Set a Watch Review - superb, albeit swingy

You may have seen Wheels and Johnny getting absolutely annihilated by Set a Watch a few weeks back, but is the game worth picking up or should you give it a miss? Find out in our review
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"Clash Defiant" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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[@IIToneAII]

Loved that you took the time with the game to give a well thought, honest review. Greatly enjoyed the Let's Play and would definitely watch another or a stream if you were so inclined! 👍

[@CaitlinRC]

"I swear to god if I draw one more acolyte I shall flip the table" - me during my last game

[@kennystoneman2584]

The balancing issue definitely makes me hesitate, as it may be difficult to convince friends to play more than once if it's crushingly hard. That said, ~$30 isn't bad for a game that also has a decent single-player mode (in case said friends remain unconvinced). I will be putting this on my list of games to consider buying next.

[@RvLeshrac]

The balance is absolute shit.

[@likealightning4139]

The Dark Souls of board games. Either you move forward at a good pace, or get whacked on the head with a giant mace. Make a mistake and you get punished.

[@instantstupor]

Aside from the "Dark Souls The Board Game", you mean? Harder to get more "the" DS than DS itself lol

[@CortashGaming]

hey Johnny!,What did the pirate pay for his peg and hook?...An arm and a leg!. Sorry Corazon.

[@normative]

I’m waiting for the prequel, Kill a Mockingbird.

[@TheSludgeMan]

this is definitely the first time a game has ordered me to do something

[@weronikamatczuk8642]

Set a watch has actually been great helping to get some of the murder hobo urges some of my players get; getting a game in before a longer pen and paper session has actually made a few of them engage in the role play *gasp*

[@thecastawaydc]

By far my favourite Let's play on the channel. Sad I couldn't convince anyone to play it with me at EGX, but at least I played half a dozen others.

[@TransGuyShane]

I loved the lets play of this game and i feel like i would really enjoy it :)

[@shawnheatherly]

Its difficulty may not be perfect, but I loved that Let's Play and I'm still quite interested in picking this game up.

[@JtOaksFoolsParadise]

Good production value, yeah, but I wont' be watching any more Dicebreaker videos. With kids in the room, "G-Ds" started flying out of the speakers for no reason at all in the first minute of the video. I suppose I'm just not hip or "tolerant" or whatever enough to care what else these guys have to say. It's a real bait-and-switch, sitting down to enjoy a game review and being subjected to disrespect.

[@MsFraggleRocks]

Any game that breaks Wheels is on my must buy list! .. I really like the premise, monsters queuing up to eat you... are they all British? But it does sound like it needs some balancing. Do you think they could rebalance it for the retail version? I'd be tempted if they do.

[@jasondeeming3830]

I love LOVE this game I went and bought this after watching u both play enjoy this game so much that I take it to work to enjoy with other on our break I really hope a expansion pack comes out to add even more to this amazing game . Would love to see u dice breaker play more of this game please 👍👍

[@blackdragoncyrus]

Good news, an expansion is being released this year!

[@elafimilo8199]

I bought it at PAX a few years ago. It's not the unpredictability that's the problem--it's the predictability of our gruesome demise. I ran it by my husband and his friend, both avid strategy gamers, and they couldn't win either, so I know it's not just me.

[@alexandervoneverec9507]

A game I recently fell deeply in love with is The Witcher Adventure game from CD Projekt Red. Is there a chance that we could see a review of this game in the future?

[@MonikaLockpick]

It sounds like a wonderful one player game, I will definitely pick it up btw, thank you Wheels, I will most likely order it from orcsnest (shipping is quite okay there, and they have it in stock again, yay)

[@furrymerchant9603]

If it goes south, it does so quickly? That would be a good thing, yes?

[@SamuraiMujuru]

Looked into it because I enjoy Merchants of Magick, this sounds kinda like Advanced Fetch Quest. I'll have to check it out

[@emmalee3902]

I actually ordered this game off the back of your let’s play (although currency conversion and shipping to Australia makes me cry) and I am super excited for it to arrive - I’m always looking for an interesting solo game

[@kosterix123]

A pity you didn’t realize that the swinginess comes from the single tiered deck, making every sequence equally probable. This indicates the creator’s ignorance of any basic probability theory. Compare this to great games in your collection and you’ll see it.

[@hogger95905]

Oh I’ll be picking this up! Looks a great tower defense game I can play solo and with another person

[@whiskeykitty]

I find that I don't mind the unpredictability too much in board games and it keeps my friends who want a challenge interested. My favourite board game of all time, Dungeon Quest, is similarly unforgiving and deadly. A lot of the game's mechanics are left to chance. It makes the victory all the sweeter when you manage to make off with a bit of loot and we like to keep track in a score book if anyone manages to make it out alive, even if they're only carrying 30 gold coins and never went near the dragon's hoard. You even feel like cheering on the last player alive even though it's a competitive game. Set a Watch seems to give the same unpredictable, 'anything can happen' feeling that I love so much in Dungeon Quest. Even better, it's a co op game! I would love to try out Set A Watch.

