Batman: Gotham City Under Siege: Save the city before it gets turned to dust

You may be thinking do we really need another Batman game? I think that with such great hero games like Dice Masters or Heroclix the need may not be there, but when a famed designer like Richard Launius (Arkham Horror) is behind it, it makes me take a second look, and I am glad I did.

First off, I love “Batman”, I own enough “Batman” shirts for a whole week, so first, the theme appeals to me, next as already mentioned the designer, and finally the mechanics and components.

Component wise, the cardboard stock is good for the tokens and cards. The 6 hero miniatures have good sculpts as well. The only weak components are the nine buildings and the box design. If they wanted 3D buildings, they should have looked at how well Gale Force Nine stores them as in Firefly Adventures even though they nest in each other, my cat wreaked havoc during one game due to how flimsy the cardboard is. The 3D buildings do bring a neat aesthetic to the table I have to say.

Mechanics-wise, it is a hybrid of dice placement and card management game, very much like Doctor Who and the Time of the Daleks.

In Batman Gotham City Under Siege, players take on the role of one of 5 of Gotham’s brave heroes, (Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Commissioner Gordon, and Catwoman) to fend off the machinations of Gotham’s nefarious villains and their minions as they try to raze Gotham to dust.

To start, take 9 of the 12 city block tiles and sort them randomly into a 3×3 grid. Place one of the 9 buildings randomly on each tile.

Based on the number of players, take the appropriate number of hero miniatures, player board, hero dice, hero tokens, and card deck to create the player area.

Next, take the Gotham City track and place the citizen, explosion and bat signal tokens on the appropriate areas based on the level of difficulty.

Take all the thug, henchmen and Ninja tokens and put them in the draw bag.

Finally, take the four Act Decks, separating them into four appropriate stacks and bring Act 1 to the playing area. Also, shuffle and stack the mastermind deck by the city track. Take the Act setup cards and place them above the city track face down with Act 1 on top.

Each Act has instructions for many setup cards, masterminds, and villains to populate and what section of the city they are in.

The game consists of 4 acts, and each act has three phases: Act phase, Hero phase, and Crisis phase.

In the Act phase, the Act Leader draws the Act setup card follows the setup instructions drawing the act cards and placing villains and masterminds.

In the Hero phase, each hero draws 2 cards from their hero deck, choosing one to activate and one to return to the top of their deck. Next, each hero rolls their dice and any bonus dice they have. Next in order, starting with the Act Leader, each player plays one of their dice to perform an action. Then each player rolls their remaining dice and continues until all dice have been used.

Dice are used to defeat the villains and prevent the story cards from triggering. If after all heroes have used their actions, any uncompleted story cards activate and any remaining villains attack!

The crisis phase is when each stack of remaining villains may make a destruction roll to destroy a building. However, each hero in that zone may choose to defend against one of the stacks. The dice roll determines how much damage the hero does to the villain stack. If a hero rolls a 1 he is wounded. For each remaining stack of villains, they may make a destruction roll. Villains succeed on any odd number roll and destroy one Building in that heroes zone. Once a building is destroyed, the tile under it is flipped and the casualty and/or the explosion counter is moved. If either of these ever reaches zero, the game ends and the heroes lose.

If Gotham has not fallen or no heroes have taken 2 wounds, the game progresses to the next act.

If the city survives 4 acts, the heroes win and the Villians are defeated.

The third counter on the city track is the bat signal. This allows the heroes to modify a roll by either adding or subtracting 1 from the result. But if it ever reaches zero, the heroes no longer can use it.

Gotham city under Siege is a cooperative game from 1-5 players. I really like how the game scales the Acts based on the number of heroes. I also like how each hero has a unique deck of abilities.

This is not an easy game and requires good strategy among the players working together as a team. If you are a fan of the caped crusader, then I think you should consider giving it a try. Despite the flimsy buildings, it is a solid game and plays well.

Becca Scott from Geek and Sundry has a brief tutorial to give you an idea of how to play.

Written By Ed Carter