Those guys couldn’t agree for the life of them, and it’s strange because the matter was simple, basically, no room for disagreement – one of them bought Frostpunk, they played it, and instead of rating the game on BGG and giving a clear message to the world whether the game is good or bad, they started arguing. Absurd.

Steve: First of all, the game looks AMAZING. The so-called table presence is at the highest level here, large beautifully illustrated cards, huge tiles of terrain, a lot of large, double-layered boards, and of course, the tower – a gigantic model of a generator, into which we will throw coal cubes and check whether the generator has burned out. You look at the table with Frostpunk spread out, and you’re blown away. It’s brilliant.

I had it with On Mars, which, although it is a really complicated game, it didn’t give me any trouble. For three years, working on First Martians, I practically lived on Mars. So I easily absorbed On Mars whole. I also had it with Kanban, which I didn’t understand. On the other hand, my wife moved through the nooks and crannies of its rules as if she had been playing it for years. She loves cars and everything related to them. Kanban was her game. And I had it today with Expedition: Northwest Passage. I sat down and played. Everything went smoothly from the first to the last minute.

It’s an old truth: when we understand what a game is about, if it presents the theme well and realistically, we usually understand the rules in no time, and the game is pure pleasure.

The Battle of Five Armies – based on the climax of JRR Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit – pits the hosts of the Elvenking, the Dwarves of Dain Ironfoot, and the Men of the Lake led by Bard the Bowman against a horde of Wolves, Goblins and Bats led by Bolg, son of Azog. It is a standalone game based on the rules for the epic War of the Ring. It has over 100 miniatures, a big board, cards, tokens… It is freakin’ The Battle of Five Armies. I knew it. I will never be able to learn how to play it.

I had this with the Twilight Struggle. I had this with the War of the Ring. I had this with Clash of Cultures. I had this with a lot of games whose reputation and fame told me: “Don’t even try, you won’t get it.” And then I tried, I sat down with the rulebook, and it turned out that they weren’t so scary. That I get it. That I have a lot of fun with them.

Driving home from work takes me, depending on traffic, 15 to 20 minutes. For more than half of this route, we were complaining about War of the Ring: The Card Game. We had just finished playing it, and we were airing our grievances. I was complaining about its randomness. Marek agreed that the cards were very situational—powerful in certain combinations, but useless in others. I was whining that the scaling was quite weird, and the variants for 2, 3, and 4 players all had many small different rules. And Marek dared to complain about the balance right after the first playthrough—said it was off, and that the Fellowship of the Ring felt much more powerful in a 3-player game.

I was turning into my street when Marek said he’d love to play it again. I said I couldn’t wait to play again as well.

Nothing works in this game. The mechanics based on k20 dice, just like the famous Dungeons & Dragons, completely fails on every step in this case. Contested rolls are ridiculous, attacking your opponent is extremely risky, and duels are so random that it would make more sense to take a deck of regular cards and play War. The balance of available spells doesn’t exist. If you put me on a scene, I would start roasting Frostgrave for an hour, and I wouldn’t list even half of the problems I have with this game. 

Also, I have to mention I’ve played it eight times already, I bought six expansions, and last weekend I also bought a second army so that I could play two campaigns simultaneously, cause one campaign is just not enough! I’m hopelessly in love with Frostgrave.