This is a write up on my thoughts about Terminal Directive, the ambitious new expansion to Android: Netrunner from Fantasy Flight Games. After the large red spoiler tag, there will be spoilers. Prior to that tag, I ruin it for you.
Before I dive in to the nitty gritty though, some background. I've been playing ANR since 2014. I've been running a league for almost as long in West Seattle. I'm what you could call a fanboy. I own two sets of all the cards (three of the core, of course), all the books, Android related board games and even the World of Androids art book - the pre-order version with the art prints and the playmat. So yeah, I love me some Netrunner.
Like many folks who love the game, I've been having a hard time lately. Some of the card pool has been dangerously wonky bordering on un-fun. Cards like Sifr, Faust, Sensie Actors Union and a few others have made the game a bit of a downer. I'm not going to get into that further in this review. I just wanted to point out the state of things as we all waited for Terminal Directive.
Okay, here we go...
Let's start with the superficial good stuff. The regular, tournament legal cards in TD are a lot of fun and really inject some life back into the metagame. Combined with the recent change to the Most Wanted List (the list of cards that are restricted in tournament play), and suddenly the game feels fresh again. Weyland especially feels like it got some love this time around. The faction had been in dire need of a leg up dating all the way back to the core set.
Besides the new card pool, the rest of the (ridiculously over-sized) box was supposed to be all about the (Pandemic) Legacy-style narrative campaign play that would tell a story. This is where we're going to get into the meat of my review.
My friend Kyle and I decided to play together. We'd each purchased Terminal Directive so for the campaign portion we just decided to use my card set.
- Problem 1: We both bought TD because we want to own the tournament legal cards. Once we decided to play together, we had an entire extra set of campaign cards not being used. Awkward.
I chose Weyland and he chose Steve Cambridge and we agreed on a first time and place. Each campaign comes with a deck of stickers and cards broken down into numbered sets which are to be opened and activated upon certain triggers.
Netrunner can be described as complex or fiddly depending on your perspective. Terminal Directive adds a whole extra layer of triggers, rules and abilities. That's not really a plus or a minus, but it might be for some folks. I can't really recommend this as a product for new players. They are going to miss half of their triggers which might actually ruin the narrative play.
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SPOILERS
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Each player has a PAD, a card board display where you keep track of various stickers and modifiers for the game. The story involves a murder mystery where it seems a bioroid has committed a murder, despite its theoretical protective programming. The runner wants to aid the NAPD in capturing the murderer while Weyland wants to snag the bioroid for use in its Hunter Seeker program.
We both had the two same basic triggers to start with - Win 2 games to open set X or lose 4 games to open set Y. Additionally, upon setup, I was given three new agendas that I had to insert in my deck, replacing three cards of my choice (keeping the deck legal for regular Netrunner rules.). This was my first taste of new campaign cards.
Our first day, we played three games. Kyle won the first one pretty easily. The second game I won with a Sea Source/Scorch combo, but I barely pulled it off. The third game, Kyle won again, allowing him to open his second set of objectives.
- Problem 2: While I theoretically was allowed to change my deck between each game, I hadn't brought extra cards with me as I wasn't aware that it would be needed. Very few folks play a single game of Netrunner at a time and very few folks bring binders of cards with them. Some warning as to this situation might have been helpful. For example, "Be sure to have cards that you might want to swap into your decks between rounds."
Kyle and I decided to call it a day after that. I went home a little deflated. My one win didn't get me anything which means that my PAD looked exactly the same as it had after I'd set it up. Three games in and I hadn't touched my stack of stickers or cards outside of three new agendas I'd gotten at the start.
After changing up my deck, we agreed on a second day to meet a few days later and I went in re-invigorated and ready to play. One of the reasons that I picked Kyle to play against is that we are pretty evenly matched so I figured it was my turn to steam roll him for a bit.
Our third game was close for a little bit. One of the things I struggled with was agenda flooding (remember, no Jackson Howard as we were playing with the suggested rules of the cards in the TD box, plus one core set). There were very few times when I didn't have two agendas in HQ. Kyle was always ahead of me in cash which meant SEA Source was a dead card. He was rich enough to continually break my ice, which meant that installing and advancing was a sure fire way to lose an agenda.
