Greetings from Brazil! Today I finally played Home. It was a three player game. We had a lot of fun drawing the map but we thought that the game was really rough with the combat, all our locations were destroyed in the first front. We had 4 boon dice and 3 bane each, but the mechs only have 2hp and the only way to not get hit is on a 6 book dice. Is the game supposed to be that hard? We did something wrong or just had unfortunate dices? Haha
Viewing post in HOME - Mech x Kaiju Mapmaking RPG comments
Hey, thank you for playing! So awesome to see HOME being played in Brazil!
Yes, it's designed to be "hard" game: you may lose a lot of locations and mechs by the end of Front 3. You can't lose all locations in Front 1, so that might have been a rules mixup. Each player starts with 5 locations in their home (so 3 players = 15 locations) and at worst, each player may lose their mech and 2 locations after Front 1.
As to why it's designed to be hard: a core question of the game is "how do you continue to fight after terrible loss?" Losing all your locations after Front 3 isn't losing the game; it's asking you to imagine what your home and people are like in that terrible fate. Are the previous Mechs and Pilots considered brave heroes, or weak soldier who couldn't save your home?
Hope that helps, and just reach out if I can provide any more rules clarification for you!
I will check out the rules and definitely play again in solo mode. after the game we noticed that the blockade works as a first location to be destroyed (right?) but we moved the front directly to the closest location in our home, so the Kaiju destroyed 2 locations cause all of us lost the fight. I don't have the book right now but I think there is a rule that the Kaiju can destroy 2 more locations if we lose so we all lost 4 locations each in the first front even with good boon dices. We understood that the game is about that and actually that is awesome cause the sense of loss is real. But maybe some extra HP for the mech or a good hit with a 4 result would help a little haha
Awesome, I hope you enjoy it solo, and glad the sense of loss is coming through!
Just to help clarify, here's how the Locations work, and how they can be destroyed:
- At the beginning of the game, player chooses a section of the map to be their home and draws 5 Locations (cities, important infrastructure, etc.). One of those was lost in the "pre-game story", so you cross one out, leaving only 4 to start the game with.
- If you cannot kill the Front 1 Kaiju, it will destroy 2 more Locations after the battle at the end of Front 1. This may leave you with 2 Locations, or 3 if you choose to destroy your Upgrade instead of a Location. Then you move to Front 2.
- The blockade doesn't count as a Location, it's just extra world building.
- There is one special rule (page 36) where if the Kaiju survives and escapes back to the rift, it can destroy 1 extra Location next Front.
- But in the worst case scenario, the earliest you can lose all your Locations is by the end of Front 2 (and then you can become a Ronin Pilot, see page 32!)
There are a couple videos on my website too, if those help.
Thanks again for playing, and just reach out if I can help clarify anything else!