Cosmic Conquest Prototype Review
Avengers dice re-rolling.
Load up 3 comic book contenders to conquer planets and defeat your opponents’ contenders, all while using character abilities and buy-able cards with the dice-rolling system. For 2-4 players, runs about 45-90 minutes.
Video published September 17th, 2024
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Choose 3 contenders with 3 asymmetric powers, and choose when to awaken them..
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Roll the dice, then choose to re-roll any dice once!
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Use all sorts of armory cards to buff your combat!
This is a sponsored post. Prototype featured.
The Story
This Is part of the Alpha Clash TCG universe! We played it 4 times as follows:
2P: 2x
3P: 3x.
Need to learn how to play? Or want more reasoning for our points? Our review video’s got you!
Gameplay Pros - Clever combo of Push Your Luck & Ability Optimization
Decision to have 2x swords both attack & defense makes any roll possible to explode for way more damage
Free re-roll to do after roll to push result more of what you want
Can play risky: re-roll all of swords to try to get double sword
Tricky to re-roll if attacker, because not sure what defender is planning
Attacking feels different from defending
Dice are slightly different outcomes
6 dice vs. 5 dice
Attacker plays abilities last (which can make defender waste abilities)
Each contender has unique attack and defending ability
Both can be used when attacking
Passives usually come in for combat
Notable Combos: ADD symbols to roll with 1 contender, get a cool criteria off that with 2nd contender
Gameplay Pros - Armory Cards Color up combat
Can let you roll more dice, gain XP for doing something, or heal self (can give you points)
Culminates into combat where have to carefully plan which contender to use, which contender they fight, then what cards each player is using
Weapon Armory cards to equip to contenders add so much life to combat
e.g. do damage to contenders not even fighting
e.g. healing off of dealing damage
e.g. “Scarab Cloak” giving free action if get exactly 5 swords, which is matching dice puzzling
Armory system keeps giving you shiny new things to play with
Cheap to wipe for 2 XP
Planet passive that helps you wipe
Gameplay Pros - Asymmetry of 18 diverse contenders
3 categories:
Savior: Healing/support
Sentinel: Defense
Destroyer: Tons of damage
Destroyer examples:
Centaur Contender that gives additional re-rolls, but he deals 2 double swords (4 dmg) if he holds a weapon
Iron Piston that changes each shield to a double sword in final combat
No shortage of mix and match contenders and counter draft
e.g. Amalgamight and Valen Solareis: use Valen to spend XP t give shields, Amalamight does damage for each shield
Can load up one awakened contender with weapons, other 2 unrivaled contenders are support. OR can have 3 awakened contenders
Gameplay Pros — Good Symbol Manipulation and Payoff
Possibility to add/convert symbols by using contender abilities or armory cards
If don’t, 1 re-roll of up to all dice
Damage always matters, because 5 dmg on combat gives point, preventing 5 dmg prevents opponent from point
Some planets give payoff for symbols
Earth: 4+ matching symbols to teleport after combat
If opponent from doing 8+ dmg in combat, they can’t take Synthria planet
Component Cons (Remember this is a prototype)
Holder for your team of contenders is snapping off
Acrylic standees aren’t double sided
XP tokens not being double-sided is infuriating
Board HP dials are not mirrored, possibly could have just used single dial
Sometimes are a bit loose or tight
No way to keep track of who owns what planet on the map, why no player token?
Not helped by planets looking REALLY similar
Some symbols not very distinct
Gambit point one, some combat related ones
Share a “vertical” look that doesn’t feel distinct
D20 to keep track of turn is TINY and should be a spin down, easy to forget
Rulebook has weirdness
Doesn’t explain unrivaled vs. awakened contender
Doesn’t write that you move turn maker down after each player’s turn
Doesn’t explain “cooldown default”
Should clarify dealing damage vs. losing health
Gameplay Cons — Contender Imbalance (not a big deal because you draft)
Generally characters with guaranteed symbols with passive are stronger
Can use passives on unrivaled side
e.g. Fangyin: restores 2 health for free if you decide not to re-roll dice, which re-roll you often don’t need
e.g. Harminsworn gives guaranteed double swords if on a planet you control
2 Destroyers comparison:
Fangyin: Activate both abilities to add guaranteed 4 damage, then 1 double sword for each shield, not surprising to get 8 damage off abilities, AND discard a weapon
Shadowblade: does additional damage if rolled 1/6 per die of double shields, bottom only gives double swords and can do 3 more damage if non-fighting contender with a weapon is involved (so specific)
Getting guaranteed more symbols helps proc armory cards that give additional outcomes after battle
More symbols makes more likely to have matching symbols
Gameplay Cons — Cosmic Wrath (Armory card that costs 8 XP)
Make ALL contenders lose 5 health (can nuke opponents, your guys’ dying prevents your opponents from killing them
ALL opponents lose 1 planet (already so much value, then you can conquer them to get +2 gambit points)
Cosmic Wrath itself gives 3 points (WTF!?)
