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GMS Magazine

Roleplaying and board games with reviews, podcasts, videos and interviews

Review: Fold-N-Go: Sewer Kit #1

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99950[1]By Thilo Graf

The fourth release of Rite Publishing‘s Lone Tree paper-model imprint comes with 2 pdfs and 1 zip-file containing files for robo-cutters, so what exactly do we get?

The instruction-pdf contains instructions you might already know if you’ve purchased other fold-n-go kits, as the components are always assembled the same way, which adds a nice feeling of cohesiveness to the creation process and makes it even easier to assemble the different (mostly) glueless paper models. Over 13 pages, this one contains information on how to assemble walls, doors, stairs and ladders. New to the deal are e.g. the instructions for bridges, all with photos guiding you through the easy step-by-step process.

The Sewer Kit per se is 11 pages long, 1 page front cover. 4 pages of wall-sections of different sizes an length are provided in greenish-grimy glory, along 2 pages of doors (including doors with and without barred windows to spy through), 2 pages of stairs and 1 page containing the bridges and ladders are provided along the other bits and the final page is taken up by tiles that can, via an easy click, be turned to vile, green sludge.

Conclusion:

The content, as I’ve come to expect from the Fold-n-go-line, is top-notch and the grimy, sludgy feeling of the sewer is rather dominant, but that is not where Brian Bartlow and Devin Night’s collaboration shines – it is in the customization: This pdf comes with a vast array of layers: If you don’t want headers, robo-cutter-advice, glue spots etc. marked on your model, you can just turn the off via the simple click of a button in the adobe reader. Better yet, the customization options are vast for the pages – turn on or off the moss, include outlet pipes and grates or grates and if you don’t want a wall in the background of your grates, you can also turn off the background wall! The variety of different ways to customize your grimy delve into the seedy underbelly of the city is commendable and I have but one nitpick – I would have loved the option to turn the moss yellow, brown or switch colours like that. This being my only gripe with this extremely user-friendly set of expertly-done paper-models, my final verdict will clock in at 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 for the purpose of this platform.

Endzeitgeist out.

Fold-N-Go: Sewer Kit #1 is available from:

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Fold-n-Go Castle Kit #1

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93852[1]By Thilo Graf

This second instalment of Rite Publishing‘s relatively new Lone Tree Games imprint focusing on glueless paper models is ambitious to say the least: This time, we don’t get the tools to build a modular dungeon, but rather the tools to assemble a full-blown keep. Will it adhere to the first instalments high quality standards or is this too broad a scope for such a product?

First of all, the pdf containing the paper-models themselves is a 32-page pdf, 1 page front cover as well as a 25-page pdf showing you how to assemble the models in easy steps accompanied by photographs in order to further illustrate the construction process. The assembly of the paper-models, once again, is almost glueless. If you already enjoyed the stellar first offering of the line, you’ll know how to assemble the walls of the castle, as the same method is used herein. If you don’t use iron fillings to weigh down a side of the wall, you won’t need any glue. We get versions for 2” and 2.5” tall walls.

The 5-step assembly of the 2×2-tower is so simple that even a 6-year-old could easily handle the task and might even enjoy it! I know I would have loved assembling my own castle even then!

The same holds true for the 3×3-tower, but the true star to come is the gate-section with a portcullis. Wait, what? Yep, you heard me all right, we get a nice gate-section including a portcullis and while a bit of glue and dexterity is needed to assemble the portcullis, it is functional and not hard to assemble – quite a feat!

The Gate-design that works as complimentary/alternative to the portcullis comes a gate-section that is glueless apart from the back-to-back gluing of the doors. While approximately easy to medium in difficulty, it’s still nice to see how easy functional gates can be created from paper.

The assembly of the easily modifiable parapets is simple to the extreme, enabling you to customize your castle via them and this modularity will be expanded upon in future products – nice! We get straight, angled, 2×2 and 3×3 parapets – options are always neat to have! The assembly of stairs, already something I commented on favourably in the first Fold-n-go-kit, is again among the easiest you could imagine for relatively complex items like stairs and glueless.

