Boss Battle: Ash & Bone Preview - Work Together To Survive!
Transcript
Hey there gamers, welcome back to the Board Game Co. channel. And today we have a preview of Boss Battle. Hey there gamers, it's Professor Meg here and welcome back to the Board Game Co. channel. Today we have a preview of Boss Battle. Now this is a current crowdfunding campaign, so you can check out the link down below for everything they have planned. This is a sponsored preview and this is the copy of Ash and Bone as well as Slime and Scales next to me. Both of these are going to be included in the campaign where there is going to be six playable heroes as well as three bosses that players are able to play as because in Boss Battle, not only are you going to be playing as these epic heroes that are taking out the different bosses, but one player is going to have the opportunity to play as the boss themselves. So, there are different ways for you to play this game if there are certain roles that are missing, you'll have mercenaries if you don't have all three heroes present and there is even a way to play this solo, but overall players are going to be taking on the roles of different heroes that are archetypes that are within RPGs and one player will be the boss that will be quite powerful and attempting to do their best to take out the other players because where in a game like D&D, you're trying to have these players survive and make it through a story. In this game, if you're the boss, you just want to make sure you kill all of the heroes. There is a win condition for the boss. You're not just running the game, but you are in fact trying to win as the boss and take out all of the heroes, but if the heroes are able to take out the boss instead, they'll be able to be triumphant. So, with that let's take a look at Boss Battle.
Now currently the game in front of you is set up for four players. So, it does have a boss player over here and they're going to be using all of these lanes that are in the boss area, but for the three players that are playing as the heroes, they're going to be playing within specific lanes. So, those are going to determine what damage is taken, what damage is done in those lanes, but heroes are able to play cards in any lane as you can see different ones are played in different areas. So, you are able to apply them anywhere, but when playing cards, players are going to be restricted not only to the cost of the card, but the particular round slot. So, where you can see these are a one, they were played to the one. We are currently in the first round, and we have so far go gone to through the placement phase.
Now, these boards over here are also shared, where this is going to be your HP tracker, where you are tracking the HP of not only the heroes, but the boss as well, where as you can see, they're currently at plus 40 HP and on the 10, meaning that they're currently at 50 HP. Uh but, you also have this area over here, which is going to mark the different rounds. And you're also marking what players have taken which turns, so you can see it in this first round the order that the turns were taken for the different players by the tokens that are placed in this area here. So, players are going to know which character acts when by placing those different tokens, whereas the player that is the boss is simply going to move this forward based on their turns. Now, here we have the boss cards, and normally this would be over on the boss's side in front of that player for them to use, but I have them over here for you to see that the boss player is going to have access to quite a few cards. So, these decks are pretty thick, and you have level one, two, and three cards. So, you have to be at those levels respectively to have access to those cards, but the boss player is also going to draw cards based on their current power level. So, you can see the power over here is currently four, and there are many ways for the boss player to increase their power, that once they do, for example, if they were at power six, but they were still only at level one, they'd be able to draw the six of the level one cards. Now, this does cap at 12 power, that you're able to exceed 12 power for other reasons, but you're
only ever able to draw up to 12 power worth of cards when playing as the boss. Now, they also have a special over here as well. So, you are going to have cards like that that you have access to as the boss player. And this one in front of you is currently Tevrog. It's going to be this a dragon that you're going to be facing off against that is going to be doing a lot of things that are damage as well as a defense based. Now, over here I have Runa. This is one of the heroes that you will be able to play as. And we do have two other heroes in play. We have Emestria as well as Aurelius, but I only have one player board here to show you what that is going to look like. So, on your player board you're going to have your deck that you have access to that you will go through a draw phase at the beginning of each round for the seven rounds of play. And you'll also have your hand of cards that you will be then playing when it is your turn. So, turn order is going to change every single round depending on what heroes I think it would be best for certain heroes to go. Uh, but you're going to be playing cards from your hand into these areas and just note that on the first round you are able to mulligan two cards. So, you are able to cycle through. Uh, and there's also a rest phase that can also help you change what cards are in your hand, but other than that you're going to be working with the cards that you draw and the different costs that you need to pay to be able to put them into play to balance what the boss is trying to throw at you. Now, here you can see that Runa has an HP max of 18, but they are going to start at
