One of our all time favorites. As is it can be to easy. But even then it is a metric shit ton of fun that even non-gamera will enjoy a lot. A couple of our favorite tweaks: -wandering Monsters always activate (you cannot one shot them). -Random mob size -MD1 rules for mobs, damage never carries over to Leader -Rogue poison less effective on bosses (per turn, not per activation)
Don't forget to link that difficulty modified summary! My approach has been to add an extra black die on every roll and I've liked that, but would like to see others. My game has been in limbo for a long time as I paint it, but looking forward to bringing it out again soon.
This game is our go to boardgame nowadays, playing only with a 5-6 group, taking usually 5-6 hours to finish with all the content and variability, its hard to find a more accessible one and every time we're having a blast. Though it may seem to be easy, last time withouth any tweaks and adjustments we died 3x in the beginning of a random scenario and almost lost after several hours in play. The beauty for us is the sheer amount of variability, combining MD1 and ZC:BP (our old loved ones) while being able to make our own map, randomly made scenarios. I've even built a scenario generator, though it should be altered sometimes to make it work. The setup time may take long but after spending ridiculous amount of money to store everything it reduces the time and search for minis/tokens/cards by a mile. One additonal comment on difficulty: playing with a group of 5-6 especially at lower levels, attacking mobs of 5-6, you may die so fast if you roll badly because you still have to roll 5-6 black enemy die and with a 3-4 health pool character, you're easly gone in seconds, this issue is not there at all playing at a 1-3-4 player count. I wish I had more time to paint all of them, but MD1 is almost painted fully which also enhances the experience.
Before this, I was a pure Euro gamer. This game finally got me to enjoy the dice-chucking Ameritrash genre. I love it! Still room for improvement but an absolute blast.
I found the mobs for a group just adds lots of fiddliness and busy work; hunting down the right ones, un-entangling their pointy bits from other models, putting them on, then removing them. I've taken to just using the mob leader model plus a d6 die to represent how many regular mobs are left. It's way faster and less clutter on the board. Plus this way I only had to paint the leader of each group :)
There is also the Rainbow Crossing expansion that's pretty awesome. It adds difficulty modifiers to each enemy and then provides a boost. I suppose you can remove the boost and just make the enemies harder. It's pretty cool too because the modifiers have names like "Cute" or "Fluffy" so roaming Zombies become "Cute Zombies" or Fluffy Orks, etc. It's a pretty cool expansion. Definitely check it out if you like the game and want to make it harder.
Did you post the link to the rule modifications? Not seeing in description. I agree my 1 complaint is setup time/organization with so many decks and minitures especially with the all in. #2 is too easy.
Perfect timing. My copy of the core game arrives today. Would love to see the mods you used to increase difficulty and a link to a list of them as well
Yours is just now arriving? I thought these were all delivered months and months ago... Or was that just to the US? Edit: just checked and mine arrived almost a year ago on 6/2/22
@@sethpeterson8261 Oh, i didn't back, i just picked up a retail copy a few days ago and it's arriving today :) hoping there is another campaign in the near future I can pick up the content i missed the first time
@@dacool561 Ah, gotcha. That makes sense. If you're interested the White Death campaign ends in 4 hours and has an exclusive Massive Darkness 2 crossover pack available.
@@sethpeterson8261 That is a great question. This is my first link share, so I am not sure. My research found this as top rationale "If you leave a link in a comment on a video, it will most likely be deleted. RUclips's algorithm frowns on comments with external links because they redirect viewers away from the creator's page and are usually spam. This is a reaction to the rise of RUclips spambots, which typically spam comment sections with external links to potentially malicious or fraudulent websites. Usually, RUclips will notify the content creator, and they can either approve or delete the comment."
Thanks for this video! I enjoy the game and I'm glad I backed it, but by the end of my first session I had come up with multiple house rules I wanted to implement for the next time. It feels like it's almost there but has a couple of really rough edges I need to sand down.
The main one I've been using consistently, is going to level 3-4 monsters, even at level 2. Others I'm still messing with, especially since player count is a factor.
This game has so much potential, I really think it's CMONs best game. I really hope they add a robust official difficulty slider with an expansion. I've been using the BGG home brew difficulty rules, and the home brew dungeon deck which I really like, since it kinda makes the mobs more interesting and varies the strategy needed depending on the cards pulled.
There is an official difficulty adjustment, but its flat out lame compared to all the other very simple house-rule options. They should make some of the house rules official.
