Looking Behind the Stitches - Unstitched Review

[Reddish22]

Originally posted on BoardGameGeek.com

Hey Guys, I'm returning to my reviews after a few years off. I've still been gaming, just not as up to date on my reviews, but I'm excited to get back into the swing of them. I've recently just gotten married and that and a few other things have kept me from being more active in my posts.

I love board games. I love the strategy and decisions that go into them, and especially, I love that I can have fun while thinking. My gateway game was the Settlers of Catan, and my favorites are kind of all over the board with a range from Puerto Rico to Space Hulk.

So that's me - a background about my opinions - my reviews follow the same format every time, because these are the criteria I like to think about when I'm looking at purchasing a game. Feel free to check out my other reviews. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/browse/boardgame/0?usern...

And now I'd like to take a look at a game that needs more love here on BGG, Puppet Wars: Unstitched.

1. The Components

The first thing that attracted to me about PWU are the beautiful miniatures. Wyrd Miniatures is a obviously a miniatures company and these figures will require some assembly. Actually most of them are quite easy to assemble, but there are a few difficult ones. After assembly, the puppets look amazing. They have a lot of very intricate detail and they look great painted. (Maybe I'll upload pictures of my painted puppets soon) The board for the game is fairly standard, while very colorful and full of theme. The game also comes with 2 "fate decks" which are used to resolve actions. These are very nice plastic decks of 54 card decks with custom suits and great art. There are also standard size puppet cards used to give you all the information on the puppet, these are actually able to be drawn on with an erasable marker. These are double sided and good quality as well. There are also some plastic tokens included with the game to mark workbenches and obstacles. While these are nice and functional, I've replaced the obstacle tokens with some wooden spools that I got from a hobby store for like $3 and they look great and add to the theme. Along with these tokens there are some simple tokens to mark which puppets are "exhausted." These are very thin, but easily replaced, you can even just turn the puppets sideways to show they've acted or use other tokens, which I've chosen to do. All in all, for the price, you get a really great deal. There are 44 amazing looking puppets in that box and they are the obvious forerunner in this department.

2. The Theme

After having a look at the puppets, you'll definitely notice they look almost Tim-Burtonesque. Puppet Wars is tied closely to it's older brother Malifaux, which I've never played. In Puppet Wars, you will be controlling a Master Puppet whose look and abilities are similar to it's corresponding figure in Malifaux. Essentially these are voodoo dolls of the larger world's Malifaux characters taking shots at each other. Along with the Upgrades in the game, which I'll explain later, every piece of the game helps to add to the theme.

3. The Concept

Puppet Wars is a tactical miniatures board game. Essentially the last Master Puppet left standing will win the war. Before the game begins players will be able to select the puppets they wish to use in the war. players will choose from one of three master puppets, and then can recruit sidekicks and pawns to help combat their foes. sidekicks are unique, you canonly include one in your toybox crew, while pawns can have three of the same puppet in each crew. The game feels very tactical as players try to control important areas of the board known as workbenches. Each turn of the game players will get five animation rounds to activate a puppet. Any action, including activating puppets requires the use of cards from the fate deck. In each animation round the player who plays the lowest card will act first, the catch is that the more powerful puppets require higher value cards to activate. This requires players to make some interesting decisions. When a puppet activates, it can move, and perform an action. Performing an action requires the puppet to become exhausted. Exhausted puppets can still activate, but they must take a wound before they do. Puppets refresh after the five animation rounds. These constraints again require players to make some interesting decisions.

4. The Ending

The game ends when all other master puppets have died. As the puppets start to fall, the game definitely gets interesting. One really interesting part of the game is that as your puppets die, they don't leave the battlefield for good, but can be used as Upgrades. When a puppet is flipped to its upgrade side, it can be attached to your existing puppets to give them new abilities that usually resemble the abilities of the puppet the upgrade comes from. That way as the game on and you lose puppets, your remaining puppets can often get stronger. There are opportunities for a puppet to steal upgrades from the puppets that it kills however, so you can gain power from your enemies as well. Each game I've played has been very exciting and they move very quickly, lasting at most 45 minutes for us so far.

5. The Game play

I feel as if I've already described the majority of the gameplay. Actions are card driven from your fate deck, requiring the players to meet the values of those actions, and sometimes the suit as well. Each round players have a hand of control cards which are cards from their fate decks that can be used to boost the values of cards drawn to perform actions. One example is in combat. To cause a rip or wound to a puppet, a puppet will declare its attack and draw a number of cards equal to its combat value. To succeed, one of those cards drawn will need to exceed the value of the defending puppet's defense value. As in any action, the attacking puppet can play cards from his control hand to meet that value. In addition, before all of this combat business happens, the defending puppet can dodge, playing a card from its control hand to make its defense equal to that played card. One thing I love about this game is how dynamic the gameplay feels. Each round you activate a puppet, your opponent activates a puppet. This causes the gameplay to flow very fast and I really enjoy it.

6. Replayability

As I said earlier in the review, the base set right now comes with 44 puppets. In the games we've played so far 18 take the field each game. One of the great parts of the game is actually building your crew. It's great fun to look for upgrades and combos that you can pull off. Puppets that are played with a master out of their faction are usually more costly to activate, but this makes even more interesting decisions, even before the game begins. I am sure soon the game will see even more puppets, a dim excited for that.

7. The "Luck" Factor

There is always going to be lucky draws in a game where everything is dependent upon cards. One thing I love about it however is that because you play out of a 54 card deck, if you start out with a lot of lower value cards, the beginning of the game may be more difficult for you, but as those high cards get into your draws, it will all balance out. Hand management is a very important part of this game, however sometimes the lucky and unlucky draws make for very awesome plays, and the game isn't forgettable. Luck plays a role in this game, but an enjoyable one.

Conclusions:

Puppet Wars is a game I cannot believe isn't more popular on this site. I know if more people were to play it, it would pick up even more steam here on BGG. I'm not sure why Wyrd hasn't been doing more to put out more buzz on this game. On their forums there is a good community to discuss strategy, crew building, and share more map set ups. I want to build a bigger community here on BGG.

If you cannot tell from my comments, I really love this game. There are so many great decisions in the gameplay and the characters and puppets are very cool and distinct. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses. If you are interested in a tactical miniatures game, Puppet Wars is a great choice for you. I have really enjoyed it as a quick game with lots of good decisions that plays really well with 2, and can be played with up to 4 with 2 sets. Puppet Wars is a game I cannot wait to play again every time I think about it and I highly recommend it.

Please include any thoughts about the review,

and as always, Thank you for reading!