The Best & Worst of Arcs by Leder Games | First Impressions

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This game was purchased by us

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- Time Stamps -
00:00:00 - We Played Arcs!
00:01:06 - First Impressions Context
00:01:58 - Core Game Overview
00:04:16 - Unique Card System
00:06:00 - Scoring
00:07:45 - Learning the Game
00:08:50 - Asymmetric Powers
00:10:57 - Skepticism?
00:14:34 - 4 Player Gameplay
00:18:38 - 2 Player Gameplay
00:23:10 - Best | Wide Open Strategies
00:24:12 - Best | Fast Playing
00:24:55 - Best | Broken Combos
00:26:30 - Best | Innovation
00:27:38 - Best | So Much to Explore
00:29:14 - Worst | Dice Screw You
00:33:09 - Worst | Unbalanced Game
00:35:16 - Worst | Confusing Rules
00:37:10 - Worst | Starving for Lore
00:39:10 - Worst | Memorization Needed
00:41:10 - Final Thoughts

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- Game Description -
Arcs is a sharp sci-fi strategy game for 2–4 players, set in a dark yet silly universe. Ready yourself for dramatic twists and turns as you launch into this galactic struggle.

Seize the initiative:
Take actions with multi-use cards. Copy the leader, pivot to new tactics, or take the initiative for next round. Timing is everything.

Declare ambitions:
In each game, you define the objectives that everyone competes over to win.

Crush your foes:
Amass your navy for battle, plan your strategy with three kinds of dice, then roll them all at once to resolve the battle in a flash.

Each game contains a hundred wooden ships and agents, 18 custom engraved dice, a beautiful six-panel board, and tons of cards with over 60 pieces of unique art.

#root #Quackalope #arcs

[BradleyLayton]

Ordered everything for this game 1.5 years ago with no research. Played my first 2 player game last night and got decimated at 37 vs 6 points 😂 had a blast!

[vickh]

Cole Wehrle best designer in modern boardgaming <3

[jjschm]

One of Cole Wehrle’s best games. For one of the negatives, the only way to mount a defense is to build up your fleet. The only defense in this game is mutually assured destruction. Every action is important so if you decide you’d rather use all your build actions on cities and keep your fleet small, you’re going to get picked on. There are some Court cards and Lore cards that can beef up defense but you can’t rely on getting them.

[andrewh]

A way to mitigate damage from the dice would be to allow a retreat from the dice roll. If you sacrifice a ship being attacked the other ships can retreat or if you have a spaceport in that location you can retreat into the planet free space in the sector(I think it was called the gate in the instruction manual)by sacrificing it or can only retreat when you have one. Or allowing people to convert hits into raid keys or allowing the attacker to ignore attacker damage in exchange for retreating
Giving people no defence other than just having a lot of ships meant that you're always vulnerable which has advantages and limitations.

[cwzjkcu]

Fair criticisms. After my first two games I understood how to pull all the levers but I don't think I understood how to properly maneuver those systems after about 4-5 games. It was when I started learning how to combo my cards with resources in the prelude actions that I started to really understand how to move around and do some damage. The dice are structured so that you should assess the risk you want to take. Sometimes if you can do multiple battles, start off with mostly skirmish dice and then do your damage and raids with assault and raid dice. So that the intercept doesn't hurt you as much. Destroy cities only if it's really going to benefit you to bank a tone of trophies and grab you some great Guild or Vox cards; Destroy their star-ports instead. 

I go back and forth of what's more accessible Arcs or Root or Oath. Since it seems like all of Cole Werhle games are all complex so they really are games that you should only play if you're an avid gamer. Newbie gamers tend to play it once and not get it and stop playing. Or they play them and just don't like how complex or mean they can be. Those players often like games like Moonrakers or The Grizzled or something like Catan. They tend to like less competitive games and more co-op or semi-co-op games. In some ways I feel like Root is the easiest one to understand in that the over all rules are fairly straight forward and then you just read and do what your faction board says. Oath I think is easy in the sense of everyone is doing the same thing but I found that players didn't really understand how to use their actions to reach their goal. I feel like Arcs is similar to Oath in that sense in that what you can do is fairly simple to understand it's just you need to figure out how to properly use your actions to reach your goal. Only with Arcs I feel like it's more of a game like Catan in that it's mainly just a game without a lot of lore or depth like Oath. (Then again I'm hoping to get that in the Campaign which I have yet to play.) 