@@sethpeterson8261 yes, that hardcore mode on one the scenarios I really don't count. There needs to be a gloomhaven like adjustment where mobs are tougher etc and there must be a solution for campaign and one shot scenarios.
Yay! thanks for reviewing. Was waiting a long time for this one and had figured you just didn't have anything to say about it. Dungeon Crawls are up there in my favorite genre of games and I think you nailed that this is top tier sit down and play fun. I didn't quite realize how vanishingly rare the non-campaign games were in this genre till I played this.
Played through the campaign expansion of MD2 and love it. Ultimately decided I had too much MD2, and sold it all (was having difficulty just trying to sell components). Hope to track down just the base game again at some point!
I have the all in too. It is too much content, but at the same time the base game just wouldnt have enough variety in the mobs. I played with just base originally and quickly added in the extra mobs as I found it too repetitive.
I bought an all-in with MD1 base box and sold everything except for the SG box, class expansions, upgrade kit and campaign. Made all my money back and still have a huge amount of content.
This would be a fun video! Personally for me it's Cthulhu, then MD2, then Zombicide, but hey I own all of them and play them all regularly. And yet it's fun to talk about lol
Where can I find the modifications you use? Personally, I double the mob's leaders hp and add on minion by mob. Campaign mode with cross over with MD1 and zombicide is awesome!
I actually played this at 5 and 6 players (scenarios 1-4). The first time we played it was fun, but the game felt extremely long for the amount of fun. Part of the issue was that we were still fairly new and we kept having to ask rules questions (mostly for our characters and a little about generic rules). I needed up finding some player aids on BGG, and I created a supplemental player mat to reduce the amount of tokens and rules for each player to remember. I found that those changes significantly reduced the individual player turns. We played scenario 3 and 4 with those changes and it felt right. Roughly 3 hours (3.5 of you include snacks and random table talk).
Hej Alex! Do you remember what changes you personaliy use to make the game harder? I've tried a few from the list but I can't seem to get it quite right.
I snuck into the late pledge for this one and that was one of my best decisions for game backing. Setup and tear down can be a bit much, but I highly recommend getting the inserts by Fancy But Functional if you have an all in, or close to all in pledge. It dramatically condenses the game with regards to how much space it takes up and really helps with how quickly you can get everything to the table. Happy to see this one get some love, as I feel it got overshadowed pretty quickly thanks to several large campaign games delivering at the same time.
I love the Fancy but functional game insert. I only purchased the main organizer, not the mini storage. It’s a game changer for sure. What I like about theirs vs the rest, is that they organize everything together, so you get all of your cards together, from everything… including the first massive darkness. Every other organizer separated things out to different boxes, so you have to put more thought into your setups. This way, pull one box out and grab what you need. Truly a well thought out system.
It is a huge help. I use the official Card display and official token box that came with the game and it makes setup as easy as placing them in the table. The token tray holds every single token even with them all in coin capsules. And it goes right back into the core box when done. Card organizer will hold levels 1-5 of every card, from every expansion and every single crossover, sleeved in one easy to draw from display. If you play campaign you will need to swap the cards out for levels 6-10, but I lybtakes a minute and you'd only have to do it one time in a full campaign playthrough
I go the first one kickstarter and didnt like it, but its been years since i played it and I can't remember why, this has made me want to go back and try it again.
I have to agree with the title that it is sumetimes just fun to roll dice. However for that we have Death May Die :D. Which is much faster both in tempo and turns, and has probably more strategy. Massive Darkness 2 is fun in theory, but we found it to be a huge slog with 4 players. Downtime is really bad as everyone is fiddling with their class mechanics, then try to assemble the dice pool from like 6 different cards, triggering abilities and items, etc. One other thing we found is that every class has basically just 5 (+/- 1) skills, the others are the same with bigger numbers. And from those 5 skills maybe 2 are really useful, and the others you don't need. So we had the same characters if we wanted to progress every time. As you mentioned the game is also really easy, but we found the nightmare mode on bgg to be the perfect fix for that. It is just a new darkness track, but it solved every problem, our games came down to the last few actions to see if we survive or not.
