Vengeance Roll and Fight: Rapid Review

Vengeance Roll and Fight: Rapid Review

Information:

Mechanics: Engine Builder, Dice Rolling, Roll and Write, Real-time, Simultaneous Play, Variable Setup
Player Age: 8+

Player Count: 1 - 4 Players (up to 8 combining volume 2)

Time to Play: 30 Minutes 
Game Designer: Gordon Calleja, Noralie Lubbers, Dávid Turczi

Game Artist: Axel Torvenius

Publisher: Mighty Boards

Year Published: 2022

BGG Weight: 2.64

Rundown:

If you are a die hard action fan who always sees the latest Jason Statham release then Vengeance Roll and Fight is the adrenaline fuelled adventure for you. In this twist on the roll and write genre you are preparing your board, charging abilities and unlocking weapons, then equipping dice to abilities as fast as possible. To do this, everyone will roll 4 dice simultaneously assigning the dice to abilities on their board. Once any of the 4 dice have been assigned, you must gain back up to 4 dice from the pool to start rolling again. Once the dice run out, you get to action your plan - kick down doors, eliminate the enemies, and with the proper planning, put the boss down for good. At the end of the game, just after the fourth round has concluded, players will score based on how far they progressed on the loot and training tracks, points for how much damage done to the boss, objectives completed, and negative points for enemies left alive on the exit path.

Alteration:

Each game you will be faced with a different mix of boss, den, and character options. This creates great variation between each game. There are nine different bosses included in the game, each with a different challenge to overcome such as adding more enemies or new ways to deal wounds. Each boss also contains a differing amount of health where the higher the health, the more points you can gain by defeating them but the longer it takes to stop them.

Each character has great alteration as they all have an effect on their card  containing an ongoing issue such as tough guys in the room inflict a wound during the resolution phase. The best aspect, however, is each character also contains four unique items and eight unique abilities. Each ability will either be an effect to resolve during the fight phase, or an ongoing ability. Each player can only have four objectives active at a time, adding variability. Even if players choose to re-use the same character again they can outfit their abilities for a different playstyle.

Phases:

In each of the four rounds there are four phases that players will be playing simultaneously; flashback, rolling, fighting and resolution.

Flashback:

During the flashback phase the three white dice are rolled. Players will then activate each of these dice in any order, as well as one extra activation (excluding the loot activation). The die results are explained in the order shown in the picture. 

Flashback Dice Activations:

Training:

Mark two training spaces. 

These training spaces can be spent in this phase to exchange an existing ability with a newly purchased ability of your choice. Once you have trained enough you will also score additional points at the end of the game.

Purchase Items:

Mark one of the item squares to unlock an activation of a weapon. Each weapon can be marked three times and these marks can be crossed off later during the fighting phase to show activation. 

Healing:

Healing can be used to either heal two wounds or unlock additional health spaces. 

Recon:

On the top of the abilities there is a recon spot either costing one or two recon activations (from the same flashback phase). If used for an ability, that ability will have a free activation in the fighting phase, allowing it to be activated without having any dice assigned to it.

Loot:

Loot allows you to advance one more space on the loot track or activate any other flashback ability. The loot track will score points at the end of the game based on the left-most unmarked space.

Rolling:

During the rolling phase, players are playing in real-time simultaneously rolling the four dice they start with. At any point these dice can be re-rolled and assigned to an ability that the dice match. Some objectives only allow one activation per round but most will allow for endless activations. Whenever a player has less than four active dice they will take more dice from the middle returning their dicepool to four. When there are no more dice to roll the phase will end. 

A player must always be rolling 4 fresh dice so if there are not enough dice left in the pool to equal four then the rolling phase will also end. Whenever a player rolls a wound, they must keep that result, clogging their avaliable dice. A wound can be rerolled if one of two things occur;  assign other dice to an ability or gain a dice as a wound and re-roll all other wound dice. 

Fighting:

Players now get to experience the action by resolving the abilities and items in any order, and defeating the enemies at will. There are some key terms players should know; 

- Move allows you to move through to a connected room

- Hit allows you to deal one damage to an enemy in the current room (most enemies only need one damage to die)

- Shoot allows you shoot someone in a connected room.

Resolution:

This is the house keeping phase where each player will perform the following: 

- Remove any unused recon activations off your abilities.

- Collect a loot action per star filled in each visited and cleared room on your map. Cleared rooms contain no enemies and you will cross the stars off the map once collected. 

- Gain wounds based on the damage from certain enemy types and the boss. If your health track is full you will take a beating and will only be able to use three dice at a time during the rolling phase, one more beating and you have died.

Intricacies of a Den:

Each den is unique in layout, assortment of enemies, and objectives. Spread throughout all the dens are five enemy types; the standard grunt (black), the tough guy (green) that requires two hits to take down, the blocker (yellow) that doesn't allow you to leave the room until dealt with, the gunman (blue) who will shoot you from an adjacent room, and the henchman (red) who work similar to the gunmen but attack from the same room.

If you are in the same room as an objective as you explore the den you can gain the points if you meet the requirements. These objectives vary from visiting a certain amount of rooms, defeating certain enemy types, or clearing all enemies in a single round.

Determination:

- Fast playtime.
- Great components, especially the player markers.
- Unique theme, with an even more unique gameplay.
- Great range of variability.
- A bit of programming mixed with the speed of real-time in the rolling phase as you try and plan your round.

As an avid player of the roll and write genre, Vengeance Roll and Fight has really surprised me in the best way. The gameplay contains larger elements as you have to plan not only for the current round but rounds ahead. When you equip the right abilities and mark the right items you set yourself up for success in the flashback phase. When you start to play the rolling phase you have to program your plan in real time as you deal with annoying wounds and depleting dice. Then you finish it off in the fighting phase and see if you accommodated enough movement and hits for your plan to work. This is easily staying in my collection and has earned a Go-To  Golden Seal.

Click...feed the addiction: 

Mighty Boards

Vengeance Roll and Fight on BGG

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