With all the Kickstarter excitement in the gaming community lately with Nemesis Lockdown and Tiny Epic Pirates to name two, I thought it would be fun to revisit my first big Kickstarter game, Batman Gotham City Chronicles (BGCC) from Monolith Games. BGCC was a Kickstarter exclusive game that puts you in the shoes of the Dark Knight or one of his many allies, or a Rogues gallery of villains from the Batman Universe. It’s a 1-4 player game where up to 3 players are heroes and 1 player controls the villains in one of several different scenarios that range from rescuing hostages to stopping bombs from blowing up Gotham.
The heroes in the game use a specific number of action cubes to perform actions during the hero phase, and equipment to aid them in completing their objectives to win and stop the villains.
To start, select a scenario you wish to play and gather the tokens, villains tiles, and miniatures needed for that scenario. Select the appropriate side of the 2 boards that come with the game and follow the setup instructions for placing the villains, special tokens, and any additional miniatures needed. Take the villain tiles, arranging them in the order described in the scenario in the villains’ tableau. In addition, take the required number of energy cubes and placing them in the active and reserve side based again on the scenario.
Each player takes one of the heroes available from the scenario, their player card, a hero dashboard, and the number of energy cubes found on their hero card and the hero miniature. In addition, some heroes can start the game spending a number of points on bat gadget cards, such as a cape, Batarang, portable computers, and such. Some heroes also have a starting piece of equipment, such as Red Hood with the minigun, or the Huntress with a crossbow.
Each player places their hero in the corresponding start area, as indicated by the scenario. There are 3 phases in a game turn; Heroes phase, Villian phase, and Clean-up phase. The Hero phase is where the heroes take their actions. And every hero in this phase can take actions. The first step in the hero phase is to decide what their stance is. If a hero chooses an active stance, they recover energy cubes from their reserve to their active pool. A resting stance allows a hero to recover more cubes but limits their actions to defense and re-rolls only. A hero spends action cubes to take actions. A hero can choose to move, make a melee attack, ranged attack, attempt a complex thought, a complex manipulation, reroll, or for defense.
To move, each hero has a move bonus that costs no action cubes but must pay 1 cube for any additional movement points. Movement points are needed to move from 1 area to another, paying additional points needed based on height or terrain. Such as climbing, leaping, or jumping.
Fighting both melee and ranged requires spending energy cubes to acquire dice. Each cube spent gives the player a respective colored die based on their player board. For example, Batman gains 1 red die for each energy cube he spends when fighting hand to hand. This step creates a dice pool. Certain items will add dice to the dice pool. Once the dice-pool has been created, the player rolls to determine if enough damage was rolled to knock out an enemy.
The same steps are used in attempting a complex thought/manipulation. Each scenario gives a target number needed to succeed a skill test. If a player wants to reroll a die, they can spend 1 energy cube to reroll a die. Finally, a player may choose to save some cubes to create a defense pool to avoid damage during the villain’s phase.
After all the heroes have collectively spent the energy cubes they wanted to and taken all their actions, the heroes move all of their spent cubes to their reserve pool and the villain’s phase begins. During the villain’s phase, the villain player first recovers a number of energy cubes based on the scenario. Next, the villain player chooses two villain groups he/she would like to activate. Each villain tile has an energy cube cost that is based on their position on the villain player board. The player pays the cost and can activate each villain of that group. The activated tile is then moved to the end of the unactivated tiles. An activated Villian can move, take an action, repeat the action if allowed, and move again by paying the additional cost in energy cubes. Villians can also pay cubes for rerolls or for adding a defense die to their defense number. A villain tile will detail what actions that group can take, what dice to roll, their movement bonus, and their defense value.
For example, Batman pays 2 cubes for a melee attack, in addition, he has brass knuckles, adding a yellow die. His dice pool is 2 red and 1 yellow, he rolls and deals 4 points of damage plus 1 more for his martial arts skill, making the total 5. The villain player wants to keep this villain alive, so he pays 1 cube to get an orange die to roll adding that number to the villains base defense of 2. He rolls a 1, not enough, so he pays a cube for a reroll and gets a 2, still not enough. He has used all his cubes, so his villain is defeated. A hero can also use cubes to defend in the same manner against a villian’s attack.
After the villains have activated, it’s onto the cleanup phase. First, each side checks to see if they have met their victory conditions. If neither side has achieved the victory, the heroes again move any spent cubes to their reserve pool. The round marker is moved, and the next hero phase begins. The game continues until either side has met its victory conditions or the last round has been played. The heroes lose if time runs out.
BGCC is a hybrid of resource management and dungeon crawl experience. Players are working to achieve goals to win and have a limited number of resources to do it. It requires planning as well as being prepared to recover if the randomness from the dice rolls is not successful. I really like the use of energy cubes and the only limits for a player to take action is based on the number of cubes used. I think the scenarios are balanced, giving each side a fair chance to win. The heroes have skills and equipment while the villains have numbers and certain skills. The main villains (Joker, Riddler, Penguin, etc) have a stronger skill set and pose a greater challenge than the basic level goons for hire.
Components wise, the game is top-notch. The base game consists of 2 boxes with over 150 miniatures. The miniatures are of good quality with great detail. The cards, boards, dice, and tiles are also very well made. There is an expansion called versus mode, where 2 players create a squad skirmish-style and battle it out to achieve their goals to win.
I am really happy I went in on this game, and it’s one that I really enjoy and have played several times. Even though it’s not in retail, copies can be found in the secondary market such as eBay. If you like Batman and are looking for a decent and challenging experience in that world, Batman Gotham City Chronicles may be one worth looking for.
Written by Ed Carter
