I don’t get paid to believe, I get paid to f*** sh*t up.
Kill zombies while wearing outrageous shoulder pads with the Siege of the Citadel rules summary and reference!
The original Siege of the Citadel is one of those old games that was wonderfully overproduced and colourful and straddled the line between game and toy, so it was only a matter of time before someone re-released it for the Kickstarter age. It’s set in the Mutant Chronicles universe, a milieu probably well-developed in its original form as a RPG, but strangely lifeless when it’s been applied to other games. It comes across as a sort of poor man’s Warhammer 40,000: big shoulderpads and gothic scifi, but in this case with a bit of a cartoony look to everything.
You can probably tell that I’m not a particular fan, though I do have the original game, and the short-lived Mutant Chronicles Collectible Miniatures Game by Fantasy Flight. But the new campaign from Modiphius was launched back when I was first getting into Kickstarters, the names attached to it as designers are well known, and it seemed a good idea at the time. It seemed less of a good idea when I had to wait over four years to get what I paid for.
So unfortunately, I won’t be backing any more campaigns by Modiphius; though they did eventually come through in the end, which is more than I can say for a couple of other campaigns I’ve backed. Because it took so long—and because of the source material—the whole thing seems strangely dated however, with not even the toy-like feeling of fun as saving grace. The rules are basic, and it all looks like something Fantasy Flight would have made years ago, down to the the big floppy square rulebooks. Which is not surprising considering that at one stage it was going to be distributed by FFG. Some things are poorly thought out; for example the big cardboard walls you can add to the central board don’t fit in the box and will probably just kick around my room getting damaged. And unfortunately the miniatures range from OK to pretty bad.
I have, however, quickly painted up the core set and I’ll give it a go, though I don’t anticipate it getting to the table too often. Apparently it does play better with more players, and if you’re in a beer-and-pretzels shoot-the-undead kind of mood it can be fun.
Looks like Modiphius did quite well on all those RPG-KS that were done by them alone. The ones with a license partner and/or minis do pretty bad. This one was “Cabinet & Modiphius”.
For every well done and even early delivered KS like “John Carter of Mars” there is a “Siege of the Citadel” like KS. My copy even had mold in its core game because it sat years in a warehouse 🙁
The “wired” Mutant Chronicles background that once was a high-caliber GW challenger had me interested. But the actual game now leaves me wondering what to do…and it will likely go on eBay.
But I am interested in your take on it after a game or two.
I’ll give it a go of course but I’ve heard it’s better suited to a group rather than just two players, and getting a group together is an infrequent occurrence at the moment, something I don’t particularly want to waste on this game! Reading the rules doesn’t excite me, but you never know, it may have some kind of short ’em up magic to it.
I’m glad Modiphius deliver on time when they act alone, but unfortunately this experience has soured my trust. I didn’t like the way they communicated during the long delays, even if it wasn’t directly their fault. Oh well, I don’t back a lot of Kickstarters these days anyway!