I feel like all of Cole's games are games that you have to spend time with to really appreciate them. They really are an acquired taste kind of games. In my experience light gamers tend to not like them. As they tend to just want a simple game you play once and can understand how to play in like 5 minutes. While all of his games are games you have to play several times to really understand and then they're gold. So I think now that I've played three of his games I would say Cole Werhle is for experienced gamers who love trying to really get deep into playing games and keep discovering new strategies. And it becomes like the games they play most. Because of that I really think Cole should just put a solo mode in all of his games lol. Otherwise they would just sit on the shelf because the gamer who owns it tends to have a hard time finding players that will sit and play it with them. He's still my favorite designer right now but I think that's my biggest criticism of his games is that because they take several games to really enjoy them they are very hard to get others to sit down and play them with you.

All that being said I do like Arcs. I think I like Root and Oath a little bit more but I still really like it and hope my gaming group likes it to be able to play through the Campaign.

[Magicman]

Havent finished the video yet but did you guys just pick one die type during attacks?

Choosing just one die type during an attack increases potential rewards but also potential danger to yourself. Like if you have five ships and want to raid a guild card with two keys but the enemy has three fresh ships then picking only two raid die and three skirmish might be a good way to do that.

The danger of enemy fresh ships with the raid die is huge considering just one intercept in that scenario would deal the attacker three damage.

However if you are the lead card and have mutiple attacks you have the flexibility to skirmish a few battles to damage or destroy enemy ships then raid on the final assult so that possible intercept damage isnt nearly as damaging to the attacker.

Its this kind of depth and thinking that keeps me thi king about this game all day lately. I feel as thoigh ive only scratched the surface of base game play 😁

[nalderxrunnerfamilyoverl]

interesting review. I found the game very engaging and approachable. My first game with my 9 YO daughter ended up 32-28 with my kid learning the game very easily. I was surprised at how easy the ambition scoring element was. your miles may vary.

[oerthling]

You get the particular thematic factions in the campaign game.

Base Arcs is, well, base. It's the extracted core of the originally planned Arcs. There's a stripped down thematic asiect with leader & lore, but on the whole bqse Arcs is for people who want the the dense tactical core experience of Arcs.

If you want the more thematic version, you need the campaign where you cqn ge the Stewqrd fighting for dying empire, fighting against the downfall or a pirate, etc...

BTW I disagree with commenters who say you should play n games of naked core Arcs before adding Leader & Lore.

Those 2 cards are simple enough to add in to your first or second game and give you a little taste of thematic asymmetry.

I just played with 3 Arcs noobs and we used the L&L right away. Wasn't a problem at all.

Playing a few base Arcs games before jumping into campaign Arcs is a good idea though.

[benjaminlefkowitz]

Sh'koiach for not falling for the hype, and giving a thorough criticism. This is what I need to know before I buy. שבת שלום!

[SmackMule]

I played the base game last week with four players. I enjoyed it. Was interesting. Decent game for sure. Nothing approaching best game of '24, though.

[rainingsunny]

There is a lot more wheeling and dealing and a stronger emphasis on narrative with the Blighted Reach campaign expansion. However this adds a tonne of rules (mainly Summits, which introduce a phase where you can trade and negotiate most resources including ships, cities/starports and your dudes; the Imperial Forces and Blight which are sort of like NPCS that you have some control over AND finally Fates which are character-based unique goals away from the power points). The game is heavily tactical and someone who can adapt quickly (to their hand, to the board state, to potential opportunities) will do much better. There is definitely a skill curve and it'll take you a few games to get better at managing the systems (especially optimising the use of the guild/vox cards AND the prelude actions which both allow you to circumvent a "bad" hand to some degree).

