Is it just me or has anyone who has ever played a game (outside of the usual Monopoly, Cluedo and Twister) seem to have had some experience of Talisman? I find it very odd that so many people are at least aware of it – hell, I was at the hospital last week and the nurse who was taking my blood for tests had been playing it the night before. I find it even stranger because I'd never actually played it until about a year ago.Anyway, it's widely regarded as a classic game, easy to pick up and understand, accessible to all who sit around a table to play it.
However, it's also recognised that there are a fair few problems with Talisman. It can feel a bit dated – not surprising considering it's been around for the best part of three decades – and the roll and move mechanism that drives the game is an annoyance. Games can last hours, often outstaying their welcome and the atmosphere descends into a trudge to see who gets to the middle of the board first. Also, the fantasy theme isn't for everyone, though I personally have no issue with dragons and magic and such fabulous things.
I'm partial to a bit of sci-fi too and now, thanks to John Goodenough and the guys at Fantasy Flight, the worlds of Space Marines and Talisman collide in Relic! The original engine has been given a few tweaks here and there, everything has been liberally daubed in the blood of Nurgle and friends, and we've now got a much improved streamlined version that is a lot of fun to get your teeth into. Strap on your Imperial Armour, grab your ludicrously oversized character token and get ready for a LOT of dice rolling.
The aim is simple: level up your selected character by moving around the board's three sections and smashing in enemies through the medium of chucking a d6. Get to the middle first and – depending on what objective has been chosen at the start of the game – you should be victorious. This straight-forwardness is retained from Talisman and means that anyone,even total newbies, will be able to get into Relic with little bother.
Each character has a range of singular special abilities, all of which allow you to skew the rules in different ways to give you an advantage. They're each represented by huge and beautifully detailed plastic busts - the Fantasy Flight design aesthetic to make everything as over-the-top and chrome-filled as possible popping up again. Their stats cards are slotted into a little cardboard affair strewn with dials that represent the character's four attributes – Strength, Cunning, Willpower and Life – as well as a track that shows the current level you're at.
On your turn, you roll the dice and decide which of your two options you'll head towards, going either clockwise or anti-clockwise around the board. On reaching your destination, most of the time there'll be a selection of cards to draw from three piles stacked with enemies to battle, events to deal with or allies to win over. Fights are dealt with by rolling your dice again and adding it to the required attribute,shown in the top corner of the card you're tussling with (so, one with a red corner will be your roll added to Strength).
While you're doing that, an opponent will also be rolling on behalf of the enemy and adding the number to that shown on the card. Get higher than the enemy and they're vanquished, added to your tableau as a trophy to be traded in later so you can level up. Ties or losses mean they remain on the board to be dealt with later on, either by you or your opponents. Watch out for rolling sixes though - they explode and must be rolled again, often ending up with some ludicrous numbers on the field of battle.
As the game progresses (and it does so at a fairly decent clip) you'll be killin' and smashin' stuff, getting your hands on weapons and items, all the while getting stronger and stronger. You'll also be looking to complete missions that can eventually be traded in for the relics that give the game its name. These are essentially uber-powerful items that you'll definitely need once you start moving towards the centre of the board, where the challenges get increasingly tougher.
That final middle section is the hardest to deal with of all, though things are conducted in a slightly different way. Rather than rolling a dice and moving, you'll head on step by step, space by space, dealing with each challenge until you either hit the centre or are killed by the horrors within. The final, central space offers a selection of game-ending situations from the newbie-level "congratulations,you win!" to the plain mean "destroy everyone else on the board to be the champion". It's a great way of controlling how long you want the game to go on as well as tinkering with the complexity level.
And yet, after you've got a couple of games under your belt, even the trickier conclusions of Relic don't actually seem that hard to get through. Despite the MASSIVE rulebook, it's far from the hardest thing on earth to play –it's the gaming equivalent of a summer blockbuster, all pomp and fireworks, a blast of fun entertainment that's still perhaps a little bit too long but can be forgiven thanks to the bright shinies. Leave your brain at the door – well, the critical bit anyway – and just have a good time.
However, it's also recognised that there are a fair few problems with Talisman. It can feel a bit dated – not surprising considering it's been around for the best part of three decades – and the roll and move mechanism that drives the game is an annoyance. Games can last hours, often outstaying their welcome and the atmosphere descends into a trudge to see who gets to the middle of the board first. Also, the fantasy theme isn't for everyone, though I personally have no issue with dragons and magic and such fabulous things.
I'm partial to a bit of sci-fi too and now, thanks to John Goodenough and the guys at Fantasy Flight, the worlds of Space Marines and Talisman collide in Relic! The original engine has been given a few tweaks here and there, everything has been liberally daubed in the blood of Nurgle and friends, and we've now got a much improved streamlined version that is a lot of fun to get your teeth into. Strap on your Imperial Armour, grab your ludicrously oversized character token and get ready for a LOT of dice rolling.
The aim is simple: level up your selected character by moving around the board's three sections and smashing in enemies through the medium of chucking a d6. Get to the middle first and – depending on what objective has been chosen at the start of the game – you should be victorious. This straight-forwardness is retained from Talisman and means that anyone,even total newbies, will be able to get into Relic with little bother.
Each character has a range of singular special abilities, all of which allow you to skew the rules in different ways to give you an advantage. They're each represented by huge and beautifully detailed plastic busts - the Fantasy Flight design aesthetic to make everything as over-the-top and chrome-filled as possible popping up again. Their stats cards are slotted into a little cardboard affair strewn with dials that represent the character's four attributes – Strength, Cunning, Willpower and Life – as well as a track that shows the current level you're at.
On your turn, you roll the dice and decide which of your two options you'll head towards, going either clockwise or anti-clockwise around the board. On reaching your destination, most of the time there'll be a selection of cards to draw from three piles stacked with enemies to battle, events to deal with or allies to win over. Fights are dealt with by rolling your dice again and adding it to the required attribute,shown in the top corner of the card you're tussling with (so, one with a red corner will be your roll added to Strength).
While you're doing that, an opponent will also be rolling on behalf of the enemy and adding the number to that shown on the card. Get higher than the enemy and they're vanquished, added to your tableau as a trophy to be traded in later so you can level up. Ties or losses mean they remain on the board to be dealt with later on, either by you or your opponents. Watch out for rolling sixes though - they explode and must be rolled again, often ending up with some ludicrous numbers on the field of battle.
As the game progresses (and it does so at a fairly decent clip) you'll be killin' and smashin' stuff, getting your hands on weapons and items, all the while getting stronger and stronger. You'll also be looking to complete missions that can eventually be traded in for the relics that give the game its name. These are essentially uber-powerful items that you'll definitely need once you start moving towards the centre of the board, where the challenges get increasingly tougher.
That final middle section is the hardest to deal with of all, though things are conducted in a slightly different way. Rather than rolling a dice and moving, you'll head on step by step, space by space, dealing with each challenge until you either hit the centre or are killed by the horrors within. The final, central space offers a selection of game-ending situations from the newbie-level "congratulations,you win!" to the plain mean "destroy everyone else on the board to be the champion". It's a great way of controlling how long you want the game to go on as well as tinkering with the complexity level.
And yet, after you've got a couple of games under your belt, even the trickier conclusions of Relic don't actually seem that hard to get through. Despite the MASSIVE rulebook, it's far from the hardest thing on earth to play –it's the gaming equivalent of a summer blockbuster, all pomp and fireworks, a blast of fun entertainment that's still perhaps a little bit too long but can be forgiven thanks to the bright shinies. Leave your brain at the door – well, the critical bit anyway – and just have a good time.
