Robotech Ace Pilot: Review

Robotech Ace Pilot: Review

Information:

Mechanics: Yahtzee, Dice Rolling, Tile Manipulation
Player Age: 8+ 

Player Count: 2 - 4 Players

Time to Play: 25 - 40 Minutes 
Game Designer: Jeff Mechlinski
Game Artist: Francisco Etchart

Publisher: Japanime Games

Year Published: 2018

Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.

Objective:

Oh no! You and your team are vastly overrun by Zentraedi forces and now is the time to use your fighter pilot skills to demolish this onslaught of enemy ships.  You will use Yahtzee style rolling to enlist the help of pilots who will focus their force on the opposing ships. With defence in mind, you must also remember that only one player can have top bragging rights and that will be the one with the most victory points after the dust has settled.

Card Anatomy:

There are two types of cards; upgrades and hero cards.

Upgrades:

These upgrade cards allow you to break the rules every now and then. Every good pilot needs an ace up their sleeve and these cards are gained from defeating an upgrade token (more on this soon). From that point, they can be used once every turn (including the turn on which it was gained). These effects vary from manipulating the dice and manipulating the tokens, to just gaining victory points.

Hero Cards:

These are the pilots at your command who shall strive to initiate fear in the heart of all enemies. Hero cards have an enlistment cost on the bottom left-hand side. Some cards will require three dice although the majority will require two.  Their abilities range from dealing a certain amount of damage, effecting certain tile placements, or dealing damage to alignments in the token tray. Cards with such damage inducing abilities include Ray, Claudia, Henry and Max.

Some heroes deliver a set amount of damage spread across anyone, such as Rick who can spread 3 damage across up to three targets, or Miriya who can deal 6 damage to one target or 3 damage to two targets.

Lastly, there is Lisa who can kill any three previously damaged targets, or Ben who can kill any three battle pods or fighter pods that are not in the middle space.

Token Anatomy:

There are four types of tokens for Robotech Ace Pilot; first player token, enemies, upgrades and ‘khyron’.

First Player:

This common game token is easy as it denotes who is the first player. In a two player game, this will move between the players after a round concludes. When playing at the other player counts, whoever recruits Henry in a round will gain the token,  unless they were already first player then, instead they will pass it to the left at the end of round.

Enemies:

Each enemy has victory points on the bottom left and the damage needed to destroy it on the bottom right. The hit points will range from 1-5 damage.

Upgrades:

Upgrade tokens are like enemies in that they must be defeated in order to be gained. However, they vary from normal enemies tokens since they have no victory points but will instead reward that player with the top upgrade card.

Khyron:

Khyron is an enemy ship that will take five damage to destroy but will give nine victory points in return. Two characters (Henry and Miriya) are weaker when attacking Khyron and will have will have a lessened attack. Henry will only be able to assign 3 damage instead of 4, and Miriya can only assign a combined hit of 4 instead of 6. The only character able to perform the final kill shot is Rick.

Setup:

- Mix the tokens into the cloth bag then pull out tokens and place them face down on each square of the token tray. The amount of tokens in each tray square will depend on player count. For a 2 player game, there will be seven tokens in each tray square, and for all other player counts there will be eight tokens.

- Place all the hero cards, dice, damage tokens and a shuffled upgrade deck within reach of all players.

- Designate a first player and pass them the first player token.

How to Play:

In a clockwise fashion, the active player will roll the five dice and be able to reroll any amount of dice twice (Yahtzee style). Then, they will enlist up to two heroes by meeting their required dice combination on the left-hand side of the card. Once some dice have been used to enlist a hero, only the remaining dice can be used for the second hero. No sharing the same dice between two cards.

Once this is done the heroes assign damage to the enemy ships based on the card(s). Some enemies may not be defeated but will receive damage tokens that lessen their health for future defeat. These heroes can be played in any order, while upgrades can be used during any part of the players turn. Any defeated ships will be taken by that player as victory points until the end of the game.

After the turn concludes, the ships below the previously defeated/removed ships will flip face up for the next player. However, the next player can no longer choose the heroes enlisted by the previous player(s). After all, even valiant  heroes need to rest after epic space firefights.

The turn will then pass to the next player until the round concludes.
A round consists of both players (in a two player game) having two turns each, or each player having one turn each for all other player counts. The new round will then begin with a new first player and all heroes will be available again. The game will end when one square of the token tray is empty (in a 2-3 player game) or when
two cells are empty during a 4 player game. Once this occurs, all players will tally their victory points and the winner will be declared.

Final Thoughts:

Pros:
- The gameplay is mostly easy to remember and it leads to a quick strategic game.
- The upgrades can lead to more strategic planning via manipulating token positions.

Cons:
- To be true to the theme there are some hard to remember rules about Khyron.
- Decent amount of setup and teardown time.

'Robotech Ace Pilot' is an easy to learn family wight game, although, adds strategic planning in the positioning of the enemy ships through upgrade cards. There is a lot of luck involved in this game but that is what keeps the game fresh and fun. If you are a fan of the Robotech theme and looking for a Yahtzee style game, mixed with some tile manipulation, then 'Robotech Ace Pilot' is for you.

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Japanime Games
Robotech Ace Pilot on BGG
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