I was a huge fan of Jonathan Roberts offering of the Watchfire Keep in the Fantastic Map series, and with him providing the drawing for both this classic line of map packs and the fold-n-go-series, it should come as no surprise (but is a very pleasant addition) that we actually get a signal mound including stairs leading up to it and even wood to burn it. Before rolling your eyes and saying you don’t need one, you should know that the design is modular enough that the mound might double for a classic sword & sorcery-style altar, or, if you’re so inclined, a place for aerial knights (griffons, dragons, etc.) to mount their large mounts. The assembly of the mound is easy in the extreme and glueless.

But wait, you say, what about…well…houses? Yep, we also get a house (with an optional chimney) for the defenders that just about anyone could assemble, again, without using glue. It is here that my creativity has been challenged a bit: If you cut out e.g. the shuttered windows and put the shutter-graphic on the inside, you could easily create shutters and doors that open and close, making for a nice spot for crossbow-men or arcanists to hide. Just my personal recommendation, though. 🙂 We also get an extremely easy to assemble storage house.

But what about the floor of the castle? The final page is devoted to the green ground that comes with 3 layers: You can turn the grid on and off and superimpose an angled path or a blocky path via a simple click in the pdf (yep, the pdf – no fussing around with adobe’s preferences etc. just click in the boxes! – Now that’s user-friendly!)- of course, the grid can be combined with both paths, facilitating play with miniatures even further.

It should be noted that the whole line comes with .studio-files for use with robo-cutters.

Conclusion:

Jonathan Robert’s cartography needs no introduction to most people so I’ll refrain from singing his praises once again. Instead, I’ll elaborate on his fruitful cooperation with Brian Bartlow: Once again their combined talents have created a prime example of useful, easy to assemble paper miniatures. my only, very minor gripe of the predecessor, has been taken care of via the great checkbox-mechanic of the floor: If that was the standard for all maps, I would be a happy man and short of one recurring point of annoyance/criticism. Point being: This above and beyond mentality, user-friendly to the extreme, is beyond pleasant and greatly appreciated. I only have ONE very minor gripe with this otherwise supremely useful kit: The stack of wood on the signal mound and the storage house don’t get their own assembly-instructions. Mind you, I don’t think instructions are necessary there, as assembly is approximately as difficult as folding a filter paper to make coffee, but for absolute novices and/or children (who should have a blast building castles like that!) they would have been nice. I’m still kind of stunned by the modularity of this kit. The amount of tools to build just about any keep is quite staggering and you get a lot of extremely easy to assemble, beautiful, full-colour pieces to create your very own keep. My final verdict will be 5 stars.

Fold-n-Go Castle Kit #1 is available from:

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Fold-N-Go Dungeon Kit #1

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92791[1]By Thilo Graf

The first offering of RiP’s Lone Tree-imprint offers us the tools to make 3-d paper models to depict our dungeons – which brings me to a point I have to admit: I’m kind of a paper-model nerd and subsequently I love the idea of this series. I’ll nevertheless try to be as unbiased and grumpy as you’ve come to expect me to be.

Designer Brain Bartlow and master of maps Jonathan Roberts have combined their talents to deliver an interesting project: The zip-file contains both the components for the dungeon and some items, as well as .studio files for cutters and 2 pdfs providing instructions on how to assemble the models. Lone Tree seems to have a policy to shun glue whenever possible, which is a boon – after all, it enables you to create the models while e.g. on the train or bus once you cut them out. Which is another definite plus; As many items of a kind as possible have been fitted on each respective page conserving ink/toner while printing out the full-color pieces.

What do you get, then? Each component comes with step-by-step instructions with photos to assemble the parts along easy to understand comments. To construct the dungeon itself, you get instructions on how to build the wall (with the optional step of using a magnet and iron fillings to make the floor heavier), a door (which, due to the moving parts and other concerns uses glue, single, hidden and double doors are provided), an instruction to actually make EASY-to-build stairs, glueless pillars and 2d-floors containing wells, treasure, pits (including spikes) and so on.

