What I Played Today: May 1

Persona, Horus Heresy

Put in some time with Persona, and I’m really confused on how this became such the instant classic it’s been lauded as. The plot points in the first hour are confusing, from being asked to emphasize with a dying character we met not ten seconds ago, expected to understand how to negotiate with demons, and trying to work through the combat system when they didn’t even bother to give the main character a weapon! The combat system is weird, where you can only hit enemies “in range,” but there’s also a character in my party from the start who can hit everyone in front of her with her weapon. When the experience is based on how much damage a given character does during combat, how is that even remotely sensical? I think I need to play for a few more hours before I “get it.”

I also got to play Horus Heresy again, and I’m pretty on the fence about it. I reread the rules to find a couple of things I missed, including that when your dudes die, they die for good! Which I don’t think is a rule we followed. I also made the decision to reverse the co-existence battle rule because both versions were present in the rulebook, and have the Imperial forces as the defender just made more sense to me, given the card “Drop Pods,” and the fact that almost every co-existence fight is caused by the Traitors, so why should they get the advantage? I think it worked, although I found that almost all my turned forces became useless with this new rule.

The game went about as well as last time...the Traitors quickly took 3 out of the 4 spaceports, then lost steam and the Imperial space marines kicked them into next week. Near the end of the game I realize that getting all the spaceports was unlikely, so I had to switch gears to try to kill the Emperor, only to run out of time. I think it was the aggressive playstyle of the Imperials that really put me out to pasture...my invading forces got crushed against the rocks too often when it wasn’t my turn, and he kept playing 3-cost orders, which sped the game quickly to its conclusion. It got a little depressing, and the Traitors lost hard. The game just feels a little rough.