[@TatsuHiyuu]

Wait. How is the beastmaster the weakest character? I played about 10 games now and the beastmaster is up there in the ranking along the thief, the wizard and the ranger. She can have two beasts who are basically extra dice. She also has the ability to boost a weak die by fetching a beast from the graveyard. Plus she can directly kill off the last revealed card, and she's the only one able to do so. To me the Cleric is the lackluster one. Weak dices, not so compelling spells. I think healing is far less important than kill off stuff.

[@MichaelWarman]

On the back of the Let's Play, I bought Set A Watch (the deluxe version), and while it was a faff to get it and ship it into the country, for an unreasonable sum of money, it was good. I played it on my own, and got a sense that it was like chess, in that the writing is on the wall real fast, and will carry on progressively easier or harder exponentially depending on how well you get on in the first round. Not being up against it there and then gave me the chance to stack the deck for later with the "check map" ability bringing in a few "respite locations", the fire lit to max (and the Rouge's smoke bomb in reserve to nullify fire serpents), and all abilities fresh for virtually the whole game. I found that it was something of an ordeal playing it alone, because it was too much to keep track of, and I found a few times that I'd done things in the wrong order and trying to backtrack a couple of steps, and even that I got to the bottom of what I was fairly sure was my stack of 8 location cards with only the final one left but only 7 campings done according to my counters, so almost certainly subjected myself to an extra round, but still walked it because of the aforementioned deck stacking. I also found that it took a very long time, with me agonising over too many options; perhaps that would be alleviated with other players to put heads together with, or it might get worse with every decision having to go through a committee of dithering. Largely, though, it's enjoyable. My only worry is strong arming other people into playing it with me.

[@ryantaylor7046]

My copy of this arrives tomorrow - spooky this review came now! Very excited to play it. Thanks guys!

[@josephlinardon3540]

I ended up winning my first playthrough on easy, and I have to say: party build up is INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT. It isn't who you think the coolest is, there is no sorts of story roleplay, so you have to be in it for the strategy. This game is the most fun and rewarding board game I have played. (Excluding tabletop RPGs) Lots of fun, extremely tangible stakes while playing, and super fun even when solo. To wrap it up, this game isn't too hard. Each match satisfactorily plays out differently, and most importantly: your mindset needs to be "let's do our best!" And not "winning is the only way to have fun!" HUGE shout out to the ever beautiful Dicebreaker, who presented this game to me and I purchased as soon as possible lol. None of this was meant to be me trying to usurp their review, just giving a different perspective 😁

[@davidstepanek6107]

PARKLIFE!!!

[@kaushtubhchauhan]

PARKLIFE!!!

[@Hyperdisk]

PARKLIFE!!!

[@dobbinb76]

Loved the Lets play, never has watching two people get so throughly bested been so good, all capped off by Wheels's reactions. Could see from those videos that it seemed a lot was going to be left to chance in the game and this review just solidly confirms that, however it still looks like great fun and the randomness actually appeals to me, definetly on the Christmas list

[@samjdalton]

I bought this off the back of your let’s play. So far I’ve really really enjoyed it :)

[@Giga-lemesh]

Ayy, set a watch is back, I was hoping for this

[@johnnysizemore5797]

Notes from a CLUEDO Enthusiast; As much as i loved your guys' Let's Play of this(especially your reaction as compared to Wheels), i don't this'll be good for my group. As you said, the randomness of difficultly would just detract from my groups enjoyment....According to my Game groups calculation, Dicebreaker's 1 win/1 loss/ 0 draws so far(they REALLY like Blades in The Dark, btw). Let's see what else you got for GREED-E.... May you never roll Snake Eyes "Mr.Body" Sizemore

[@ir0nleviathan577]

You should play with the deluxe additions to the game, which includes the Knight, the best character in the game. Her abilities are amazing, Magic Sword one shots the creature in first position, Dragon Lance either deals 6 damage to the creature in second position or one shots any revealed dragon... f**k yes! She also has Inspire as her passive, which allows one character of your choice to boost their lowest die to its max value and finally her unique camp action is Assist, which allows her to give any character on watch one of her die with which they can perform only a direct attack, but is pretty damn good considering the Knight uses d8s. Overall, awesome game, I’ve been enjoying the heck out of it every time I play, even when Lady Luck isn’t on my side. Personally, I’d recommend the deluxe edition, it’s only a few bucks more and comes with two additional characters, a few new unhallowed and a few new locations if I’m not mistaken. Plus, you can play it alone or with friends, I love board games, but don’t usually get to play them because everyone I could be playing with is too busy, Set A Watch doesn’t have that draw back and I’m thankful for that.

[@onibarubary]

I'd love to buy this game, if it was, y'know...possible to actually purchase. Anywhere. I legitimately can't even find somewhere to buy it online, specifically not even on the studio's website.