The items include iconic things like barrels, crates, curtains (though I would have liked more than one color), treasure chests, bedding, chairs (that look good from every angle and DON’T NEED GLUE!), square, rectangle and roundish tables and none of them require any glue whatsoever! The instructions provided for the assembly once again are easy to follow and illustrated.

Conclusion:

The first offering of Lone Tree offers us a lot for our money, to be precise, all the basic furniture and components you need to create a basic model of a dungeon room. Given the modularity of the models, the ease with which one can assemble them and the fact that Jonathan Robert’s artwork is just cool, there is not much to complain about. I would have loved different-coloured curtains or other artworks, just to offer an alternative, but that’s about the only thing I can complain about in this instalment. For a very low price you get almost all the tools you need to create a basic dungeon and I hope for future instalments to add new components and further expand on the glue-less paper-models. My final verdict due to usability, artworks and ease of assembly, will be 5 stars.

Fold-N-Go Dungeon Kit #1 is available from:

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Rite Publishing releases Fold-N-Go: Dungeon Kit #1

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92791[1]Spend your time playing not assembling!

Lone Tree Games brings you legendary artist Jonathan Roberts (Sunken Empires, Fantastic Maps) together with talented newcomer Brian Bartlow to bring you the best-looking and best-designed, papercraft dungeon around!

Assemble your papercraft models in no time. Spend your time playing instead of constructing! Lone Tree Games has done its best to make these models glueless to help make the assembly process simpler and faster. A few thin items do require the builder to glue pieces back-to-back in order to get texture on both sides. However, the vast majority of the parts are glue-optional.

Fold-N-Go: Dungeon Kit #1 is available from:

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A Lone Banner

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A Lone Banner[1]A Tale Of Dice And International Invasions

By the SuperflyPete

I recently got my order filled by Small Box Games, which included the new, and very fun, A Lone Banner. It’s a light wargame that looks very simple at first glance, but is surprisingly fun and is easily the quickest Small Box Games product to learn and play. Further, the art and font choices are exceptionally easy on the eyes, thematic, and take me back to 1983 when the old film classic, “War Games” was released. When I got my wife and daughter at the table to play this, I even said, in a faux-computer tone, “Would…you…like…to…play…a…game?” They didn’t get it, but that’s OK, we can’t all be geeks.

The concept of A Lone Banner is very simple: Players assume the role of a world leader who is attempting to take over the planet using limited troops, guile, and sheer brute force. Players start with one starting region of Earth and, using dice to represent troops, slowly take over the planet in a systematic global invasion. The dice values represent the strength of the corps or divisions of troops players command to invade territories for both victory points as well as invasion routes to other players’ conquered territories. All in all, it’s as cut-throat as they come, and it’s a brilliant design for a very light, very fast war game.

The components are not the typical Pure Card Line fare, either, because there’s only about 40 cards in the deck, but it also comes with four colored sets of three dice and a fifth set of four white dice. The art on the cards is very nice, even though it’s simple, and the graphical layout is excellent. I say simple because there really is only about seven pictures total in the entire deck, but I happen to dig them all. I especially appreciate John hearing the clarion call of his fans for him to use readable fonts again, because he actually used one of my all-time favorites on this one, and it’s perfect for the theme. The dice are really neat little 16mm jobbers, and I really like the speckled colors. All in all, the quality is great, as usual, and the inclusion of these neat little dice makes me one happy guy. Well worth the thirteen bucks!

To set the game up, you need to randomly hand out one “Starting Region” card, which essentially acts as your nation’s headquarters, and then hand out one white die and a set of three colored dice. The last step in setup is to create a “Region Deck” which contains all of the cards that are not Starting Regions, and then to place one card for every player face up in the center of the battlefield. These cards act as the contested regions that are not aligned or otherwise conquered by a given player, and these are the main source of victory points.

There are no rounds in A Lone Banner, but rather in a continuously evolving game. Each player takes their turn, which is broken into phases, and then the next player to their left takes theirs until one or more of the endgame conditions has come to pass, at which point all the players take one final turn each and then the game is over.

