Ok, we are ready to launch! Our Kickstarter should be ready to go in about an hour. You’ve been pre warned. 🙂
This will be a very short and quick Kickstarter. -like Waterloo. If you want to get in, move quickly. It won’t last long.
If you miss it, no worries. We’ll get a page up soon for Pre Orders.
If all goes well, we should be ready to start shipping in a few weeks in the order we receive them.
Forest of the Impaled is one of the best team building cooperative board games I’ve ever seen. Six Muslim players must cooperate as a team to defeat the historical Vlad Dracula. The trick is: They Can’t Talk! Actually, the rules say they can’t “communicate” in any way, to include pointing, eye rolling, groaning, banging your head against the wall, etc.
“This game is about teamwork, leadership and communication.”
This game plays fast (1-2 hours) and is easy to learn and teach. It has some fun stuff in it: Castles, secret mountain passes, hideouts and impalements but really this game is about teamwork, leadership and communication.
One player is Dracula. Up to 6 other players must cooperate as a team of Muslim invaders to conquer Romania. This asymmetrical situation immediately raises a very interesting question. What is better? The efficiency of a small 1 person, autocratic, dictatorship? Or a very large, slow moving team? Are more minds better than one? What are their advantages and disadvantages? With practice, a good team can overcome their weakness and maximize their power of synergy. How do you do this? Through leadership, planning and communication.
The Muslim players can talk and plan freely before the game starts. After it begins, players can only talk briefly with other players while they are in the same spot on the board. So what happens when the plan gets disrupted?
Let’s say 3 players are supposed to move up the middle and take on Dracula. I’m supposed to take my army around the west to capture castles and drive deep into Transylvania. I shouldn’t be facing any serious resistance. That’s the plan.
On turn 1, Dracula unexpectedly races across the board to the west and bam, there he is right in front of me. Now what? We can’t talk. What should I do? What should the 3 players in the middle of the board do? We need to adapt but how?
I could march over to talk to them but that will waste a couple of turns to get there and then back. There usually isn’t time for that. The Muslims only have 4 turns to defeat Dracula!
Painful. Agonizing. Interesting. Fun. Also the same types of situations we run into at work. Well, maybe not impalements and castle sieges but things like:
Just to name a few.
This game brings out the very best in team building, cooperative board games.
We introduced our rules for HQ Reserve cards in Antietam. It was a great rule that took things in a great direction. This is my favorite rule of the whole system!
What you see on the board.
It was a great improvement and start. Since then we have been able to use them in other battles. This experience has given us a better understanding of exactly what they do and how the work the best.
Note other HQs and even whole Corps can be held in Reserve.
Given all this, we are altering our lineup for HQ Res cards in Antietam. This update is easy to implement. All you need to do is take out some of your cards and trash em!
The New games are going to come with only 3 cards per side as follows:
This is one of those strange cases where less is more. Most of the Federal Corps are small. Many only have a couple of divisions. If every Corps has a Res card, they become diluted and ironically have less of an impact. We have found that 3 per side here work much better.
What the Feds see.
Note that you CAN put other Corps in Reserve! So this makes it much harder for the ANV to read exactly where the Potomac is and what their true intention is. Where are there reserve Corps? How many left? You don’t know until they march out.
What the Rebs have.
Give it a try! We think you’ll like the effect much better.