Nexus Ops

[prog]

I played Nexus Ops with folks last night and enjoyed it, though opinions around the table were mixed. It is a wargame, and looks like one - I love all the colorful translucent figures - but doesn't always feel like one. My main beef with is it that, at least in a four-player game, it's very difficult to get out of your corner and its surrounding hexes; you basically establish your territory in the first couple of turns and then spend the rest of the game in border skirmishes.

It ended up working anyway for me because of the "secret mission" cards that you collect as you play. Normally you get 1 victory point (of the 12 you need to win) for winning a battle, but you can get several at once by fighting in a way that satisfies the conditions on one or more of your cards - destroying a certain kind of enemy unit, for example, or winning a battle on a certain terrain type. This encourages players to stick their necks out and engage in battles that aren't tactically astute otherwise. I had one really good turn where I scored 5 VPs by thinning up my front line to dive into two melees at once, fulfilling two different mission cards. I ended up losing some ground, but it was worth it. The game is full of that.

Not rushing to buy the game, but I want to play it again, and see what it plays like with two or three players. The modular board reconfigures in each case so that starting positions are always symmetrical.

(Image by Deborah Estes via BoardGameGeek.)

Comments

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

Very pretty.

[jazzfish]

NOps isn't so much a wargame as it is a middle-management game. You get strange objectives (in the form of mission cards) from your superiors and have to carry them out to prove that your of the company is capable of meeting arbitrary benchmarks.

I like it a lot. My only real complaint is that there is no endgame to speak of; there's a pretty well-defined opening and midgame, and then someone wins. But, light and fun, and awesome pieces.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

NOps isn't so much a wargame as it is a middle-management game.

There's a difference?

[jazzfish]

Heh. What I meant by that was that your goal isn't the elimination of the other players or expanding your own territory. Getting in fights for the sake of beating down someone else or grabbing a little more land is unlikely to help. Instead, you follow your sometimes conflicting and often obscure ("win a battle in a fungus hex"?) orders from your boss.

[aspartaimee.livejournal.com]

those pieces look like delicious candy.

[misuba.livejournal.com]

I really like Nexus Ops despite my belief that it's generally kinda bad. I think you'll find that you get much more of a chance to open up and stretch out in a 3-player game (the only kind I've tried).