@@BoardGameCo Sorry mate, i know TMNT isnt your flavour - but to play MD1 and MD2 as turtles hits me right in the childhood! Its like 3 games for the price of one expansion
I absolutely loved MD2 but it was a split in my gaming group and I'm not sure we will get it back to the table. Perhaps we can look into some house rules because the one guy that did not like it cited the lack of difficulty and strategy. He also likes to play things on hard level. I had actually thought about buying my friend's all-in pledge to play solo since it is unlikely the gaming group will play it again. Of course, that was before I discovered Cthulhu Death May Die and went in on the latest campaign. Appreciate your insights as always!
Hey Alex. I’m here with you. I just got this to the table last week for the first time. I found the classes fun and different. Personally the ranger was doing the most dmg. I was playing this at 6 players (solo) Since I wanted to try out all the classes in the base game. This game is a super dice chucker But really fun. And the table presence looks good. Now I’ll come back paint a lot of it, and replace the tiles with the dungeons and lasers and then see how it looks.
Yes, that core ranger is OP, mobility, damage and range? Why play anything else lol. Once they get a decent bow/ranged weapon pretty much unstoppable.the rogue also needs a +action nerf. Though the whole game needs to fix +action frequency. I can get frequently 12 actions a turn with the right build and some luck.
We also found the game not difficult enough. We usually play with the family, we like it easy, but every round we had a discussion who would go first, because the last 2 players likely had no enemies left and almost nothing to do. We made a few adjustments, so we basically just play the game as if we had one player more, also the Leader gets a black die on top of the die from the weapon. You should use the 5+ player side of the starting armor when you do this, because right at the start of the game, some unlucky rolls may kill the players. Even with our changes, we still think the monsters are not doing enough damage aside from the black dice (1 orange die against say 4 blue armor die will almost never do anything to you) So defensive abilities and to a degree healing abilities are almost never taken.
Is there place in a collection for this along with CDMD? _Are_ they different enough? Does they _feel_ different enough? I own and love CDMD, it's my fun dungeon crawler. And having doubts that MD2 is aimed at the same spot of fun, easy dice chucking DC.
Easily. This is a Dungeon Crawler. It feels like a Dungeon Crawler. It Acts like a dungeon crawler. Cthulhu is only a dungeon crawler by technicality, and the focus on items and classes here really sets it apart from Cthulhu. They're both in the same TYPE of game, certainly, but that's not really relevant unless you're the type of person who owns one Euro and feels that represents the entire Euro genre of games well enough that you don't need any other Euros in your collection. Generally, if I like a game in a Genre, I take that as a sign that I'll probably enjoy other similar games, not the other way around.
Loved the review. In my country cthulhu DMD is not available hence I am looking into Massive darkness 2. Does the difficulty house rules makes the experience similar to cthulhu death may die?
My current favourite games are Through the Ages and Spirit Island. Grew up playing fantasy RPGs and love that theme. Mage Knight has been on my list for a while but I’m wondering if MD2 might be a better option as it seems it might be easier to get to the table and more scalable to different player counts. Would absolutely love any feedback.
Mage Knight is a very thinky game-also very difficult both in terms of rule complexity and winning. It’s closer to Spirit Island. This game would be more like Zombicide: fun dice rolling. Personally I’ve found I like chucking dice and having a rollicking time without having to strategize too much. So while I think Mage Knight and Spirit Island are amazing games, they’re not so much for me, as I want to unwind and not think too much when playing a game late evening.
Replying late here - but I have to recommend Mage Knight. I like MD2 but Mage Knight is an entirely different class - it's just a perfectly balanced game and feels like an adventure every game. It's very deterministic, like Spirit Island, but feels like a very different game. MD2 is a blast, but it doesn't have nearly the depth, beauty, or sense of adventure that Mage Knight does. Just my opinion of course! One caveat - I think most people agree that Mage Knight is best played a solo game, or perhaps 2 player coop (I've played with a small group just working together on one character). MD is better at higher player counts. Have fun!
I play mainly solo and gets easily overwelmed by the difficulty and heavy ruleset of most dongeon crawl. I mostly just enjoy painting the minis. But this one seems to be for me!
Really different games imho. If you like Diablo style looting and want some campaign features go MD2. White death is just more black plague with some invader like mechanics
Very different games. Zombicide isn't a dungeon crawler. More of a big group of characters, survival, defense , enemy rush game. Also no need to hunt this down, it readily available in stores
This is a fine game that does many things right. My only complaint is the gimmicky classes each with their own mechanics for attacking. I find some to be great (berserker and ranger) and others to be horrible (bard and rogue). I really wish all the character behave similarly but with different stats and abilities like in other games. But it is one of the very best non-campaign dungeon crawlers out there (yes I realize there is a campaign too).
