Martian Dice by Tasy Minstrel Games
By Woody Hearn on Mar 16, 2015 @ 9:56PM
The idea is this: you're a martian tasked with collecting humans, cows, and chickens, while using your death ray to thwart Earthling tanks. Like Zombie Dice each of those key elements are represented by colorful graphics stamped into the sides of the dice. On your first turn you roll all of the dice. You set aside the tanks, then choose humans, cows, chickens, or death rays to keep. Death Rays offset the Tanks. Humans, Cows, and Chickens are worth one point. Re-roll the remaining dice. You can only keep a species once. When you're done pressing your luck, if you have more death rays than tanks, you get one point per human, cow, and chicken you've abducted. If you managed to keep at least one of each species, you get an extra three points. Pass the dice. First person to 25 points wins.
When Taks, theBoy, and I played. Taks jumped out to an early lead that seemed insurmountable. Then both theBoy and I slowly got back into contention. He hit 25 first, so Taks and I each had one more turn to tie his total or go for the win. I fell short by two points; but, Taks managed to eek out a win on her final possible roll. Those are the games you live for as a tabletop nerd. Each of us had a different strategy. Each of us were in it until the last. And, no one got blown out.
So in conclusion, yes, fundamentally you're keeping and scoring dice while pressing your luck... like Zombie Dice. But the introduction of the tanks, death rays, and different species adds a needed touch of nuance and strategy that Zombie Dice lacks unless you buy the expansions. I have no problem admitting that when we sit down to play one of the two games again, I'd pick Martian Dice every time.
Martian Dice is $7.95 on Amazon (at the time of this review) and is worth every cent.
http://www.amazon.com/tasty-minstrel-games-ttt901-martian/dp/0984155872/
This is not a paid review.
#gureviews #MartianDice
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By Woody Hearn on Mar 16, 2015 @ 9:56PM
When Tasty Minstrel Games sent me a copy of Martian Dice to review, I was a little worried about it potentially being a Zombie Dice knock off; I mean, the name is similar, the packaging is nearly identical, and even the cardboard, dice-shaker cup is the same size. But once I sat down with Taks and theBoy to actually play it, I was delighted by the differences.
The idea is this: you're a martian tasked with collecting humans, cows, and chickens, while using your death ray to thwart Earthling tanks. Like Zombie Dice each of those key elements are represented by colorful graphics stamped into the sides of the dice. On your first turn you roll all of the dice. You set aside the tanks, then choose humans, cows, chickens, or death rays to keep. Death Rays offset the Tanks. Humans, Cows, and Chickens are worth one point. Re-roll the remaining dice. You can only keep a species once. When you're done pressing your luck, if you have more death rays than tanks, you get one point per human, cow, and chicken you've abducted. If you managed to keep at least one of each species, you get an extra three points. Pass the dice. First person to 25 points wins.
When Taks, theBoy, and I played. Taks jumped out to an early lead that seemed insurmountable. Then both theBoy and I slowly got back into contention. He hit 25 first, so Taks and I each had one more turn to tie his total or go for the win. I fell short by two points; but, Taks managed to eek out a win on her final possible roll. Those are the games you live for as a tabletop nerd. Each of us had a different strategy. Each of us were in it until the last. And, no one got blown out.
So in conclusion, yes, fundamentally you're keeping and scoring dice while pressing your luck... like Zombie Dice. But the introduction of the tanks, death rays, and different species adds a needed touch of nuance and strategy that Zombie Dice lacks unless you buy the expansions. I have no problem admitting that when we sit down to play one of the two games again, I'd pick Martian Dice every time.
Martian Dice is $7.95 on Amazon (at the time of this review) and is worth every cent.
http://www.amazon.com/tasty-minstrel-games-ttt901-martian/dp/0984155872/
This is not a paid review.
#gureviews #MartianDice
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