A Lone Banner Components[1]On each player’s first turn, they will roll their three colored “Troop Marker Dice” and determine the strength of their divisions. You may reroll any die you wish, except if you’ve rolled a one, in which case you’re stuck with that. In certain circumstances, you may roll doubles, triples, or a straight, at which time special powers will come into play if you choose to keep those values on the dice, such as immediately taking an uncontested Region, placing multiple dice on the same Region, or moving opponents’ troop markers off of a Region. Once you’ve opted to keep all of your dice, you may place one of them onto a contested region you wish to conquer, or if an opponent has a Region conquered already, you may place a die on that Region, effectively invading it.

Regarding invasions, you must have a path to invasion before actually invading it. For instance, if an opponent has conquered the Southern region in Europe, you must have conquered a card with the “Invasion: Europe – South” path on the card to be able to invade that Region in another player’s tableau. On the first turn this generally doesn’t matter, but on all subsequent turns, this is a big part of gameplay. To resolve an invasion, the player who attempts the invasion rolls the white die and adds that to the value of the Troops they placed on the Region, and the defender rolls a white die and adds to the rolled value the number of Regions that he owns on the continent that’s being invaded. The highest value conquers, or retains, that Region.

Anyhow, back to the first turn. If a player has previously placed a die onto a contested Region and one or more opponents have subsequently placed a die onto that same Region, it’s time for a battle. The white die is rolled by all combatants, and adding the white die to the colored Troop die is your overall attack value. The highest roll allows you to take control of that Region, taking it from the center of the table into your own tableau. In the case of a tie, everyone takes their dice and goes home. Another action you may take on your turn is the Recon action, which allows you to get swap a Region that is face up with a new card from the deck, but only if the card you wish to swap isn’t occupied by any Troops.

If you start any turn with enemy Troops on a contested Region that you also have Troops on, battle ensues. Essentially, each player involved simply rolls a white die and adds the value of their dice on that contested region. Winner takes all, and in ties, nobody wins.

The endgame begins when one of the following occurs: The Region deck runs out of cards, any single player gains seven Regions, any player has 4 Central Regions or any player gains five Regions on any given Continent. After one final turn each, the players tally up the scores based upon the values of the Regions in their tableau, and bonus points are awarded for varying reasons, such as gaining one point for every continent you have a Region of and gaining three points when you own four Regions in a single continent.

All in all, it’s a game that takes half an hour to play, is really decent to look at, and is fun as hell. I really liked it, and so did my wife, my daughter, and the friends I’ve played this with. It’s so simple, yet so complex, all in one. Best of all, it’s as cheap as your half of a Dutch date at Olive Garden.

Why A Lone Banner Stands Alone At The Top:
– Its small table requirement and quick playtime make this a kickass coffee shop game
– While the art is very, very simple, it’s also very, very perfect for the game and I really like it
– The dice are really cool, and there’s 12 of the colored ones, which are the coolest

What Makes A Lone Banner Feel Lonesome:
– I wish this was a 2-player game, but it’s rated for 3 or 4 players
– This isn’t Pure Cards. He lied about that….?

Overall:
This is the perfect filler game, and unless you’re so afraid of dice that you consider moving to Germany at the sight of them, you will like this game. There’s a little too much cut-throat for some, I’d imagine, but the game is just simply a load of fun and quite brilliantly executed from a design perspective. This is one of the best of Small Box Games’ Pure Card Line, which is ironic because it’s the one game in the line that isn’t just cards. John nailed this one, and were this a 2-player game, I think it may have even beat out my favorite 2-player card game, Bhazum. Great stuff, and for 13$ the price is perfect.

Rating:
4.75/5 Stars
Read more about the game, such as the rules, at:
http://www.smallboxgames.com/alonebanner.html

Preorders for December are closed, and I’m sorry for not getting this out earlier so y’all would know about it for Christmas. Trust me, this is one you want. Preorders open for this again in January, though!