Berserker and Ranger are very simple to grasp when it comes to mechanics. Bard suffers from being support mostly providing damage avoidance in game with abundance of healing. TBH even in MD1 focusing on anything else than dealing as much damage as possible was bad idea. I doubt many people felt great playing as Paladin of Fury in MD1 and trying to tank when their companions were just rushing ahead with superior movement and one shoting enemies, while you were just eating dust. Bard can use up to 4 songs in 2 turn cycle but that's the peak after which you are possibly looking at 6 songs every 4 turns. Still wouldn't recommend it to casual players for games with less than 4 players. Can't agree on Rogue being gimmick. His deck manipulation (adding and removing tokens from your pool you keep randomly picking) is basic concept and there definetely is potential. As I played as Freydra in build dubbed "Freydra Turns" I often had between 6-7 action per single turn and my personal record was 11 actions in single activation. In other words I had basically 3 turns rolled into one. And there is potential to go infinite at some point, which obviously is strong. So far I didn't had stronger class mechanic and while Ranger has also great damage potential, extra movement is more important in optimising turns. MD1 has similar classes yet interestingely different. Cherry on top is less railroading player into synergies (my favourite being Katelyn as Melee Nightshade Ranger, Seli (Bloodmoon Nightrunner) as Sword Specialist Noble Warrior, Megan (Battle Wizard) as more offensive Paladin of Fury, Julian (Bloodmoon Nightrunner) as stealing Battle Wizard. Azrael (Noble Warrior) as Bow+Shield tank isn't bad either and Victoria (Warrior Priest) is also powerful because using Signature Skills costing 1 exp per use more than once per turn is one of the most impactful thing you can be doing.
I find the game pretty easy when I solo it and play with three characters, but for whatever reason, when I play with my friends it’s always very difficult and we lose 9/10 times haha they roll the worst possible rolls each time they defend or attack
Really love everything about this game except for the ridiculous amount of tokens. I think this would be the perfect dungeon crawler if they reduced the crazy variety of different tokens in the game.
When trying to massive darkness 1 crossover campaign, round 1. Out of the 6 characters 4 died. In order here where my favorites. Ranger Wizard Rogue Paladin Shaman Beserker But the 2 that survived where Paladin and beserker. You have to do all attacks in darkness in this game.
It's funny how everyone says this is easy. Played it for the first time last weekend. 4 players. Got demolished in 6 rounds on first go and 5 rounds in 2nd try.
If I think of how Diablo the Board Game would be, I think of this game. Simply fun in a box
One of our all time favorites. As is it can be to easy. But even then it is a metric shit ton of fun that even non-gamera will enjoy a lot.
A couple of our favorite tweaks:
-wandering Monsters always activate (you cannot one shot them).
-Random mob size
-MD1 rules for mobs, damage never carries over to Leader
-Rogue poison less effective on bosses (per turn, not per activation)
Don't forget to link that difficulty modified summary! My approach has been to add an extra black die on every roll and I've liked that, but would like to see others.
My game has been in limbo for a long time as I paint it, but looking forward to bringing it out again soon.
Yes. Alex! Please link the modifications you mentioned in the description. Thanks!
There is a link, but it goes to the wrong spot
agreed the link send us to the wrong place would love to see these modification since we are starting the campaign
@@Shawne01 it's posted in one of the other comments
I added an extra enemy per mob and increased each mob rank by 1 which made it more balanced but not overly difficult
This game is our go to boardgame nowadays, playing only with a 5-6 group, taking usually 5-6 hours to finish with all the content and variability, its hard to find a more accessible one and every time we're having a blast. Though it may seem to be easy, last time withouth any tweaks and adjustments we died 3x in the beginning of a random scenario and almost lost after several hours in play. The beauty for us is the sheer amount of variability, combining MD1 and ZC:BP (our old loved ones) while being able to make our own map, randomly made scenarios. I've even built a scenario generator, though it should be altered sometimes to make it work. The setup time may take long but after spending ridiculous amount of money to store everything it reduces the time and search for minis/tokens/cards by a mile.
One additonal comment on difficulty: playing with a group of 5-6 especially at lower levels, attacking mobs of 5-6, you may die so fast if you roll badly because you still have to roll 5-6 black enemy die and with a 3-4 health pool character, you're easly gone in seconds, this issue is not there at all playing at a 1-3-4 player count.