[MrK]

Great content, Jesse. I have been following you since your video release of Sam Healeys favourite games. You always appeared to be someone who loves board games and you seemed to be the first content creator who actually wanted to convey the feeling of playing great games through his videos - yes, your style was polarizing but it seemed like a holistic offering to people who were seeking good content on board games. And yes, I also understood that it was necessary to also create click baity videos for Kickstarter Previews and I also kept my calm when the alleged ATO black mailing came up - I felt compassion for the impact it had on you, your loved ones and friendships and was rather shocked what kind of fallout it created. It was not fair IMHO.

Now seeing this video just showed and reminded me again what a good content creator you are in this field: great video editing, holistic game analysis incl. preparation and easy to follow structure. Really great stuff and I hope you keep on doing this kind of high quality content. All the best to you and this restart of Quackalope - which seems to go back to its roots, which I love of course. So much so, that I will forgive click baity stuff and future sponsored content :)

[niklasjohansson]

You have to keep the other players in check and not be afraid of conflict as your scores show. The players that get the game quickly will definitely be at an advantage for the first few games.

[siriactuallysara]

This isn’t a troll comment
I am playing through aeons tresspass in a group of 4 and it’s a top 5 favorite game for me

[coratoraYT]

This is a great "mixed-good?" review. I am very much looking forward to a future review!

[zildremo]

- Most agree: Too reliant on memory.
This is needlessly discriminating against older players and those with certain medical conditions; unless memory is a primary feature of the game, reliance on it should be avoided. Having seen my own short term memory skills fade dramatically over recent years, I didn't appreciate this element of the game at all.

I like the designer's suggestion of face-up and face-down discard piles, but I'd go a step further - each player should keep their own discard pile and any player may search any discard pile, but players may only view their own face down discards.

Counterpoint: Using a skill such as memory is one way to improve it, so for some people forcing themselves to remember things may actually improve their ability - but this doesn't apply to everyone.

- Most disagree: The dice suck.
I like dice, and I like these dice in particular. Having different sets with different strengths and weaknesses really adds some tactical options to the game, while having them inflict damage on the attacker affords a very quick and effective "strike back" mechanism without the game descending into endless dice rolling. WH40K could learn a thing or two here...

As for it being too random, or too many points relying on the outcome, I'd argue players aren't using combat properly. Combat by its nature is unpredictable. Giving yourself a single hit or miss chance at lots of points is BAD STRATEGY. Instead, you should be giving yourself more chances - more battle actions. These can be used either to soften up the enemy (skirmishing) before going in for the kill (assault and/or raid) to minimise your own losses, or to give yourself a second chance should the first fail - or ideally both. Attacking with one pip is like tossing a coin; attacking with two or three really steers the outcome in your favour.

Most confused:
You said players always had options, always had ways to come back... but then you said you saw a player get totally steamrollered out of the game early on. Unfortunately I've definitely seen the latter...

[Magicman]

Im getting ready to teach the base game to a friend myself and i definitely wanna emphasize how important scoring is if you wanna achieve victory and some strategies like choosing your ambitions based on your starting resorces, knowing your influence stealing cards and cards you actually get all the pips from.

While this is a simple teach it is definitely hard to see all the crazy combos just by looking at the rulebook or board and i think the best part is finding thise combos naturally through play.

Once both of us feel comfortable i plan to add leaders and lore which ive heard makes the game feel slightly more similar to Root by adding the feel of factions and asymmetrical powers.

[Alphanva]

Appreciate your coverage of this game, Jesse!!!

[xicecatx]

I can totally see how a 2 player game with one person not quite grasping the mechanics being swinging. I've played this a few time with my game group now and cannot imagine a scenario where in a 4 player game someone just runs away like that. This game gives full king killing power. If your table sees someone wildly ahead of the rest and just sits there and lets it happen...that's kinda on you guys. This game requires reacting to what's happening, it's not like a terra mystica where you can just focus on yourself without the context of what the other players are doing

[shingodzilla]

Arcs is not that complex TBH. That said, you do need to pay attention to the whole board (like other Cole Wehrle games). I always play either Campaign or if single session using Leaders and Lore, which by introducing true asymmetry ramps up the strategy element. And yes, this is a VERY good game. So are A Gest of Robin Hood and Vijayanagara.