Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn

Other Games
21

I think what people mean by “more like a board game” is:

[quote=“Zebadiah, post:18, topic:5021”]
The core set comes with a decent amount of cards, but almost all of them are highly focused around specific synergies. For example, if you’re not building a mill deck, there is basically no reason to use half of the cards from the prebuilt mill deck. Other cards have prebuilt synergies that aren’t flexible (eg, Bring Forth and False Demon). What this means is that optimized decks will just be better versions of the starter decks, I don’t see a lot of room for new archetypes. Since the release plan is comparatively slow (I heard 10-20 cards per quarter), the meta might stagnate.
[/quote] which I tend to agree with. I do think there’s room to experiment (particularly with swapping IDs and minion) but it does feel much less a multi-purpose scaffolding and more of a finished building, imo.

4 Likes
22

That makes sense, but I don’t think canned strategies have anything to do with being more boardgame-like.

This is a good way to describe it.

23

I feel that if it survives long enough to get a few packs out and get a decent cardpool going, it might have legs. (Beyond a standalone box, which is probably how I’ll end up playing it among friends.) A pack every 2 months instead of once a quarter might’ve been a better choice, too. Netrunner is so fast, and keeping pace can be tough.

I do like how a draft mechanism is written into the base rules. That might keep enough interest in the base set while the packs get printed.

The fact that there’s a promo deck that you can currently only get if you buy directly from Plaid Hat makes me nervous. I don’t want to have to pay something like $150 AUD to get the base game, shipping and promo, so I hope they release it through another channel at some point.

24

I like that too, but the game doesn’t seem conducive to drafting, especially with such a restrictive and small cardpool.

25

Agreed. I can see why they did the draft the way they did - otherwise you’d be splitting conjurations amongst multiple players and might run out. Still a bit of a shame.

26

That was the impression I got.

Which is good, because Lands are the worst. I played the mill chick, had a pretty fun game.

27

The dice really do improve both the deckbuilding and play of the game. It’s a much more interesting and useful method of distributing economy.

Another thing I thought was odd: They made milling a viable strategy right out of the core. Milling (making your opponent lose by removing all cards from their deck) just does damage in Ashes, it’s not an autoloss, but it effectively seals the game. It can easily feel like “the wrong way to play” a game or result in a negative play experience. The mill cards don’t play well with other strategies either, so the deckbuilding is more limiting. Especially considering the narrow focus of the core set cards, I think they should have used a different phoenixborn instead.

That said, the milling phoenixborn (Saria) is my favorite because of her Seaside Raven conjurations. Battle advantage + Magic Guard is amazing. They are especially good with attachments (aka alterations) like Undying Heart and the charm dice power.

1 Like
28

For now, I think it’s true that the milling cards don’t mix very well with the rest of the box, as far as deckbuilding goes. I actually like, though, that milling was built into the game as a core mechanic, and not simply an weird exploit deck. In the future, I can see it being an interesting deckbuilding choice for decks with purely defensive conjurations- where the plan is to turtle against combat damage while milling the opponent out.

1 Like
29

As a massive fan of Data Leak Reversal, I’m glad milling was present in the core. It looks like there’s good mechanical diversity among the phoenixborn, and I’m probably going to pick this up when it makes it down under.

30

Have played about 5-6 games with my wife. The art is beautiful and the dice are interesting, phases of play provide a bit of strategic depth. She still prefers Summoner Wars and Netrunner, as do I.

So far it’s just “okay” for me. Potentially a good side-game companion to Netrunner for a card game in a different thematic setting with a less aggressive release schedule and (at least so far) simpler gameplay.

31

Played one game on Tabletop Simulator. It seems like a game of figuring out how all these cards combo together and doing it.

1 Like
32

Very canned combos, though that’s not a negative for everyone. Definitely a far cry from Netrunner’s strategic diversity.

33

Our group has been really into Ashes since we picked up core sets recently, here is my quick review

Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn is a game about rival wizards locked in a fight to the death to see who is the most popular girl in Argaia high school. Or something.

To best convey why I think this game is great, I’ll be discussing just the gameplay.Ashes is a symmetrical game with a hearthstone feel that can be played 1v1 or in one of those massive multiplayer mosh-pits that magic players love so much.

Players each have a phoenixborn, a pool of 10 dice, and a 30 card deck. All of these are customizable, there are almost no restrictions on what you can play.

http://www.plaidhatgames.com/images/u/ASH01_PHG_Website_Articles_Aradel_Cards_Phoenixborn.jpg

This is Aradel, one of the game’s IDs. On wednesdays she wears pink. She can have up to 8 critters installed at a time, has 4 pages for spells in her magic trapper-keeper, and she can takes 16 damage before she drops out and transfers to private school. As a side action, she throws her drink in someone’s face.

There is very little randomness in Ashes. You have 3 copies max in a 30 card deck, and you pick your opening hand. One of the core mechanics is using a pool of dice as resources, but there are a built in actions you can take to fix “bad” rolls.

All in all, just like netrunner, everything bad that happens to you is your own damn fault.

The gameplay has a good flow to it, each player takes 1 main action and 1 side action before it passes to the other player. It feels chess-like, but in a good way. The resource pool trickling down with each action means that the quick back and forth plays out meaningfully, not the endless circle-jerk of dude-dancing that happened in doomtown.

The gameplay is extremely simple, yet you are making many decisions. Since you can attack units, but your phoenixborn can block for their units, removing a problem card isn’t always as simple as making trades. There are a lot of small effects that seem straightforward on paper but play out in a more complex way in the game due to the interval exchange and the dwindling of resources as turns grind out.

All-in-all, Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn is a really fun game, and I recommend you check it out.

8 Likes
34

This is the greatest description I’ve ever read.

1 Like
35

Took me six months but I finally got around to getting a copy of Ashes. What’s the easiest way to get started with it? Should we just use the premade lists or are there better choices?

Also gooooooodness this game is gorgeous.

2 Likes
36

I would play through each premade list to see how the game and the cards work before deckbuilding.

37

So I shouldn’t just put 3 100 Blades and 3 Mist Typhoons into a Coal deck then. Gotcha.

38

Coal starts with 3 100 blades in his premade deck I thought.

39

He does, but I wouldn’t mind some slightly worse extra copies of it.

40

how does this game compare to summoner wars and more importantly to mage wars?