I wish I had more time to paint all of them, but MD1 is almost painted fully which also enhances the experience.
Oh my gosh, painting everything would be a chore
Before this, I was a pure Euro gamer. This game finally got me to enjoy the dice-chucking Ameritrash genre. I love it! Still room for improvement but an absolute blast.
I found the mobs for a group just adds lots of fiddliness and busy work; hunting down the right ones, un-entangling their pointy bits from other models, putting them on, then removing them. I've taken to just using the mob leader model plus a d6 die to represent how many regular mobs are left. It's way faster and less clutter on the board. Plus this way I only had to paint the leader of each group :)
This is the way. If you have necromancer you can paint one more mob as a zombie version and its enough :D.
Let’s be honest the painting is your main excuse 😂
There is also the Rainbow Crossing expansion that's pretty awesome. It adds difficulty modifiers to each enemy and then provides a boost. I suppose you can remove the boost and just make the enemies harder. It's pretty cool too because the modifiers have names like "Cute" or "Fluffy" so roaming Zombies become "Cute Zombies" or Fluffy Orks, etc. It's a pretty cool expansion. Definitely check it out if you like the game and want to make it harder.
MD2 was the first board game I ever kickstarted :)
One of my favorites to play solo.
Did you post the link to the rule modifications? Not seeing in description. I agree my 1 complaint is setup time/organization with so many decks and minitures especially with the all in. #2 is too easy.
Perfect timing. My copy of the core game arrives today. Would love to see the mods you used to increase difficulty and a link to a list of them as well
Yours is just now arriving? I thought these were all delivered months and months ago...
Or was that just to the US?
Edit: just checked and mine arrived almost a year ago on 6/2/22
@@sethpeterson8261 Oh, i didn't back, i just picked up a retail copy a few days ago and it's arriving today :) hoping there is another campaign in the near future I can pick up the content i missed the first time
@@dacool561 Ah, gotcha. That makes sense.
If you're interested the White Death campaign ends in 4 hours and has an exclusive Massive Darkness 2 crossover pack available.
@@sethpeterson8261 With Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles character cards and weapons!!
Didn’t see link in description to difficulty modifications you used…..
boardgamegeek.com/thread/3068443/difficulty-guide
@@Schlagathor78 how did you get a link to post on RUclips?
Anytime I've ever tried to do that RUclips deletes any post with a link in it
@@sethpeterson8261 That is a great question. This is my first link share, so I am not sure.
My research found this as top rationale
"If you leave a link in a comment on a video, it will most likely be deleted. RUclips's algorithm frowns on comments with external links because they redirect viewers away from the creator's page and are usually spam. This is a reaction to the rise of RUclips spambots, which typically spam comment sections with external links to potentially malicious or fraudulent websites.
Usually, RUclips will notify the content creator, and they can either approve or delete the comment."
Thanks for this video! I enjoy the game and I'm glad I backed it, but by the end of my first session I had come up with multiple house rules I wanted to implement for the next time. It feels like it's almost there but has a couple of really rough edges I need to sand down.
Totally get that
Alex, what modifications are you using from the Rules thread? Anyone you find mandatory? Thanks!
The main one I've been using consistently, is going to level 3-4 monsters, even at level 2. Others I'm still messing with, especially since player count is a factor.
This game has so much potential, I really think it's CMONs best game. I really hope they add a robust official difficulty slider with an expansion. I've been using the BGG home brew difficulty rules, and the home brew dungeon deck which I really like, since it kinda makes the mobs more interesting and varies the strategy needed depending on the cards pulled.
There is an official difficulty adjustment, but its flat out lame compared to all the other very simple house-rule options.
They should make some of the house rules official.
@@sethpeterson8261 yes, that hardcore mode on one the scenarios I really don't count. There needs to be a gloomhaven like adjustment where mobs are tougher etc and there must be a solution for campaign and one shot scenarios.
Loving this one too. A Massive upgrade over the original. Great review.
Yay! thanks for reviewing. Was waiting a long time for this one and had figured you just didn't have anything to say about it. Dungeon Crawls are up there in my favorite genre of games and I think you nailed that this is top tier sit down and play fun. I didn't quite realize how vanishingly rare the non-campaign games were in this genre till I played this.
Played through the campaign expansion of MD2 and love it. Ultimately decided I had too much MD2, and sold it all (was having difficulty just trying to sell components). Hope to track down just the base game again at some point!
