Last wednesday I played a game of Doom: the Boardgame again. Anyone who knows this game will also know about the horrible balancing problems it has. It's a great - nay, a FANTASTIC - game system, but the scenarios and some rules are just stacked against the marine players, meaning that the Invader Player (who controls the baddies) has won about 9 out of 10 games so far.
Still, we all like it, and I've been trying to get it balanced with an abundance of houserules for the last 3 or 4 years
So last thursday, I had finally completed my list of needed houserules, and I've also altered the official scenarios (mostly to include less monsters and more ammo, based on some statistics I've compiled).
Me and and a relative newbie (it was his 2nd game) play the first scenario as the valiant marines, and the evil invader is played by my best friend (who has played as often as I have, about 10-20 times or so).
We make good progress, taking few wounds and killing everything quite quickly. The Invader however complains about not having many 'spawn invader' cards, and he has to discard quite often due to hand size problems. This is trouble for us, because this means that near the end of the scenario all those 'spawn cards' will show up.
I let my newbie friend guide the way, and we quickly find the blue keycard, and it even works (this depends on a die roll, which could just as easily have had disastrous effects for us)! Luck is on our side, and we reach the big final room without dying once! Off course, the exit door is locked by a red keycard door, and we failed to find it on our way. This is a huge problem, because we'll have to backtrack through spawn-infested hallways now, and we have no clue where the keycard is.
Needless to say, from then on the Invader starts killing us. Spawn cards keep appearing, and my buddy who leads the way chooses the worst possible route for us to take, meaning that we have to traverse the level about 3 times before we finally find the red keycard. By then, all the killing has meant that I'm about out of ammo, and the Invader only has to score 1 more frag to win. We pick up the card, and just RUN for it, but in the end a zombie commando spawns in front of me, and with his chaingun he blasts me to pieces.
Dang, we STILL didn't win as the marines!!
BUT, we COULD have, if only we didn't take such a bad route. My newbie-friend couldn't be blamed however, he just chose at random crossroads for the wrong hallway every time.
A good time was had by all though, and we feel the rules are finally balanced, because even the invader had to play to his best ability. So mission sort-of accomplished
