Review: WOLFENSTEIN: THE BOARD GAME – The Joy of Killing Nazis on the Table
Wolfenstein: The Board Game channels a lot of the great things from the recent and classic games into an action-packed board game that’ll challenge the greatest of Nazi slayers. The game is a surprisingly accurate translation of the thrilling shooter franchise, while adding some new elements that can only be appreciated atop a table. There are some minor issues with pacing, complexity, and difficulty, but overall, the game is a lot of fun.
Let’s first address the gorgeous 3D models. The miniatures are incredibly detailed, and I am almost afraid to paint them because they are so beautiful. From BJ and the other heroes to the Soldats and Mecha Hitler, each piece is crazy detailed. The tiniest complaint about the pieces would be that a few of the characters can be a little hard to distinguish because of their “generic soldier design,” size and shape, but after painting them, things would be just fine.
The gameplay is mostly simple like the Wolfenstein games: get weapons, shoot Nazis. The board game has players control four of the six heroes and then go through one of ten missions killing Nazis. The missions are a connected story and campaign, which starts the Nazi hunt with the simple infiltration of an Officer’s room and continues all the way up to confronting Mecha Hitler himself in an epic last battle. Along with all these missions, players can also increase or decrease difficulty with a simple chart that adds or subtracts certain elements to help players find a comfortable place to play. With six heroes, a plethora of weapons and equipment to fight nine different enemy types, four bosses, random special events, ten missions, and four difficulties, there is a staggering amount of reliability and challenge in this one box.
Looking at the actual moment to moment of the game, this is where the game hits a few missteps, but is still a lot of fun. Trying not to go into too much detail, players can do a huge number of things on any given turn: attack, move, reload, search, use an ability, attack with a special ability on a weapon, exchange equipment, revive friends, and more. This, plus a mountain of different tokens to show types of ammo, damage, status and more, can make playing this game for the first time an immense undertaking and commitment. This is also not accounting for a lot of reading and juggling of ally abilities and enemy abilities or specific mission rules. However, by the end of the first time playing and later games, moving lots of tokens, using abilities, and synergising with allies becomes much, much easier.
Lastly, I would like to address the biggest part of playing a board game, just how entertaining is it really to play? Is the long set up and many game elements worth it? Absolutely, for the right audience. This game is a great product for people who love the Wolfenstein franchise and who enjoy longer, heavier strategy games. This isn’t a casual game in the slightest, but it may be a good way to introduce more casual players into the world of intense, complex and engrossing games. Archon Studio has done a great job of taking the Nazi destroying franchise to player’s hands in an all new way.
Get in on the ground floor of this amazing game’s Kickstarter here! Archon Studio is known for making really great games, and this game looks to be no different!