POTENTIAL FIX: Remove it from game, usually its auto buy or clear when it comes up
Gameplay Cons — Player Count Issues
Only played player count is 2 and 3 players
4 probably has a lot of downtime
Bulk of someone’s turn is combat step with dice rolls and ability triggers, sometimes attack twice
Everyone that isn’t being attacked just sits there and does nothing
4P probably has better mechanics, because more chaos in planets changing hands that system already promotes
2P struggles because not enough going on for a game so reliant on players fighting each other
Movement abilities extremely strong
Once someone gets ahead, they can close out the game
Tentative Score - 7/10 Good
A lot of the gameplay cons aren’t a big deal for this game inviting draft for the characters, which alleviates some of the contender imbalance, and since the game is so RNG laden with how the 100% unique armory cards come out, there’s just gonna be some janky setups but that’s fine for a game that is literally based off of dice-chucking anyways.
The biggest concern for Cosmic Conquest is its role in the board game zeitgeist- as we said in the beginning of the video review, this game is kind of like King of Tokyo with you getting dice rolls and buy “Power-up” cards from the middle, but then this game is easily 2-3x as long as King of Tokyo, with an INSANE amount of reading you have to do despite the rules being fairly straightforward.
Like, you sit down, and you not only have to read the conquer and passive bonus of every planet, but you have to read 3 abilities for each of your 3 characters, and 3 abilities for all of the opponents’! That’s a pretty monumental task for really any game! This is NOT an elegant game.
This is why we also harped on 4 players so much in the cons for downtime. And honestly, were to try to be shorter by maybe adjusting VP or health dials, it wouldn’t work, because then you can’t do all of the cool abilities on a regular basis, and some of the combos are genuinely very fascinating, with tons of replay value and hype dice rolls. Maybe you want the time to get in deep with the armory cards and save up XP to buy 3 at once and then make the game ending play, man there are so many item and weapon synergies with the contenders.
Let’s talk about planets: they’re kind of just placeholders for more abilities, which ARE cool, but planets themselves aren’t particularly thematic or interact with heroes much- its just like you’re floating around the universe dashing from one passive provider to another- which is maybe the intention, but don’t get this confused for much area control. Like they could’ve interacted with more contender abilities, besides just “have home planet for more VP end game”, but then again Cosmic Conquest already has so many little abilities that planets DO take a backseat and are mostly just places you can teleport to after combat to get nice gambit points after you meet their conquer or overthrow criteria.
Like there could have been more planets for more replayability, but they currently feel intentionally designed where everyone in a 4 player game can get one turn one, then you all have a passive to play around with. But then there’s not a consistent way to protect planets, so you say you take my favorite planet, Drak ‘a Roth IRA, then you just move off it and move onto the offense. It’s not bad a thing this happens and the game wants you to attack constantly, it’s just not area control which it may look like at a glance, and I’m not sure how to fully evaluate planets.
Ultimately, if you’re looking to get into this game, if you’re ok with the reading barrier to accessibility, the drafting will only get better over time. Cosmic Conquest is currently a super beer and pretzels dice-rolling game, but it certainly doesn’t mean there’s not a lot thinking of wanting to add more dice or symbols- there will be many combats where people are getting 9+ symbols when your base is 6. And you’ll teleport around the universe before or after attacking, abuse planet passives, and of course decide when to push your luck to get more double swords. It’s a game that wants you to revel in the ability synergies and armory possibilities, rather than concise matches.
It will take your group time to get familiar with contenders, and you gotta love the rolling and re-rolling and dice manipulation and symbol adding and subtracting during the combat phases that are the bulk of the gameplay time. I’m not sure what the future holds for Cosmic Conquest, but if you love this game this is just the start for it.