six and their hand size is three cards. So, that is going to increase every time that players level up and they'll level up depending on the round. So, I'll get over with that will mean I'll go over with that will mean in just a little bit, but you also have this a special over here battlecry. So, for example, Runa's is battlecry, which is if there are three plus warrior cards in the queue, bump forward one warrior card into an empty slot, then select one warrior card in zero slot to resolve first. So, we're going to go over exactly what slotting these cards do and moving them forward, but bumping things forward is going to help them activate sooner in the rounds. Now, depending what team you're on, whether you're the heroes or the boss, you're going to have a different victory conditions. So, if you're the boss, you want to bring all of the heroes to zero HP, and if so, at the end of the countdown phase, you'll be able to win the game, or you simply have to outpace them, because if you can last until the end of the seven rounds as the boss, you'll be able to win the game as well. Now, the game will result in a draw at the end of the countdown phase if all players are reduced to zero HP between the boss as well as all of the heroes, but the heroes are going to be able to win the game when they reduce that boss down to zero health.
Now, each round has four phases, where the first phase is a drawing to your hand size. So, here with Bruno, she has three cards, and for example, if we had two cards in her hand, we would then draw a card. After that is placement, and when placement the boss is always going to go first. So, they will move their token along after they take their turn, but they're going to go first with placing one of their cards, and there going to be different costs on the cards in this box here. And one of them is going to be bumping back something. So, for example, if this player wanted to play this card here, they would have to bump back a card from the slot that it is in. If there's nothing, that's obviously nothing, but another cost is going to be discarding cards. So, in order to play a card like this, the player would have had to discard another card from their hand. Now, sometimes this cost is going to be an either or where you can choose between those two things, and sometimes that will be doubled, but overall, you're going to be working with these same costs, whether you are the boss or the heroes, to play these cards into these different areas.
So, when you are playing them, you're also playing them to that respective round slot. So, for example, where this one has a zero here, that is where this card would then be placed. So, where you can see that one round has gone through the placement phase, I'll now go on to the resolution phase so that you can see what that will look like as the rounds start to progress. Now, with the current resolution phase, most of these cards are in the round one slot. So, not many things are going to happen this round, but a lot of these will be triggering when they are in these zero areas. So, I am going to have us now move forward to the countdown phase, and that's when these cards will move closer. So, this type of card will stay here, and this one is actually going to be able to take damage when this lane is attacked. But, all of the other cards are going to move forward. So, this one will slide forward to here, this will move forward to here, this will move forward, this will move forward, and this one will move forward.
So, many of these cards give benefits when they were placed, but some of them are going to give a benefits when they are resolved. So, that is going to be during the resolution phase, which is the third step in a round, and we weren't able to do too much with that first round, but now that these have been moved forward, I am just going to show you how they would have resolved if they had been in these zero spots. So, for example, this one here is Megabyte. When resolved, deal uh damage one additional lane for each of the damage cards that the boss chose to discard from their hand up to two times. So, this person would be able This card would be able to do 10 damage in this lane, and then if the boss was able to discard cards that have the damage symbol on them, they're like this, they would be able to even do 10 damage to the other two lanes as well. So, you can see where that would be a huge amount of damage against the heroes. So, they would have had to prepare against it, but you also know what you need to prepare against because it has a turn before it would come forward to the resolution phase. Now, a card like this has an effect when played as well as when in the queue, which is what it is now. So, this one is actually making damage tokens that are in the boss area more potent and giving them a plus two damage. And this is something that when it moves forward to the zero spot, it will eventually be discarded from the board, but for now this player will be able to use this buff and hopefully place out more tokens to start dealing damage to the boss. Now, taking a look over here, this is a gigantic strike.