I have the all in too. It is too much content, but at the same time the base game just wouldnt have enough variety in the mobs. I played with just base originally and quickly added in the extra mobs as I found it too repetitive.
No need to track it down. It's been in store shelves for almost a year (both my local stores have it. One also hasseveral expansions)
I bought an all-in with MD1 base box and sold everything except for the SG box, class expansions, upgrade kit and campaign. Made all my money back and still have a huge amount of content.
Great review, thank you!
Would love to see a play this not that with This game, cthulhu DMD and Zombicide
Oooh, that would be fun :)
This would be a fun video! Personally for me it's Cthulhu, then MD2, then Zombicide, but hey I own all of them and play them all regularly. And yet it's fun to talk about lol
Where can I find the modifications you use? Personally, I double the mob's leaders hp and add on minion by mob. Campaign mode with cross over with MD1 and zombicide is awesome!
I actually played this at 5 and 6 players (scenarios 1-4). The first time we played it was fun, but the game felt extremely long for the amount of fun. Part of the issue was that we were still fairly new and we kept having to ask rules questions (mostly for our characters and a little about generic rules). I needed up finding some player aids on BGG, and I created a supplemental player mat to reduce the amount of tokens and rules for each player to remember. I found that those changes significantly reduced the individual player turns. We played scenario 3 and 4 with those changes and it felt right. Roughly 3 hours (3.5 of you include snacks and random table talk).
Thanks for the video, appreciate your clarifications separating your personal preference.
Thanks for the awesome content, Alex! 😊🙏
Appreciate it!
Hej Alex! Do you remember what changes you personaliy use to make the game harder? I've tried a few from the list but I can't seem to get it quite right.
I snuck into the late pledge for this one and that was one of my best decisions for game backing. Setup and tear down can be a bit much, but I highly recommend getting the inserts by Fancy But Functional if you have an all in, or close to all in pledge. It dramatically condenses the game with regards to how much space it takes up and really helps with how quickly you can get everything to the table. Happy to see this one get some love, as I feel it got overshadowed pretty quickly thanks to several large campaign games delivering at the same time.
I love the Fancy but functional game insert. I only purchased the main organizer, not the mini storage. It’s a game changer for sure. What I like about theirs vs the rest, is that they organize everything together, so you get all of your cards together, from everything… including the first massive darkness. Every other organizer separated things out to different boxes, so you have to put more thought into your setups. This way, pull one box out and grab what you need. Truly a well thought out system.
It is a huge help. I use the official Card display and official token box that came with the game and it makes setup as easy as placing them in the table.
The token tray holds every single token even with them all in coin capsules. And it goes right back into the core box when done.
Card organizer will hold levels 1-5 of every card, from every expansion and every single crossover, sleeved in one easy to draw from display. If you play campaign you will need to swap the cards out for levels 6-10, but I lybtakes a minute and you'd only have to do it one time in a full campaign playthrough
I go the first one kickstarter and didnt like it, but its been years since i played it and I can't remember why, this has made me want to go back and try it again.
It's really fun :)
There is a lot of stuff lol
I want buy massive darknes 2 or zombicide 2?witch one you recommend?
MD 2
I have to agree with the title that it is sumetimes just fun to roll dice. However for that we have Death May Die :D. Which is much faster both in tempo and turns, and has probably more strategy. Massive Darkness 2 is fun in theory, but we found it to be a huge slog with 4 players. Downtime is really bad as everyone is fiddling with their class mechanics, then try to assemble the dice pool from like 6 different cards, triggering abilities and items, etc. One other thing we found is that every class has basically just 5 (+/- 1) skills, the others are the same with bigger numbers. And from those 5 skills maybe 2 are really useful, and the others you don't need. So we had the same characters if we wanted to progress every time.
As you mentioned the game is also really easy, but we found the nightmare mode on bgg to be the perfect fix for that. It is just a new darkness track, but it solved every problem, our games came down to the last few actions to see if we survive or not.
great review Alex!.
can use the Zombicide TMNT expansion in here too with the recently announced crossover pack on the KS - Massive Darkness Vs TMNT :D
Yes!
