by kryyst
I haven't tested this much to see how it stands up. However so far it
works pretty well (very well according to my 5yr old daughter).
Rules
1. Each player picks 2 monsters.
2. You don't use Tokyo at all – remove it.
3. Turn order works as normal. By that I mean you aren't alternating
turns between monsters just between players, your monsters are working
as a team not individually.
4. The application of dice works a little differently.
A) Any energy you roll is common pool for you.
B) Any health or VP's you roll must be assigned to ONE of your
monster. For example if you rolled 3 hearts you can't give 2 to
monster A and 1 to monster B. However you could assign all the
hearts to monster A and all the VP's to monster B.
C) Your opponent gets to decide which of their monsters takes any
damage assigned. But again all the damage from a single roll must be
assigned to ONE monster.
5. Power cards slight change.
A) Ignore any Power Cards that reference Tokyo or don't mechanically
work in a 2 player game. No need to presort just set it aside and
deal a new card.
B) Card text that targets all other players/monsters also effects
ONE of your monsters, your choice. Cards that effect all
monsters still effect all monsters.
C) Any power cards purchased are common to your team. For example
Spiked Tail works each time you roll, it's not specific to one of
your monsters.
6. Play continues until one monster racks up 20vp's or one player loses
both monsters, basically the same as the normal game.
Some observations:
Initially looks like having one monster with 20 health. However because
you can't split results between monsters it does behave differently.
At first I thought it would be simple. Apply all the VP's to one monster
and manage damage on the other. This is a basic strategy that holds out
fairly well in the beginning. Until your opponent gets a higher
damage roll and you start to need to assign damage to your other monster.
Which means you need to figure out which monster to heal and things start
to go down hill, then the game really begins.
Also we seem to get more more power cards into play, which really makes
things interesting. Usually we have each ended up with about 5 keep cards
plus a few discards have been played as well.
The damage everyone cards become very strategic since you are also
damaging at least one of your own monsters.
The game duration feels pretty good. So far the games we've played this
way have lasted about 30-40 minutes, up from about the 15 mins a 2 player
game lasts if you play by the normal rules. The pacing of the games
starts out simple as everything is manageable. Then some event will
happen, lucky damage roll, specific power card, really good VP roll etc...
Then the whole thing goes nuts as you need to really watch what is going
on to try and either win or hammer your opponent to prevent them from
winning.