WARHAMMER 40K: Relic

Relic makes no attempt to be anything more than mindless entertainment for a few hours.

To that end, it achieves the goal very well.

It is indeed fun to think you're going against an easy enemy when somehow it turns out the entire pantheon of chaos gods just happen to show up instead.

It is fun to have your arm simply fall off due to the encroaching chaos.

It is fun to grow another arm in its place. Or, as we guessed, somehow they are on the same side.

It is definitely an upgrade of Talisman. The concept, roll and move, draw card, roll dice, get reward, is identical. But they really amped up the decisions. Considering the decisions used to be Left or Right, it really wasn't that tough.

But the Missions (quests) are great and varied, the concept of the three flavors of deck (Ork / Eldar / Tyranid - mostly) kind of matching your three stats (Red / Blue / Yellow. Yeah, I know, strength, will, yeah, sure, it's freaking red blue and yellow.) gives you a bit of control and the missions often send you one way or the other.

The Power cards are absolutely great. It brings in an element from Sorry!. How weird is that that an element from Sorry! improves gameplay. You can use the numbers as replacement dice, or use some usually fairly specific but cool ability when needed.

Choosing when to use these cards is an immense choice sometimes. For a game with not a lot of choice.

What I'm getting at is that the game is decidedly next-gen Talisman, but the guy downing the six pack during play is just as easily going to win as the guy seriously balancing every probability.

The little busts as pawns are interesting. GW retains the rights to make the characters as Minis. This is a sidestep around that restriction.

The game takes, let's say 45 minutes per player. If you alter the amount of experience needed to level from 6 to 5, drop that 10 minutes per guy. However, that variant won't function properly with the upcoming Nemesis expansion, which introduces characters that have a goal that is NOT to reach the center.

The characters themselves REALLY feel different, way beyond +2 to roll in the crags and other stupid stuff from early iterations of this game system. The leveling up truly differentiates the way you play the characters more. The tech priest will end up with wargear - he level's it in. Other characters level up and gain power cards, or influence (just call it gold, it's really the same).

The components are great. The cool little dials that FFG throws into everything now work as GREAT character sheets. Cards are nice. I wish the die were something more exciting, like some polyhedral choices or something, but OK.

But.

The.

Board.

The artwork is gorgeous. The cards are evocative and expressive. But when you are leaving cards on the board and counting spaces... and...

It is a miasma worthy of the warp itself.

PERHAPS if the cards had a thick white border. PERHAPS if the palette of the board were more muted. PERHAPS if the spaces were delineated by something like a chain or lightning and not a 1 point grey ruling line, things would be better. PERHAPS if the print weren't tiny.

But out of 500+ games in my collection, I am hard pressed to find a board that is more difficult to actually use than this one.

It seems to be a miscue in the creative direction of the game. Each individual element is fine, but in play, this sucker is hard to look at. 

What you have is a long game for an afternoon with friends to share with a burger and a beer. The type of game where if someone is texting during someone else's turn, they really don't miss anything.

It's a game where you will cry over stupid die rolls and card draws, and cheer for the good ones.

It is not necessarily a wonderful game design. With the right group, it is wonderful gaming.

TLDR: Roll and move adventure comes to 40K