3000 Villains immediately grabbed my attention at Gen Con without even getting any working time with it and I stepped into one of my most anticipated games of the year soon after. After spending some time with the new title from Unlimited Games and designer Corey Konieczka, I can tell that it has exceeded those expectations with its ever-changing team of quirky characters, innovative mechanics, a vintage Western aesthetic, and tight gameplay. Cheating seems useful without being overpowering, and you’ll be able to get new players up and running quickly. In short, 3000 Scots is a great experience that I can’t wait to dive into again, and you won’t regret trying either.
3000 Villains pulls its name from its most innovative mechanic, and this will form the basis of the overall experience. You’ll hire Villains from the Salon and add them to your crew, each of them will cost a different amount of money and have a special ability, but that’s how you create and combine Villains that make the system unique.
Villains are formed by combining a business card and an attribute card, and business cards are put into sleeves that have a clear front. These are broken down into green, purple, and black action groups, and once you mix up both the attribute and job decks, you’ll create villains by placing the top attribute card with the top job card. Since all of these are mixed up and only a certain number of cards are used from game to game, your deck of miscreants will likely be different each time, and as the game states in its title, there are 3,000 differences between decks.
The character designs are incredibly charming and the different combinations can lead to some fun mash-ups. The overall Wild West aesthetic is also very charming, even your character boards feature star designs and big pops of color, and designing your cards after turbulent playing cards is a pretty cherry on top of the sundae. The stellar visuals won’t mean anything if you don’t introduce the gameplay, but 3000 villains don’t let players down.
You will quickly learn how to build on your basic abilities by choosing one card in your hand, and then you will hire the villains from the salon with their own abilities, these correspond to the same cards in your hand. The more villains you hire, your options will unlock and your ways to win, which is decided by who has the highest tech points. This ties into the game’s central premise that you’re all trying to find the technology and gadgets your traveler left behind in lockers across three separate locations, and 3000 Scoundrels offers several ways to get the highest gross.
Your ace and 2 card abilities for example allow you to look at a safe and mark it with an icon (which can provide extra points at the end of the game if it’s accurate), although even if you don’t have one of these cards on your turn you can still cheat and use it In any case. However, you can be summoned on this cheat, which can earn your opponent more reputation and less reputation for you, and the reputation path gives you an art bonus at the end of the game. There are also the Villains that allow you to steal safes from the three locations, and then there are the Villains that even allow you to steal safes that are not in the game, and then some of the Villains also have additional technical values that you gain just by having them in your crew. .
This versatility is one of the game’s biggest strengths, as I always felt like I had plenty of options at any given juncture that could benefit me in the long run. The trick also felt rewarding to quit but didn’t feel the need to win, and some characters have abilities you might want to use to beat the trick on your way to victory. The game also has optional Leader Ability cards that can be added to your games, and while I would only recommend getting a feel of how to play without it on your first game, after that I wouldn’t play a game without it, as it just gives you another option to move your score forward.
The games are played over two or three days, and for those who are familiar with the mechanics, a 3-day game is recommended and feel it is an ideal period of time to make the most of the different game mechanics without going over the welcome period.
While 3,000 villains are likely to become a favorite in my house, there are ways in which the game can be enhanced even more. Unless you can mark the safe and then claim it at the same turn, it doesn’t seem like it helps to mark the safes accurately. If the safe is a higher number (5 to 7), marking it with the actual number will get you 1 extra tech point, but it’s for anyone who steals that safe. This means that honestly your opponent can score one extra point, and while it’s not a huge number, the games can be pretty close, so one point can make all the difference. There’s no penalty for not accurately marking them, and since you can check out the marked lockers at any time, there’s not much incentive to be honest there.
This isn’t really a huge flaw, and frankly, it’s very hard to find anything wrong with 3000 Rascals. 3000 Villains is a totally captivating experience that I would recommend to any playgroup and any style of players to at least try it out, and the odds are that they will end up having a great time by the end of the game. 3000 bastards were delivered according to my high expectations, and I can’t wait to take another trip into their wonderful world.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Posted by: Unlimited Games and Asmodee
Designed by: Cory Koneczka
Art by: David Ardela and Mategus Gebrselassie
3000 rascals arrive in stores on October 7th and you can Pre-order the game here.
Provided by the publisher a copy for your review
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