Pandora's Box(es)
Tiny Epic Games are a series of games well known by some, but a mystery to many.
I discovered them recently while looking for I remember not what, but anyhoo, they are now a mild obsession with me.
It seems, they get under some people’s skin and they have mine, although I will be keeping a lid on too much spending, because as good as they are, it is important to remember that sometimes there is a full sized game as good or better and often not a whole lot more expensive and diversity is always good.
Stick to the ones that play your song.
I recently received my kick starter extras for TEDefenders & The Dark War. These took a while (lost somewhere in the U.S. before turning up on the system three weeks later (the same day Auspost emailed me to abandon all hope). These are available through the Board Game Geek store (who were amazing through this whole saga offering refunds etc) for most of the Tiny Epic series and many other games also.
I must admit to being in a bit of a funk waiting for these (I managed to build my entire Armada collection in the time between ordering and receiving these last TeD bits), so I had lost some interest, but on arrival, I cracked the two diminutive boxes open again, sleeved everything, annoyingly before I photographed them, and lay it all out. It covered an entire 3x3 X Wing mat.
The two boxes are really tiny, but what they hold is not. Curiously, many who complain about the games cite their table size being too big, which I find a bit crazy. As they say on the box, tiny but epic. Do you really want an actually tiny game?
The game is played on a board made of separate mats, basically the size of the box, that spread out to about the same size a many full boards. TETactics actually uses the box as a 3d map element. TeD has 7 mats, provided a second time, but differently in the TDW expansion.
Please excuse the photos, I sleeved all of the cards, making them harder to de-glare, but there is enough info to get the idea. They are about paperback size each, so the game’s footprint is about the same size or bigger than Ticket To Ride London or Catan.
To make a tiny game epic requires a few factors.
Each element need to have multiple options and in TeD/TDW there are many.
The board in TeD is set, but in TDW each area has two sides (friendly/unfriendly).
Player characters, the people you will be in the game, total 23. Keep in mind you can play with 1 to 4 a game only, so it may be many games before you see some at all and the combinations are next to endless. There are multiples of the base races (Elves etc) and one each of the more obscure races of the Augmore setting. Everyone of them is interesting and they fit their back story consistently with gorgeous art. These are on the same size cards as the mat panels (huge).
The enemies of these heroes are as diverse. All of the expected nasties are represented, along with a Ghost ship! These all play (very) differently, meaning there is no one true way of winning the game and you have no clue what is coming.
18 “big bad” epic monsters and 6 lesser generals for the campaign version of the game. The big cards are the huge Gamelyn big ones (double standard), the generals are standard size.
Before you meet these, you must face some Dire enemies. These are also pretty mean and a test of any character. They do come with a reward though in the form of one of the 20 Artefacts, that empower the player characters (below).
3 for each region, all sporting something extra.
But before you get to these there are even more obstacles, the minor nasties, that usually take the form of plagues of nuisance creatures.
Each card has a first and second region effect. Not all regions are treated equally here, with the less civilised areas copping a worse go of things first up.
Not everything is an enemy though.
When defeated, the Dire enemies reveal an Artefact.
20 of these, each with a matching ITEMeeple plastic equivalent to stick on your meeple. These physical parts are optional, but cool.
In the TDW, experience points are added to the mechanic, addressing the one play issue from the base game, dead turns.
XP allow the characters to do more things or do them differently and to buy skills. Skills unlike Artefacts are easier to come by, are generally more applicable and nearly as powerful. Almost endless synergies here between characters, skills, artefacts and their effect on various enemies.
Pick your option from 16.
TDW adds the cards above for the campaign and experience options.
There are also plenty of 3D elements to the game.
The manticore is a recycled HeroClix I got in a job lot (oddly it never looked right in the clix range, too small, but is a decent copy size wise of the cardboard one in the game and spot on to the card art. There is also a tree that I intend to replace with something more impressive and sturdy, but the wagons are fine.
All 20 Artefacts have a plastic model, the dice and little ships are for the raider fleets (TDW), as are the storms. Most of what you see comes from The Dark War expansion.
The reality is, once sleeved it does not all fit back in the boxes (the cards alone only just fit). The plastic boxes I use are actually nearly the same dimensions as the original boxes, so all three fit in another shoebox sized container with my full TE/UTE collection (another box this size holds both UTE games).
Now, time to try this puppy out.
I already have Ultra Tiny Epic Kingdoms and Galaxies, Blastoff and now Deluxe Zombies coming, so probably time to call it done….., but there are Pirates and Dinosaurs and Cowboys and Dungeons and Quests. So many, so small :).