@@BoardGameCo Sorry mate, i know TMNT isnt your flavour - but to play MD1 and MD2 as turtles hits me right in the childhood! Its like 3 games for the price of one expansion
I absolutely loved MD2 but it was a split in my gaming group and I'm not sure we will get it back to the table. Perhaps we can look into some house rules because the one guy that did not like it cited the lack of difficulty and strategy. He also likes to play things on hard level. I had actually thought about buying my friend's all-in pledge to play solo since it is unlikely the gaming group will play it again. Of course, that was before I discovered Cthulhu Death May Die and went in on the latest campaign. Appreciate your insights as always!
Hey Alex. I’m here with you. I just got this to the table last week for the first time.
I found the classes fun and different. Personally the ranger was doing the most dmg. I was playing this at 6 players (solo)
Since I wanted to try out all the classes in the base game.
This game is a super dice chucker
But really fun. And the table presence looks good.
Now I’ll come back paint a lot of it, and replace the tiles with the dungeons and lasers and then see how it looks.
Yes, that core ranger is OP, mobility, damage and range? Why play anything else lol. Once they get a decent bow/ranged weapon pretty much unstoppable.the rogue also needs a +action nerf. Though the whole game needs to fix +action frequency. I can get frequently 12 actions a turn with the right build and some luck.
We also found the game not difficult enough. We usually play with the family, we like it easy, but every round we had a discussion who would go first, because the last 2 players likely had no enemies left and almost nothing to do. We made a few adjustments, so we basically just play the game as if we had one player more, also the Leader gets a black die on top of the die from the weapon. You should use the 5+ player side of the starting armor when you do this, because right at the start of the game, some unlucky rolls may kill the players. Even with our changes, we still think the monsters are not doing enough damage aside from the black dice (1 orange die against say 4 blue armor die will almost never do anything to you) So defensive abilities and to a degree healing abilities are almost never taken.
Thoughts on this with a recent KS OrcQuest?
Sadly haven't played that obe
Similar dungeon crawler with different tiered dice. Hope it is fun when it finally arrives.
How do u find this compares with Cthulhu death may die?
Very similar and overall feeling, but very different in the details. I prefer Cthulhu but love both
Where did u get the T-shirt?^^
@12:30 no list provided :( - Alex, help me out bro!!
Nooo....!!!
@@BoardGameCo ok, fair - im a big boy and can search myself..
Where are the modifications you are using.
Love MD2 aswell! nice review!
Is there place in a collection for this along with CDMD? _Are_ they different enough? Does they _feel_ different enough?
I own and love CDMD, it's my fun dungeon crawler. And having doubts that MD2 is aimed at the same spot of fun, easy dice chucking DC.
Easily. This is a Dungeon Crawler. It feels like a Dungeon Crawler. It Acts like a dungeon crawler. Cthulhu is only a dungeon crawler by technicality, and the focus on items and classes here really sets it apart from Cthulhu. They're both in the same TYPE of game, certainly, but that's not really relevant unless you're the type of person who owns one Euro and feels that represents the entire Euro genre of games well enough that you don't need any other Euros in your collection. Generally, if I like a game in a Genre, I take that as a sign that I'll probably enjoy other similar games, not the other way around.
Still waiting for you to drop a gameplay video. Maybe on camp co-op with Professor Meg? 👀
Would love to!
Your BGG link doesn't go to the rules forum post, just the main game entry
Loved the review.
In my country cthulhu DMD is not available hence I am looking into Massive darkness 2.
Does the difficulty house rules makes the experience similar to cthulhu death may die?
My current favourite games are Through the Ages and Spirit Island. Grew up playing fantasy RPGs and love that theme. Mage Knight has been on my list for a while but I’m wondering if MD2 might be a better option as it seems it might be easier to get to the table and more scalable to different player counts. Would absolutely love any feedback.
Mage Knight is a very thinky game-also very difficult both in terms of rule complexity and winning. It’s closer to Spirit Island. This game would be more like Zombicide: fun dice rolling. Personally I’ve found I like chucking dice and having a rollicking time without having to strategize too much. So while I think Mage Knight and Spirit Island are amazing games, they’re not so much for me, as I want to unwind and not think too much when playing a game late evening.
Replying late here - but I have to recommend Mage Knight. I like MD2 but Mage Knight is an entirely different class - it's just a perfectly balanced game and feels like an adventure every game. It's very deterministic, like Spirit Island, but feels like a very different game. MD2 is a blast, but it doesn't have nearly the depth, beauty, or sense of adventure that Mage Knight does. Just my opinion of course!
One caveat - I think most people agree that Mage Knight is best played a solo game, or perhaps 2 player coop (I've played with a small group just working together on one character). MD is better at higher player counts.
