Finally got to try out Tiny Epic Defenders and it’s so good.

Finally got to try out Tiny Epic Defenders and it’s so good. Played two games. Didn’t know it was a co-op! It worked super well. Not designed to overcome a loud field commander so if you have one of those it might not be as good an experience.

I got The Dark War expansion and looked at it but it’ll have to wait for next time.

12 thoughts on “Finally got to try out Tiny Epic Defenders and it’s so good.”

  1. Unfortunately, a number of card (mis)interactions have “undefined results” in TED2E. Just wait until you’re riding on the Giant’s back or are in the Colossus’s mouth when the Sea Serpent is drawn. Be prepared to dig through BGG for Scott’s rulings (some of which are inexplicable). Even the definition of “Turn” is contentious, and not adequately explained in the rulebook.

    i like this game, but Gamelyn really buggered 2E by allowing so many ambiguities and unclear rules through. 1E had many, and some of those are resolved in 2E, but 2E adds new ones.

  2. Can there really be rule ambiguities in a co-op game?

    Maybe it’s the role player in me, but: make a ruling and move on. Be consistent with your rulings, right up to point where you decide it isn’t working the way you want and then make a different ruling.

    I don’t know that would even occur to me to consult a faq for a co-op. Which is probably why we have a good 100+ games of 1e in, and never encountered a single issue, or at least none that took long enough to resolve-by-ruling that it rose to the level of issue.

  3. Ralph Mazza i agree in principle that rules cannot be “wrong” if nobody is being disadvantaged by a given interpretation. Nonetheless, TED fails to communicate the designer’s intent in several cases. e.g. the definition of “Turn” is critical for how healing (via the City) works. The intuitive definition (implied via the rules) is not, it turns out, the correct/intended one (per Scott on BGG). In other cases, the misinteractions between cards makes it painfully obvious that they were not tested together, requiring players to make their own ruling. When i buy a board game, i expect it to contain the rules, not to be a “decide/figure it out yourself” product (unless it’s clearly marketed as such). Especially a 2nd edition. These types of mistakes are expected for first-time designers on first editions, but Scott Almes has quite a library of games under his belt and really has no business making these types of rookie mistakes.

  4. Oh sure, we ran into some funny stuff like what a “turn” is or how to execute the sea serpent. I’m sure there will be even more as we play more, but the fundamentals seem clear enough that we can suss out intent on the fly.

    That totally would not fly here in a competitive 4x game though.

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