only that but their opponent was in similar position, they just happened to go second.

The expansion is good but if you want to make sure the room and spell cards show up I would suggest the following.

1. Setup the game as normal (setting up the discard piles and dealing out starting hands).
2. Take the top 20 room cards and shuffle in the four new room cards
3. Place those 24 cards back on top of the room deck
4. Take the top 10 spell cards and shuffle in the two new spell cards
5. Place those 12 cards back on top of the spell deck

In this way you can be sure that at least some if not all of the new cards will show up in your game.

If you like Boss Monster and you’re looking to add some additional danger to the game this will do just that. On the other hand if you struggle to stay alive in the base game you probably won’t enjoy this expansion.

Brotherwise Games: Boss Monster – Review

Brotherwise Games – Boss Monster 2: The Next Level – Review

Brotherwise Games – Boss Monster: Tools of Hero-Kind (Review)

Brotherwise Games – Boss Monster 2: The Next Level – Review

Publisher	Brotherwise Games
Genre	Card
Number of Players	2 – 4
Play Time	20 minutes
Initial Review Date	2/14/16
Last Updated	2/14/16
Official Rules	Basic | Advanced

This an expansion for the game Boss Monster. What’s nice about this expansion is that while it can be used to enhance the base game, you do not have to have the base game to use it. The expansion includes everything you need to play. The only downside is it means you must use the new heroes and their mechanics.

What’s New

Four new Dark Heroes (Barbarian, Hitman, Vampire and Witch): These all work the same and are only different by the treasure type they seek. These heroes have an ability that any player can activate by discarding cards from their hand. The hero gets stronger if a player discards a card. While any player can activate it can only be activated once per turn. So, there is a limit to how much stronger the hero can be regardless of how many players there are. Ultimately, this only makes a marginal difference. After all, if the player attracting this type of hero plans for the possible extra strength, then it’s ability is of little consequence.

Four new Hybrid Heroes (Archer, Druid, Necromancer and Swordmage): Again, these are the same except for the treasure types they seek. That’s right Types with an “s”. Each of these are drawn by two different treasure types. To determine which dungeon they are attracted to these types are added together for each dungeon. The dungeon with the highest combined total is the one that attracts this hero. In some ways this is more interesting than the dark heroes, since it forces competition between players that might not of been competing for heroes before. I actually wish there were more heroes in the game like this since they add additional conflict and strategy.

Epic Spells: These spells don’t really feel better or more powerful than the normal spells. I think part of the problem is that unless you make a strategy of casting spells, you won’t see very many spells to begin with. Since you’re never really seeing a lot of spells, spells always seem awesome. I think this problem has more to do with how spells are implemented in the game than any issue with the game it’s self.

More Spell Rooms: As per my comment on Epic spells, there was some effort made to make spells more accessible by adding more spell rooms to the game. This is why I feel that the problem with spells has more do with it’s implementation than the spell cards themselves. By the time you’re in a position to regularly get spells the game is almost over.

Conclusion

Overall I think this is a good expansion. It’s nice that the expansion can be played as a standalone game. The downside is, if you have this expansion and not the base game the only reason to get the base game is if you don’t actually enjoy all of the new cards (since you are forced to use all of them if you don’t have the base game).

If you liked the original boss monster game then you’ll really enjoy this expansion. If you didn’t enjoy the base game, this expansion isn’t going to win you over. it adds new “flavors” but only minimal depth.

If you don’t own either game and you’re deciding between the two. I would suggest looking at the new cards this game adds and deciding if they excite you or not. If you think you’ll like them then get this expansion. If one or more of the new things doesn’t appeal to you though, then I would stick with the base game.

Brotherwise Games: Boss Monster – Review

Brotherwise Games – Boss Monster 2: The Next Level – Review

Brotherwise Games – Boss Monster: Tools of Hero-Kind (Review)

Brotherwise Games: Boss Monster – Review

Publisher	Brotherwise Games
Genre	Card
Number of Players	2 – 4
Play Time	20 minutes
Initial Review Date	1/27/16
Last Updated	1/27/16
FAQ
Official Rules	Basic | Advanced
Videos	Gameplay Video

This is basically a tabletop re-imagining of the old PC game Dungeon Keeper. In this game each player plays as a “Boss Monster” who controls a dungeon with treasure in it. Your objective is to lure in would be heroes and kill them off. So, in an interesting twist you will be competing with other players to attract heroes and kill them before anyone else can.

Setup

Each player is randomly dealt a boss monster. Along with a hand of cards that consists of five room cards and two spell cards. Out of these you then pick five cards to keep and the rest are discarded.

Then each player selects a basic room card to place. Once everyone has selected a room, these are built (resolving any effects these cards might produce) and then the normal game begins.

Gameplay

During the game hero cards are revealed and these hero’s are attracted to different treasures. Each room you play will have 1 or more treasures associated with it. Hero’s then head off to the dungeon that contains the most of the type of treasure they are looking for. It is in this way that players via for the heroes.

In addition to a treasure type each room deals damage to heroes that enter them by a set amount. This means that a player can quickly see if the hero will die before they reach the boss at the end of that particular dungeon. This is where spell cards and room abilities come in.

Spell cards allow a player to manipulate the heroes as they progress through a dungeon. These can allow a player to kill a hero that would normally survive or save a hero that would normally die (in an opponent’s dungeon).

As mentioned before rooms will often also have a special ability of some kind. Some of these abilities can be triggered by their owner in order to affect heroes, players and even other rooms in particular ways.

Conclusion

The game has a nice 8-bit retro feel thanks primarily to the artwork. If you like the idea of playing the villain then this game will have a lot of appeal. Also, while some of the artwork and names are cutesy the mechanics are solid enough to keep the game interesting long after it’s novelty has worn off.

The game has a medium learning curve. Some of the mechanics of the game can be tricky to wrap your head around the first time and some of the wording can feel a little bit ambiguous. So, new players might get a little frustrated when they try to do something only to find out that it doesn’t work the way they thought it did. It also takes way longer than 20 minutes the first couple times you play.

In the end it can be a quick and fun game once you know what you’re doing. Just know that there will be some growing pains when it comes to players who are not familiar with the game.

Brotherwise Games: Boss Monster – Review

Brotherwise Games – Boss Monster 2: The Next Level – Review

Brotherwise Games – Boss Monster: Tools of Hero-Kind (Review)