Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Just played through a couple of full games of Relic. My initial opinions:

The playing pieces and game board are beautiful and there are some very nice looking cards. Much of the art is familiar but there's also good original stuff here - the character sheets in particular I think give a cool fresh look at the 40k universe. Will particularly enjoy painting the pieces up if I can bring myself to make a start..

In terms of mechanics, fun to play but some of the randomness - of which there is a fair amount - has led to a few frustrations. E.g. you can find yourself facing the universe's most powerfully monsters on your first few encounters - needless to say woefully outmatched. The penalties for being 'vanquished' aren't as bad as they might be so there is margin for error - or poor luck.

The levelling mechanic and available gear both give a good sense of increasing character power which is rewarding. Although there's no direct confrontation between players (i.e. you never fight each other) the game is competitive and there usually seems to come a tipping point when one player leaps ahead of the others. We found one player started rattling through missions and levels at super-quick speed due to some beneficial pickups (particularly around movement) whilst the others languished around due to unfortunate encounters and rolls. However the final victory still takes a while as you have to work your way to the central area.

I particularly like the corruption mechanic which actually does tempt you to take power upgrades at the risk of losing your hero to the dark side, and there's a risk multiplier impact in this which is interesting. However, it hasn't seemed to feature very much in the games I've played.

Overall positive - will need a few more play throughs to make a final decision. Games took longer than I initially thought at 3-4 hours or so though I expect this could take even longer playing with a full complement of players and some of the more complex central objectives available in the box.

Anyone else got thoughts?

I've played 4 games of Relic now, and I've found the game to be tons of fun. Corruption is a fun feature, and wait until you play the ending in the Chaos Manufactorum: it was a race to the Manufactorum at the end, trying to force corruption cards upon each other to kill each other. I threw 3 onto an opponent, bringing him to 5, then I rolled low and got thrown out of the Manufactorum, and he hit me with a corruption result, which bounced two additional corruptions onto me, killing me. Rather than starting a new character, I bowed out-he and his wife were both almost finished, so I watched the end game.

The Commissar is the coolest character in the game: gather allies, buy them from your opponents if you have to (the Empire approves of slavery, after all) and BANG! them to turn your results to 6's. Trust me, you'll have a good time. You also have to yell BANG! every time you assassinate one of your allies/strangers for an adjusted roll of 6.

Ogryn and Ratling Sniper are also some of the more fun characters as well.

I love the game, and my friends have enjoyed it too: it's pretty much replaced Talisman 100% as our adventure game. It's true that you can't openly attack your opponents, but there are missions and allies that allow you to attack fellow players. My Commissar-Spawn is a living testament to that fact. Keep playing and love it-it's a wonderfully made game, and with the result from death (not corruption), the only issue of fighting things you can't kill occasionally showing up early becomes a non-issue. Have fun, and screw your opponents over. Once again, I love it!

Pictures are up of my painted busts in the gallery now:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-29784-33034_Relic%20Busts.html

Mine arrived the day before its official release, but still not played yet. The Board, pieces and overall look is outstanding mind.

timetowaste85 you might be the first to post painted pieces! Particularly like the eyes

Thank you. And I may be the first on here, but a couple of guys on BoardgameGeek had theirs painted up first.

How does it measure up to Talisman? Both in terms of fun and game mechanics? Is it as random as Talisman?

 Tangent wrote:
How does it measure up to Talisman? Both in terms of fun and game mechanics? Is it as random as Talisman?

This would be my question too. I have Talisman and a few of the expansions and i have to say that i think it has some balance issues as it scales. Is Relic just a Sci Fi skinned Talisman or is it still worth picking up?

It is not as random as Talisman: you have three different decks to get challenge cards from: strength, willpower and cunning. If you land on a red space, take a strength challenge. Blue space=willpower, yellow=cunning. You can ease your chances to get a favorable enemy this way. Also, power cards allow you possible dice-roll replacements, allowing for more guaranteed results. Definitely less random, and a lot more fun!

Ah, so it's the same mechanic (roll a die, move your piece, draw a card, fight the thing), but in Talisman all the cards are pulled from the same deck, so you might be a strength character and end up having to fight some willpower monster (or whatever it's called). But in Relic, if you're a strength character and you roll the die, you can choose to land on red or yellow, and since red is strength, you're more likely to fight a strength fight. Or something. Is that about right?

Yes. That's exactly it. Some red cards force you to draw a yellow or blue card too, and vice versus, and some red cards will be yellow or blue enemies, but they are few and far between. You can also pull up greater daemons and huge heroes that will allow you to bring in another player as an ally to help you: their current stats (before items) plus your stats, items and followers. If you win, you both gain. If you lose, you lose a life, but your "partner" suffers nothing. It's a cool system, and can be used to keep other players from meeting goals, as it takes them away from missions (new cards that you always have which may cause you to have to land on another player, travel to a certain location, kill a certain enemy type, etc).

I really enjoy it alot. Haven't played talisman, but I really like Relic. Currently working on painting my busts.

Great game. The game mechanics are solid, the character cards have all their own unique flavor, however theyre missing some characters that I think would be a great edition to the mix, such as the karaskin stormtroopers, cleric or warrior priest, different assassins off the top of my head. The enemy threat cards, again, cover a vast majority of threats to the imperium however, ild like to have seen dark eldar and necrons thrown in the mix.

The only negatives that I've experienced is that there is no real co-op in the game, its usually a race to the center, and that you have to draw 2 character cards and pick one. Drawing characters is fine, but if the majority of the group draws medium tier characters and someone draws one of the top tier the space marine (dumb generic ultra smurf) they just breeze through the game on average. Also, Corruptis is early impossible to beat.

Can't wait for more expansions of missions amd characters!

It's designed as a competitive, not co-operative game. If Talisman is anything to go by, there will be an endless stream of expansion packs over the next few years, which will no doubt bring in more characters like Kasrkin, more Assassins and also Xenos races as well. There's a designer's note in the back of the rulebook that says that "proper" PVP will come in a future expansion, and Given that the Imperial Guard faction currently features a Commissar and 2 abhumans with no actual Guardsmen, I think an elite Kasrkin will be the one they choose for an early expansion

Hey all,

As the artist who produced the character card illustrations and the playing piece designs, I've got a slightly different perspective, but the result is the same! RELIC is a great game based on a tried and true game system (Talisman), and features some pretty high quality parts and pieces.

I was super happy with how accurately the modeler reproduced my bust designs. Great quality and very paintable! I shouldn't be surprised though as Fantasy Flight Games makes some excellent products... and I'm not just schilling an employer here! It really is a great product. And more importantly a fun game.

AS an aside, it's always nice to hear that people enjoy playing a game that you had a (small) part in creating.
Keep gaming.

-Nikolaus Ingeneri

----------------
More 40k illustration @ NERD FUEL - ingeneri.wordpress.com/

Thanks for posting, Nikolaus!

Wow, awesome, thanks for the post!

Its great fun to play. I have never played talisman or any other board game since monopoly years ago but this was a hoot. Cant wait for another game tomorrow. Roll on the expansions.