GRIMCOVEN Preview - Wanted Dead...Not Alive!

Watch along as we preview Grimcoven, the new dark fantasy game from Awaken Realms. Gather lament, power up your character, and hunt horrific beasts across endlessly replayable scenarios, each tied to a vicious BOSS!
This is a sponsored video.
Campaign Page
gamefound.com/en/projects/awa...
BGG Page:
boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4...

[@jarosawborzecki7178]

People are complaining that there are no hard choices to make during the game. I don't quite understand it, because it's not a narrative game, but maybe tou could explain it? The other thing I heard is that character's cards, the ones where player needs to choose one out of two or take the dice, don't remember the name, are not very different from each other. Doesn't matter which one you choose, because they are mostly the same. Can you say something about it?

[@meeple]

On the card front, the differences between them are probably more nuanced than some might expect. They mostly give the players more dice combinations to use to do similar things, but the Hunter cards I played with had some different effects with bullets that felt like big decisions. I think the tension of that decision comes more from not seeing that option again for quite some time, as opposed to the choice between the two cards. Plus, you're always faced with the decision of: Do I instead discard both cards to grab another die for my dice pool. Once we have our gameplay up, you might get a better idea, but this game is an intricate puzzle to solve through dice placement and definitely cooperation. Players really can't just do their own things without discussing an overall plan -- not if they want to have a chance of winning.

[@Bandibo87]

I have already checked some video and game looked incredibly hard. Players usually dead or almost dead in the 2nd-3rd round. Dice rolling add some randomness too, so this is the combination what can result some fustration in case of bad luck. So what do you think? The game looks lot more easier with 4 player. Is there any rule changes with more players?

[@meeple]

You'll have to watch our gameplay video for sure. 🤣 It is indeed a difficult game, but we managed to survive A LOT longer than we expected. Did we win? I'll let that be a surprise, but this game certainly isn't a push-over. I do think that it might see some more balancing for difficulty scaling before the the game delivers.

[@ConeDefense]

I’ll be curious to see if AR can deliver a decent rule book. I always want to love their games but struggle to sludge through their rules that haven’t ever seen a revision.

[@rawkyle9385]

which rule books are you talking about? I thought ISS Vanguard’s rulebook was fine.

[@Vardakula]

ISS had Paul Grogan doing the rulebook. Cant get better than that

[@XShagrathSilenozX]

Maybe they'll run it through ChatGPT to clean it up. Or just have AI write the whole thing for them.

[@meeple]

Good rule books are an art form. I do think that most publisher get better and better. I imagine they have a team now (or Paul) focused on improving those.

[@BlindedGuardian]

@@XShagrathSilenozX from an artist and architect : stupid comment people shouldn't pay attention to.

[@derekgarcia3069]

While im hoping they balance out the base level difficulty a bit, this is still one of my most anticipated campaigns this year.

[@meeple]

In our experience, I felt like they could consider tweaking some more things for scaling. The amount of damage needed for each boss card felt a little daunting for 2 players.

[@octavus4858]

curious how many bosses are in base game box?

[@tobiasthoren6161]

It looks like theres gonna be 3 Bosses in The core box. There Will probably be morsan Bosses in The stretch goals.

[@octavus4858]

@@tobiasthoren6161 that sounds a bit luckluster unless mixture in the way how Chulthu: DEAth may die works - scenario and boss would crate at least 12 different scenarios

[@meeple]

Hard to say in the end, but there are 3 announced on their pre-page now, plus what looks to be the possibility of taking on overly-corrupted versions of the player characters (I think). But I imagine there will be more revealed through the campaign.

[@nicksun7619]

It's only 4 bosses how replayable is it ? I leaning towards Odalin

[@john9801]

There are gonna be more than 4 bosses. But I'm also leaning very strongly to Odalin and Blood (by Ludus Magnus Studio) over Grimcoven. What I'm missing in Grimcoven is meta progression. Playing the same character multiple times without getting anything new for it will become dull to me. There are different difficulties for the bosses so maybe there is something they haven't revealed yet. But even then I'd rather go for Odalin and Blood.

[@meeple]

I would imagine there will be more. I'm not a boss battler guy, but now I need to research Odalin.

[@meeple]

I'm hearing a lot about Odalin in the comments here. We might get a Blood prototype, but I'm not sure yet. Seems like boss battlers are all the rage at the moment.

[@john9801]

@@meeple Odalin is a Dungeon Crawler not a Boss Battler. It will feature Card Crafting similar to to John D Clair games (Dead Reckoning). Blood by Ludus Magnus Studio is a Boss Battler and will use Card Crafting as well. Even though one is a Boss Battler and the other a Dungeon Crawler, they have quite some similarities I think

[@miguelsalgueiro7429]

Hi! How could this game be compared with Dark Souls? Thank you

[@meeple]

It's been a while since I played the Dark Souls board game, but some of the boss card mechanisms are somewhat similar. The overall experience is different though, in that this one drops right into the boss encounter. There's not a huge feeling of exploration here by design.

[@amnesiai]

It's look really cool, but I wish they would add a story mode or something like aeon's end new age's expedition mode because eventually boss battlers always get so repetitive for me

[@meeple]

I feels like they consciously went a different direction, with more focus on variable setup and drop-in sort of play.

[@benja6902]

the word 'secret' was misspelled on a tile.

[@meeple]

Shhhhh. That misspelling IS the secret. 😄

[@Frankzoar]

Kinda weary after Etherfields….this looks cool, though.

[@meeple]

Etherfields definitely soured some people, although I know some players who really like it. I think this is a far more straight forward experience.

[@AICandy01]

I like make my own hero for this. Maybe they put out blank board so to put custom art on?

[@IvanMallia]

That box art looks a lot like ai generated

[@meeple]

Possible. Others are definitely talking about that. I personally don't see the signs of AI in it though.

[@IvanMallia]

@@meeple When you have played with AI you start recognising it. If you look closely, you will see things that do not make sense. Like the thing tha tlooks like a bow, but it's not. Or whatever they have on their backsvand hands... what are they? In fact I searched the internet, and apparently they edited and updated this image. It seems you have an older version.

[@Deltium5683]

There are so MANY better boss battlers out there such as KDM, Aeon Trespass, and most recently the incredible Primal: the Awakening. Grimcoven is not bad but these others are a lot better.

[@john9801]

End of month there will be Blood by Ludos Magnus Studio which I look forward to way more

[@meeple]

Would love to try Primal.

[@user-xd4me9of7s]

Primal is something i could not find around when i was searching it at March. I would not compare it with ATO as ATO has too many rules. I would buy ATO if the rules were the half in quantity.... with having a baby sadly can not support 90 page rulebook....so Grimcoven seems as a good alternative solution.....

[@1992Rainbowdog]

I’m not that active in the boardgame scene so what do you think this game does worse? Plus don’t you think the time until release could fix those issues?

[@Deltium5683]

@@user-xd4me9of7s primal is relaunching later this year.

[@leolajs6736]

They lost me with dice! There are so many other way to do controlled combat