Have fun!
I like that it seems to be an easy game to play - great to play with my very young kids!
Enjoy it with them!
I play mainly solo and gets easily overwelmed by the difficulty and heavy ruleset of most dongeon crawl. I mostly just enjoy painting the minis. But this one seems to be for me!
Where can I find a copy of Betrayal of the Lost? It looks awesome ha ha ;)
Woooow!!!
Ty for this video!
Absolutely:)
Sooooo,Should i go for Zombicide White Death or Hunt Massive Darkness down? Your recommendations?
Really different games imho. If you like Diablo style looting and want some campaign features go MD2. White death is just more black plague with some invader like mechanics
Very different games. Zombicide isn't a dungeon crawler. More of a big group of characters, survival, defense , enemy rush game.
Also no need to hunt this down, it readily available in stores
Since you have Zombicide BP and GH, Massive Darkness 2 Zombicide Crossing Is a Must have :D
1 year into the making. Finaly!
one of my favourite games atm
This is a fine game that does many things right. My only complaint is the gimmicky classes each with their own mechanics for attacking. I find some to be great (berserker and ranger) and others to be horrible (bard and rogue). I really wish all the character behave similarly but with different stats and abilities like in other games. But it is one of the very best non-campaign dungeon crawlers out there (yes I realize there is a campaign too).
Thats the main appeal of the game imo. If you want more similarity between classes, get Massive Darkness 1
@@branboom3342 MD1 is atrocious imo.
WHAT!? Rogue is fun!
@@Twineandribbon Very gimmicky for me.
Berserker and Ranger are very simple to grasp when it comes to mechanics. Bard suffers from being support mostly providing damage avoidance in game with abundance of healing. TBH even in MD1 focusing on anything else than dealing as much damage as possible was bad idea. I doubt many people felt great playing as Paladin of Fury in MD1 and trying to tank when their companions were just rushing ahead with superior movement and one shoting enemies, while you were just eating dust. Bard can use up to 4 songs in 2 turn cycle but that's the peak after which you are possibly looking at 6 songs every 4 turns. Still wouldn't recommend it to casual players for games with less than 4 players.
Can't agree on Rogue being gimmick. His deck manipulation (adding and removing tokens from your pool you keep randomly picking) is basic concept and there definetely is potential. As I played as Freydra in build dubbed "Freydra Turns" I often had between 6-7 action per single turn and my personal record was 11 actions in single activation. In other words I had basically 3 turns rolled into one. And there is potential to go infinite at some point, which obviously is strong.
So far I didn't had stronger class mechanic and while Ranger has also great damage potential, extra movement is more important in optimising turns.
MD1 has similar classes yet interestingely different. Cherry on top is less railroading player into synergies (my favourite being Katelyn as Melee Nightshade Ranger, Seli (Bloodmoon Nightrunner) as Sword Specialist Noble Warrior, Megan (Battle Wizard) as more offensive Paladin of Fury, Julian (Bloodmoon Nightrunner) as stealing Battle Wizard. Azrael (Noble Warrior) as Bow+Shield tank isn't bad either and Victoria (Warrior Priest) is also powerful because using Signature Skills costing 1 exp per use more than once per turn is one of the most impactful thing you can be doing.
Great and fun game!!!
Yep :)
There is my custom content on BGG.😉
I find the game pretty easy when I solo it and play with three characters, but for whatever reason, when I play with my friends it’s always very difficult and we lose 9/10 times haha they roll the worst possible rolls each time they defend or attack
I'd love to see a mode where you've no idea how the dungeon is laid out.
Really love everything about this game except for the ridiculous amount of tokens. I think this would be the perfect dungeon crawler if they reduced the crazy variety of different tokens in the game.
Let me introduce you to Shadows of Brimstone and it's token problem :D
When trying to massive darkness 1 crossover campaign, round 1.
Out of the 6 characters 4 died.
In order here where my favorites.
Ranger
Wizard
Rogue
Paladin
Shaman
Beserker
But the 2 that survived where Paladin and beserker.
You have to do all attacks in darkness in this game.
I backed this. Then cancelled my pledge. Now I'm trying to hunt it all down. Biggest Kickstarter regret...🤢
It's funny how everyone says this is easy. Played it for the first time last weekend. 4 players. Got demolished in 6 rounds on first go and 5 rounds in 2nd try.
Everyone will have different experiences I'm sure.