The Final Push - Lawnor approaches 100% painted

I had a week off work and with my pile of naked plastic mostly under control I thought I’d play a game. I was able to completethe Mice and Mystics core box, and then order the first expansion cheap on Black Friday.

I was drawn to this game because of its sheer charm.  Its a fary tale in a box.  A kids story as a self contained RPG board game.  Whats not to love?  Well, the game has different ideas.  Its harsh.  Its swingy.  The timer is brutal and never gives you a moments rest.  There are workarounds though.  Here’s what I did to make it enjoyable

1: Take a picture of the game state after you complete each tile.  That way if it goes horribly wrong you only need to replay that one room and not the whole mission.  You will need to repeat rooms no matter how well you play.  Its swingy and the dice and cards can wreck you through no fault of your own.

2: Keep all found equipment between missions, instead of just one card per mouse.  I did this by accident and didn’t notice the actual rule until mission 9.  This helps counter any spikes against you and makes more sense.  Who loots a dungeon and then throws away all the gear you found that kept you alive?

Here’s my two big examples of swingyness ruining the game:

1: Theres a rescue mission early on.  Save Lilly.  When you get to her she is at the far end of a long corridor right next to the two baddie spawn points.  Fine.  I drew the initiative cards and it started with all the monsters, and then Lilly and then me.  Monster go first and run towards the nearest model and then spread their attacks evenly amongst targets working down the initiative order.  Turn 1 they can only attack lilly.  Turn 2 even though I’ve gotten close enough she is still their priority target.  I never had a chance to influence this and on repeated attempts she would always die and I couldn’t stop it.  Redrawing initiative made this room much more manageable

2: The final boss of the final mission.  The one we’ve been working towards facing.  She has 4 hit points and an armour of 4.  The most anyone has had up to now is 2/4 or 4/3.  She’s brutal and gets to attack 4 times in a round.  She’s a major problem.  Except one character one hit killed her before she even got to activate due to a fluky attack roll and an even flukier defense roll and they started her backed against a wall, meaning she takes even more damage.  I did 6 points of damage in a single swing, which is more than was possible at any other point in the game.  With her dead, the final level was a cake walk with no real challenge

Oh, and level 1 appears to be famous for being stupidly hard.  You have been warned.

The game was fun, but not what I expected.  I adjusted the rules this way to make it the game I wanted, not the arduous torturefest it would have been otherwise. YMMV.