In the end, Kyle won the fourth game and then the fifth.
But after losing four games, I was finally able to break open a new set! I was really excited because during the course of his games Kyle's PAD had literally FILLED with stickers and triggers. He had all kinds of conditions, cautions and fun things to do during his turn. Mine hadn't changed since we'd started playing.
Of course, losing four games was a sign that I was doing poorly in the narrative. The condition on my PAD triggered and I opened a NEW set of cards! My new cards were three new agendas. They were 2/0's and the story card that came along with Corporate Oversight (the new agenda) explained that I'd been doing so badly that Weyland had to step in and take matters into their hands.
But the cards didn't really help me. In fact, despite the new agenda's ability to rez a piece of ice for free when the agenda was scored, I found my effective card pool even thinner. But I wanted to give it a try and we played on.
We played a sixth game, which I lost, and then a seventh which we didn't finish because Kyle completed his last objective and won the campaign.
The end.
- Problem 3: I was punished so severely for losing game after game that there was no story element for me and no chance to re-balance things. This feels like poor playtesting on FFG's part.
- Problem 4: I was now looking at a stack of cards and stickers that I wasn't going to be using and were just ...trash. This was a huge waste of card board in so many ways.
- Problem 5: For me, the entire story of TD went like this: "There's a murder and you need to solve it. You didn't. The end." There were no beats in between. That's not a story, it's just a result.
- Problem 6: If you take out the one game that I won, it means that the entire narrative could have played out in just six games. That's about 3 hours worth of play. Not much meat on those bones.
- Problem 7: There were massive editing failures at all levels in TD. Confusing and unclear rules and triggers from a game perspective and just sloppy copyrighting. The whole game feels rushed and not properly play tested for balance or clarity.
My sticker sheet at the end of the game:
My PAD at the end of the game: (Those are 8 empty slots)
For comparison: On the left - An unused full stack of corporate cards and stickers. In the middle- The cards and stickers I didn't use or see during the campaign. On the right - the cards and stickers I saw and used in the campaign.
Now, you might be tempted to say, "Connor, you're just sore because you lost six of seven games." You'd be partially right. I was sore. But I wasn't sore because I lost those games (Well, any more than any of us would be against an opponent we're usually evenly matched against). I was sore because this was supposed to be about a story. One I'd been waiting almost a year to embark on. To say that it was flat, disappointing and a let down would be an understatement. Kyle gets lots of credit for building a solid deck, but I also have to wonder if there were inherit balance issues.
BUT
Let's talk about some good things. Netrunner is a great game and the idea of adding a narrative into an already existing game is brilliant! There's so much room to improve here that I'm thrilled at the possibilities.
Imagine: Quarterly data packed sized story adventures that come out, maybe between or in conjunction with regular data packs (This month: A Mars story!). They have a fold out sheet, a narrative a list of triggers and cards and stickers that come in packs. It's a role playing game in a box! Bring back old characters! Have crazy powerful cards! Go nuts because they're only allowed in the narrative games. Make an over arcing story that connects between packs! Create an online component! So many things you could do here that would require little investment on FFG's part and would create a second mini-community within Netrunner, one that would inspire the stay-at-home players to feel more involved as well as giving the competitive community more to salivate over.
Netrunner is my favorite game (and I can safely say I am a hard core gamer). Terminal Directive has some great cards and the seeds of some good ideas. In general, I think FFG does a solid job. They make mistakes, and TD is one of them. But that doesn't mean good things can't come out of this.
If you're thinking about buying TD, my suggestion is: Do it. If you're planning on playing the narrative, my suggestion is: Do it. *But* - bring your cards with you. Rebuild after each play. And don't use just one core. Use whatever card pool you and your opponent agree upon.
In the scheme of things, we got some great new cards for four of the factions and FFG took a chance on something new and creative. It didn't pan out this time. I wish they'd handled the whole thing a little differently.
Doesn't mean I'm not working on my latest Skorpios deck as we speak.
Cheers,
Connor
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