If you don't particularly like baseball, or thinking about playing a baseball board-game isn't something you look forward to. Don't let Baseball Highlights 2045 (BH2045) put you off investigating this deckbuilder.
I'd heard several reviews telling exactly the same as above and I do like some deck building games. At Spiele'16 I got the game's designer (Mike Fitzgerald) to attempt to explain the rules to me in 30-seconds before playing a few rounds of the game.
DanisThirsty was watching too and will attest that:
a) He wasn't great at explaining the rules to his game to a Brit who knows less about Baseball than Rounders.
b) He also gave me one too few cards, so I was at a significant disadvantage.
Even this didn't deter me though. I picked it up and we finally managed to get it onto the table to play, so thought I would share the experience and some thoughts.
The game's deck is made up of card which represent baseball players, or rather the effect the baseball player has on the game; like the name of the game suggests, highlights of the game. Less baseball already
The game is set in the year 2045, a future where Robots and Cyborgs play baseball with 'Naturals' to make the game more interesting.
Improving something that wasn't interesting before can't be a bad thing!
I don't like regaling all the rules which you can find else where; but quite simply the game starts with a starter-deck of 15 cards and you're going to play several mini-games (or innings) in a best of 7. Each inning consists of a play of the 6 cards you've drawn from your deck. The cards can have two effects: an Immediate Action, which resolves as soon as you play it & Hit Boxes which are your threats. A card played is your defense from threats and also the grounds for your threat against the other player. This leads to a to-and-fro until all the cards are played. There's a lot more too this, but don't want to draw out a long convoluted example you can find on a video.
Once the game is over, the cards you played are used to purchase new/better cards and you're forced to relegate a player into the minor-leagues so you keep you 15 card hand. This can force you to make difficult decisions!
Hopefully you're still with me here! It can all get quite exciting at times.
Components: Lots of high quality cards and some lovely White/Blue/Red Pawns which represent the different speed of runners. I really like the player mats because they are double-sided. Each side has a Left and Right handed version of the player mat. It's unnecessary but a nice touch. The box is far too big for it's content...looking forward to expansions here.... The box's insert is a typical Eagle-Gryphon Game affair: (spacers/room for components), room for cards with inserts. EEG are known for their high-quality production, they really are a step above average.
| Here are a selection of cards, with the nice pawns.
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Rules:They can be a little fiddly at times, but the game has recently gone into it's 3rd edition of rules, which has made a lot of things much clearer. It didn't take long to get them under control.
There is now a very good FAQ and Reference Sheet as well as a guided-play-through with lots of examples.
The rules also come with dozens of variants which can extend or reduce the length of the game. There are also solo/3&4 player variants supported with the base-game box. Tournament play is out-lined too. The solo play looks very straightforward too.
There's not much room for Analysis Paralysis either, usually there are only a few options: Defend or make a good Offense - I always like balancing these things.
Player Interaction:As I said above: players are attacking and blocking each other. For me there's nothing more pleasing than watching your opponent playing a card which cancels your previous attack and then aggressively threatens to score. You realize there's no hope for you winning now. That is until, you remember your On-Deck Reserve Card: 'Reduces All Hits by one Base' which can cancel the effects. Your saved....for now anyway! Was that all a ploy to make you play your last defensive card?
The card handling is interesting too, when you buy a new card it goes onto your line-out so will appear in your next game. Which means you know one card your opponent has. There are some interesting mechanisms for removing cards from your deck, or hiding them on the On-Deck.
Theme:As I alluded to before I don't like baseball. Neither does my wife. Nor did she like the artwork...she found it boring. I quite like the artwork, all the player cards are unique and they all seem to have character. Either way, we found yourselves deeply engrossed in the game, trying to determine the best play.
I quite like the tongue in cheek dystopian world where Naturals are forced to keep their game alive against far superior technology.
Or where humans have been augmented to pitch faster balls to beat Robots designed to be heavy hitters. It has little to no baring over the game player, but certain cards effect one of the types of player.
Our Game:
| We made a mistake for our first play - we played 3-mini games to: i) get a feel for the start decks ii) Work out some rules iii) work out who goes first for the World Series.
In hindsight, this extended the game by about 35%. We'd have played much quicker if we : Just had 3 buy-rounds without the mini-games and then started (best of 7). Our games were really close. One aspect I really like is the first few innings you're deck is scoring 2 or 3 runs to win. But by our last game we were scoring 8 or 9 and threatening far more! Our game went to extra-innings 3-times, which happens when a game ends in a tie, players must draw 3 more cards and play them to continue the game! Seeing the deck developing with better players as the games go on is really pleasing. There's something likable about seeing 'Wiffle' come out of the stand: threatening 3-singles knowing your arch-nemesis is there to block their attack. This can happen 3 or 4 times during a game.
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Even though we went on for 10 mini-games to determine the victor: my wife smashed me. The final game went to Extra-Innings and with that she scored 2 more runs. I had hoped it would go on for one more inning, but it wasn't to be!
Last Thoughts:This game is an anomaly for me. I didn't have the best introduction to it, and it's about baseball...really that should be enough for me to leave it on the shelf. But I'm drawn to the solid mechanics, the elegant play and the deck development.
The game has recently completed a 2-player-only kickstarter, which is worth looking at if you're interested. It's safe to say this is probably my favourite deck-building game. The interaction is far better than Dominion and watching your runners make it round the bases, without getting picked off, is really pleasing! I'm looking forward to getting my hands on some expansions which add a lot more cards to the deck!
Go WIFFLE!
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