Friday Night Shots – Games You Defend Despite Their Flaws

Another Friday Night Shots stream of consciousness opinion post (sorry if you find that off-putting) about a topic that was first brought up on Boardgame Geek.

I find that the forums there can be a gold mine of inspiration for thoughtful posts (or just fun posts that nobody likes, your mileage may vary).

I’m talking my posts, not the BGG posts, which are often trollish or silly.

But they inspire me!

With the whiskey flowing, and the brain cells atrophying, it’s time to talk about games that you would defend as awesome even though you know that they’re flawed.

This question was originally posted by William Maxey on Boardgame Geek, and it made me think a little bit.

First, let’s get this caveat out of the way.

Every game is flawed, at least in some sense.

I have games that I have no issues with and love, but deep down I know there’s something that could have been better implemented.

Even Ark Nova, my #1 game, does have some issues.

Many times it’s just too long for what it is, for example.

I love it anyway.

But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.

Let’s talk about a game that I don’t necessarily rate that highly, but yet I would say that it’s something I would play any time even though I know that there are definitely flaws in there.

A game that I know some people don’t like for the very same reasons that I’m going to mention, and yet I love it anyway.

That game, for me, is Smash Up.

I’ve been playing this game since 2017 (at least that’s when I published the review I linked to above).

Smash Up is a game with tons and tons and tons of expansions, and I have them all (except the Munchkin and Cthuhlu ones, because I have no interest in the extra mechanics those add).

Smash Up is a game where you smash up two factions of cards (Aliens, Zombies, Pirates, Wizards, etc), and the factions can be any of the many many many factions available if you have some of the expansions.

There are bases out on the table, and you will play minions to them. Minions have power, and each base has a total power limit at which it will break and score based on the relative power of the players there.

The minions that you play to a base may have abilities that happen when you play them, or ongoing abilities that will affect things, or maybe just an increase of power when something happens.

The other cards in a faction’s deck are actions.

You can play one minion and one action on your turn, though some card effects will let you play an extra minion or an extra action, and those can chain pretty easily if you have the right factions together.

When a base scores, whoever has the most power at it gets the leftmost number of points, then second and then third (depending on how many players there are, of course).

Bases will also have effects, either during play (like “when you play a minion here…”) or when the base scores (like The Grey Opal above, which allows the winner to move a minion there to another base rather than discarding it).

The whole things goes together pretty well, but there are a couple of problems with the game that keeps it out of my top games list and also can keep people away from it.

We play it at lunch with 3 players who are familiar with the game, so we can mostly finish in an hour as long as I’ve pre-set what faction pairs are coming out.

But the game can drag if you’re not careful, and at 4 players it would drag way too long for a lunch time game, and maybe even too long for total enjoyment of the game.

I’ve played a few 4-player games and it wasn’t that fun.

That being said, while Smash Up can be played as a 2-player game, and that’s what the expansions are designed for (they generally come with four factions, which fits 2-player games perfectly), I also really don’t like it at two because while there are 3 bases out for scoring, everything usually boils down to one base at a time.

It’s really hard to ignore what one player is going for by going for another one.

At least at three players, there is some competition over multiple bases.

So for me, this game really only works well at three players.

Another issue is that, as expansions have come out, no matter how good they are, the rules bloat is getting really huge.

The most recent six expansion factions I haven’t had a chance to play with (so I don’t have pictures), but the wordiness on the cards is starting to look excessive.

I’ve heard complaints to that effect from other fans as well.

Even the expansions before that were starting to demonstrate that.

The movies expansion had really cool factions for 80s movies, but the rules overhead and new mechanisms get a bit unwieldy, which also adds to the playing time.

With the expansion bloat, you’re also getting factions that just don’t work well together.

It’s getting to the point now where you almost have to curate which factions you use in the game to make sure that things go ok.

Some outright contradict each other and make terrible partners.

Ghosts, for example, want you to have as few cards in your hand as possible, which really doesn’t go well with factions that give you a lot of card draw.

Yes, you can get factions out there and have people draft them in a snake draft (1-2-3-3-2-1), but if you’re the first player, being left with Ghosts when your first one was a draw faction, you’re screwed.

You also have to make allowances on the table for how cards are situated, because each base needs space on 2-4 sides (depending on how many players) for players to put minions and actions, but then have room on another base for the same thing.

It can be a table hog!

There’s the confusion between “+1 power counters” and “this minion has +1 power” and how to note that given the scoring tokens and +1 power tokens that show up in some of the expansions.

The earlier ones just had VP tokens that you had to use as “+1 power” if you wanted to. Then further expansions added the +1 power tokens, but that is different from “+1 power”, etc.

It can get a bit confusing.

All that being said, I can definitely see why people don’t like this game, and I agree that it’s not going to be in my Top 50 anytime soon (it was at #292 in my last ranking).

But yet I love this game to death.

I will never turn down a chance to play this game (though teaching it may be a different issue).

I love the chaos. I love the “what the fuck?” feeling when I randomize factions.

I love how all the different factions can work together (or sometimes not).

With some obvious exceptions (as mentioned above, Ghosts and any faction that draws cards a lot), I don’t care if there isn’t a great amount of synergy between the two factions.

It’s just fun to play them and see what happens.

Can I make this work?

I love the card parodies when they are spoofing an IP (like Star Wars, Star Trek, Game of Thrones, 70s Disco dancers and vigilante movies, 80s action movies).

The artwork (for the most part) is really fun to look at, the fighting back and forth on bases (so yeah, if you don’t like take that, this is not a game for you), that surprise move when you play Final Stand above on a base where you have a 5-power minion and each other player has two 3-power minions.

Suddenly you win the base instead of them!

Alderac is reworking some of the factions and making them available via Print on Demand, as well as any future expansions it looks like they will be released that way as well.

I’m not sure if that means I’m out or not. It depends on shipping to Canada.

(Edit: I just checked. Not sure whether it increases the more you buy, but I was going to buy a couple of factions and two errata packs, and the shipping was $37 US. Hell no. I get shipping is expensive, so nothing against AEG or ForgeFire. It’s just what it is, and way too much for me)

But what I already have, tons and tons of factions (even if they’re the original ones and not the tweaked ones) is more than enough to satisfy me.

Smash Up is the perfect example for me of a game that, while flawed, is just so playable and it’s enjoyed any time I bring it out.

I’ve reviewed every expansion I have (except one, which I somehow missed?), so you can find the links to them all on the base game review page.

What’s an example of a game that you know is flawed, but yet you would defend to anybody who badmouths it?

Let me know in the comments.