So, this one also has an ability while in queue, this card gains a plus three damage for each other warrior card that enters the hero's queue. If this hits a boss armor card, which this one is, the boss takes excess damage. So, where this one is able to a block five HP worth, and normally you would not do excess damage when attacking something like that in a lane, this card actually has a special ability that means that five of the damage would spill over to the boss. So, they would take some damage in that instance as well. In the beginning of the game, whether you're playing as the boss or the heroes, you're going to be focused on setting up the board in front of you because cards are going to be able to be bounced back, but they're also going to move forward during the countdown phase. So, planning out that pacing is going to be really important, and all of the different heroes are only able to ever play one card each round. So, when you are playing them, it's going to be extremely important not only what you're playing, but perhaps what you're spending to play that as well because if you're paying a cost of bumping something back, that's going to slow something down, but you might be discarding a card that you really need in the future as well. So, it's all going to really matter what you're choosing to plan into these different areas, but again, you're able to play cards into any of the different lanes.
It only matters which lane takes damage at the end of the day. So, with that you're going to really plan out the different lanes to be fortified against these attacks from the boss because the boss is going to be drawing cards based on their power, meaning that they can end up with quite a few cards as options for what they're able to play against players. Now, players are going to be able to level up with round three as well as round five. So, when you are a hero, you're going to gain access to level two or level three cards, which is going to be a whole new deck for players. So, for Runa here, you can see these are her level two cards. And when you level up, these will be shuffled, you will draw three, and then choose two of them to shuffle into your draw deck. So, you won't be shuffling your discard into your draw, you'll still have however many cards are left in your draw deck, and you will shuffle in those level up cards. Now, the same thing will happen for level three, and these cards are going to get better and better. As you saw, there are some cards that are able to deal damage to a particular lane, but there are also cards that can damage all lanes, and there are also cards that can heal all lanes as well.
So, the cards are definitely going to escalate depending on the level that you are, but for the boss, they are also going to have access to higher level cards. And as you may have noticed, there are tokens on each side for leveling up. So, for the different rounds, the game is going to end and be lost for the heroes if this marker is ever progressed here to the end of round seven. Now, this is going to be the boss round marker, and this is going to move forward not only every round along with the heroes, but if a hero is ever reduced to zero HP, they are weakened, and they are still able to help within the fight, but that also means that the boss is going to go up a round, meaning that they're able to level up faster than the heroes if they are able to take any of them out. In boss battle, it's going to be all about working together if you're playing as one of the heroes.
And if you're playing as the boss, it's going to mean no mercy, where you're going to come at these heroes as strong as possible. And ultimately, at the end of the day, you are trying to take all of them out. But, for the heroes, you're going to have this balancing act of what cards to place where and also, as I said, what costs to pay because some cards are going to have that bounce back where things will start being pushed back and sometimes there going to be tokens on the board that are going to deal damage to you at the end of each round. So, sometimes you'll want to move those around as well to make a room for certain areas for you to play cards, but you're also going to be discarding some cards sometimes to play other cards. So, it's really going to be a choice of which ones you need now and which ones you might need in the future as well because being able to do a lot of damage up against the bosses is great, but if you're not able to heal or shield yourself, it's not really going to matter because they will come at you very strongly and be able to take out your health as well. So, in this current campaign, there are six different heroes they are able to play as and three different bosses. And as I noted, there are multiple ways for you to play this game. In fact, you're even able to play it as solo and you're able to play with different mercenaries when you don't have all of the different heroes present. Now, I do think with the different round structure and leveling up, it's very paced that you find you're getting stronger and stronger as the boss is getting stronger, but the boss does seem very strong where it's going to provide quite a challenge for players every single time where it's not an easy victory and the heroes don't always come out on top where it's going to be a true battle of wits of where you choose to program these different cards and how
the different lanes will battle out. So, you can check out the link down below for everything that they have planned. This has been a preview of Boss Battle. Thank you all for watching the Board Game Coach channel. I've been Professor Meg and I'll see you all next time. Bye.