Transformers Deck Building Game Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review the Transformers Deck Building Game from Renegade Games Studios. In the Transformers Deck Building Game, players are drafting cards to help or hinder their opponents.

For all the Michael Bay movie fans out there, sorry, but this is not the new Transformers. The game under scrutiny today is a blast from the 80s where the robots were more blocky and showed up after-school on a UHF channel. That means broadcast television for our younger readers perusing this article.

Like GI Joe, Thundercats, and Masters of the Universe, Transformers was a franchise of action-adventure characters with a marketable toy lineup. What made Transformers even more interesting is that the characters could be folded and “transform” into a toy vehicle. Perfect for parent company Hasbro.

So, here we are with the board game. It’s a deck builder, which seems appropriate, and allows for modifications to the deck-building style that takes into account the Transformers narrative allowing for multiple game modes where the Autobots (our heroes) take on the Decepticons (the villains) in solo, cooperative, and competitive variants. The Transformers Deck-Building Game is for 1-5 players and takes up to 90 minutes to play. For the best experience, start with a solo game then add in up to 4 players.

The setup for each game features a grid of facedown cards called the Matrix. This forms the supply of cards to be bought or defeated depending on what card shows up when revealed. On top of the grid, players use standees representing their Autobot characters to move from card to card.

Otherwise, the preparation features a prepared deck with various Decepticon adversaries and Bosses waiting to arrive into the play area. The deck also features other cards