[@petergross7235]

I couldn't agree more with your review (sorry beast master). Despite the swings it is great fun to survive the combat rounds. And at least when things go south you get a Wheels moment from you or one of your friends...."If that's a summon card I swear to God...."

[@Hyperdisk]

Bought the game after watching the Let's play you guys did. Roped my brother into playing and it wasn't long until he fell into the games charms aswell. We got our bums handed to us the first go round but eventually we had some lovely jokes going about. I played as the Cleric and beast master and we both were chanting how OP my Eagles ended up being. My eagles where notorious for nuking wyvern

[@TransGamerNerd27]

Didn’t realize I could get this for only $35! I found it on eBay for $60, but I hadn’t bought it yet. This is my impulse buy this month!

[@mandoschMUh]

I am very tempted to buy this one. Only thing holding me back right know is the availability in my country right now. Thank you for the Let's play and the Review!

[@DiardanRose]

After watching your playthrough, and getting my boyfriend to watch it, we determined that it was brutally hard but extremely clever, and that we were really interested in a cooperative board game where we didn't have to be fighting each other, but instead working together, so we decided to get it. Even just reading through the guide, I could see that it was going to be swingy (the normal use of respite cards, for example) but we're looking forward to trying it out anyway, because there's no doubt that its core mechanics are excellent, if unbalanced.

[@justinsmith9006]

it's a board game, i wouldn't call it a table RPG, but it seems like a killer DM simulator, it might be fun but at the end of the day it's just a board game like clue. if your channel is anything to go by then there are no good non horror table top RPGs period, and that's a damn shame.

[@OddlyAutumn]

Had a chance to play this with Matt at EGX and ordered a copy that afternoon (should arrive on Friday). Realize now we were playing it slightly wrong, but still great fun, and there's a kind of dignity in throwing yourself to oblivion to protect your party that still leaves you satisfied even when you don't win.

[@robjones8567]

Love this game so much.

[@nightcatarts]

Sounds like this could do with a small expansion to introduce synergy between player characters as well as enemies. That could make the weaker ones more useful & could, if involving a second set of consumable cards or something rather than simply relying on the drawn abilities, give the player a bit more agency.

[@DeadmanWL]

Set a Watch! I want this game!!!! Wish I could find a copy from a place, I knew. Edit: Your "lets play" of Set a Watch, is what made me want to get it, the way it can go oh this is easy to oh dear god no! was amazing.

[@jonbwfc]

Anyone know how to get this without the bill being 30 quid for the game then another 30 quid for postage? Looking at it on the table there it really doesn’t look like that big a parcel to ship...

[@uninfamous]

I really like when you lets play, then share the review. Helps me get a feel for it, then pick up things I might have missed. I suppose I could just wait for the let’s play, then watch the review. 😅 .

[@markalexandermaron5531]

I was actually contemplating on getting set a watch but finally got my own copy after watching the lets play video. You should try it again with the deluxe edition

[@wackamack9829]

The image that popped in my head when you said "furry guided missile" was...quite something

[@kcollier710]

A reason to get this game on other merits is that it definitely seems to lend itself to a multitude of table top RPG's in that heroes usually set up a watch- a great time saver to use this if you're short on time or just want to improvise...

[@NochSoEinKaddiFan]

This game, maybe also due to its setting, seems like good fun even when you loose, so I am definitely tempted to pick it up. :)

[@MSte21]

That was a brilliant Let's Play, and I honestly want to see more, maybe with four players this time?

[@jray404]

I didn’t know Daniel Radcliffe was so into board games.

[@robjones8567]

Would love to see a 4 player Let's Play of this.

[@johnleach8553]

Another great review! Makes me want to go out and get the game

[@Owyss]

if only the skills have unique art

[@brianschoner3350]

7:48 - note that not all Summon cards cause an adventurer card to be exhausted. Some bring in an Unhallowed, or return monsters from the Horde. They do all look the same, so it's not immediately obvious that their effects vary; we did the same thing until we stopped to read them.

[@dicebreaker]

It depends what version of the game you have! The deluxe version has a range of summon cards, but the standard set (the one we have) features four of the same summon.

[@bschoner]

Aha! I sit corrected.

[@gregbush8573]

I bought this game after seeing the let’s play, and immediately took it up to a bar to play with friends. Had a number of people just watching because of the reactions we were having to getting pummeled. We ended up just narrowly winning, which may be because I misread some of the rules having to do with the camp special abilities, so we probably were supposed to be defeated handily :/. But all was good fun. My favorite character to play is the bard, especially with both his passives and using his special ability to gain the archer’s passive, he can be an absolute beast on damage amplification, and target anything revealed on the board.

[@evantyler8647]

There is a bard?

[@gregbush8573]

Evan Tyler, they were out of the standard, I guess it only comes in the deluxe edition? Highly recommend the deluxe then :)

[@evantyler8647]

@@gregbush8573 ok

[@joshlong1322]

Could this be first comment?