Three Cheers for Master has created a split in our house and in our gaming groups. A bit more on that later…
I first saw and played Three Cheers at San Diego Comic Con on one of those tall tables at a booth. Three Cheers was very intriguing and I bought a copy!
The premise of the game is a bit goofy...The Master of the Army is feeling down so the members of the army decide to build a cheerleading like tower of minions to brighten his day. As a player you become a foreminion (like foreman...get it?) of this effort. The foreminion to build the best tower and get the highest wins.
As a foreminion you use card placement and your minions abilities to attack, disrupt and topple your opponent foreminions while at the same time trying to scale to new heights yourself.
There is really nothing cheerleader-ish about this and I put that out of my mind. Lots of attack, counter attack, dodge and sneaky fun play. Focus on that coolness...
The cards and artwork are really fun. Icons on the cards are there to help interpret abilities. The game is well balanced and moves along at a good pace except for one thing...the rules.
Now for the division...I really like Three Cheers for Master. I view it as a quirky tower building game of mischief with some cool card abilities. Others just don’t get into the game at all...and the main reason for that seems to be the rules.
Three Cheers is not one of the games where you read the rules, play a game and leave the rules in the box. It seems like we were constantly referring back to the rules. We all had trouble understanding how cards interact and abilities work. Some of us shrug that off and just enjoy the game...others get frustrated and want to play something else. The game even has a rules card and play order card. There aren’t a ton of rules but they seem hard to retain.
I keep hoping that another version of Three Cheers for the Master comes out with improved playing aides and rulebook. There is a lot of good in this game...just can’t get it on the table to enjoy it.
The Good: The cards are fun and the minions have a good set of abilities. Good balance.
The Bad: Rules. We want to leave the rule book in the box!
The Dastardly: Lots of potential...just falls a little short.