I think the game completely stands up to the best that is out there from the majors regardless of its imperfections. The production quality is surprisingly high given its retail price and I really like that the game is packaged in what looks like a PC game box- it’s a good form factor and it looks interesting on the shelf. The rulebooks are sort of cheaply printed but you get a small pile of custom, molded counters and well over a hundred good quality cards. It’s a great value for the money, and in the recession economy the idea of buying a game that actually encourages you to stay with it and explore what all it has to offer is terribly refreshing in contrast to the “Gotta catch ‘em all” attitude that pervades both the release strategies of the publishers and the internet discussion of newly released board games. And the promise of all-new ways to build on what players learn from WAR FOR EDADH with new ways to play the game sounds promising- I hope Warrior Elite is able to meet expectations.
The bottom line for me is that WAR FOR EDADH, being the product of a family who have probably been thinking, talking, and writing about these ideas for years, is a game that has a lot of heart, passion, and courage and those are things that I think a lot of the more high profile games in the hobby market right now are missing. Yeah, I think ANDROID is definitely the more cutting-edge, professional, and accessible game. But it didn’t have the scrappiness and the damn-the-torpedoes approach that so often only comes from the independent fringe of any creative medium. I’d much rather play an unpolished, slightly scrappy game from designers who really gave it their all than a flawless piece of highly developed and overproduced soulless mechanical trash designed solely to appease internet pundits and delight mathematicians and accountants with “clever” gameplay.
It means a lot to me that this is an independent game from designers working almost outside of the hobby and far away from the cliques and coteries in which many board game designs are incubated, and that’s why I thought it was worth three weeks worth of coverage here. I’m hoping that Warrior Elite and WAR FOR EDADH inspires others to get out, design a game, and publish it with the intent of going head-to-head with the top companies currently dominating the hobby game market with innovative and unique games that defy expectations. I’ll take one WAR FOR EDADH over ten TALISMAN clones, hands down.
