Year: 2021 | Players: 1-4 | Minutes: 30+ | Ages: 13+
This G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game review was made after playing the game eight times. At least two games were played at each co-op player count.
What is G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game?
G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game is a cooperative deck building game in which you build up your group of soldiers and go on missions to stop the Cobras.
G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game was designed by T. C. Petty III and is published by Renegade Game Studios.
Rules Overview
In G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game, you recruit Joes and vehicles and try to defeat Cobra. The game has two fully replayable Story Packs, each played over three Acts.
Like in other deck building games, you start with a pretty weak deck of cards, but you’ll be able to use your cards to buy better ones.
The round structure is pretty straightforward. One player takes their turn, which will normally include going on missions and recruiting (buying) new cards, and then the other players will take their turns. At the end of a round, there can be some End of Round effects and then you advance the Threat Marker up the Threat Meter.
The three main categories of cards are Joe cards, Transport (vehicle) cards, and Utility/Gear/Basic cards.
The Joe cards, including the Leader you start with, are the characters you’ll send on missions to fight different Cobra enemies. Joes can have Skills and other abilities you can use during missions. The Skills tell you how many dice you can roll when going on specific types of missions. During the game, your starting Leader can be upgraded to its Promoted Leader, a much more powerful version of the card.
The Transport cards are the vehicles that you need to take on those missions. The vehicles have a capacity that limits how many Joes you can take, but they can also have some great bonuses that can make you more powerful.
Utility/Gear/Basic cards can give you a bunch of different abilities like dice rerolls and additional card draws.
There are two different types of missions: Group Missions and Side Missions. When you go on a Group Mission, you choose a vehicle and the main Joe you want to send, and then you and your teammates can add more Joes to send on the mission. Side Missions are similar, but only the active player can attempt them.
Regardless of the type of mission you’re on, you roll dice based on the number of Skills the Joes and the vehicle have. Your goal is to roll enough successes to meet or exceed the mission’s Difficulty number.
The main missions are the Story Missions and the Complication cards. These cards can have nasty effects, usually including advancing the Threat Marker, and the Story Missions always have bonuses for defeating them and penalties for failure. Some Complication cards make the Story Missions more challenging and some go in front of individual players (or even in their decks). The Cobra Battalion cards are placed on top of cards in the Lineup, limiting the number of cards you can recruit/buy.
After you’re done going on missions, you can use your cards to buy new cards from the Lineup.
To beat G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game, you have to go through all three Acts and defeat the last Finale card. You’ll lose if (1) the Threat Marker reaches the top of the Threat Meter, (2) you have to place a sixth Cobra Battalion card on top of a card in the Lineup, or (3) the main deck runs out, meaning you can’t add any more cards to the Lineup.
For more info on how the game plays, take a look at the G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game rulebook.
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Pros and Cons
Pros
- To me, the best thing about G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game is all of the cooperation that goes into group missions. You have to make sure you use Joes with good skills, but more importantly, you have to figure out which Joes you can sacrifice on someone else’s turn since you won’t be able to use them on your next turn. It makes you feel like you’re helping the team and you definitely appreciate it when other players help you on your missions.
- The Vehicle cards bring something fresh to the deck building genre. Most of the vehicles get bonuses based on which missions you’re going on, so you have these extra shared weapons at your disposal that make you feel that much more powerful. You also have to refuel (discard) the vehicles after using them, so you have to make sure you have the right timing when using them.
- Deciding whether to focus on the main missions or attempt the side missions is another consistently interesting decision in the game. For example, you want to take out the Cobra Battalion cards since they’re super annoying, but sometimes you have to ignore them if you have great cards in your hand.
- I like that winning and losing a mission is just a matter of how many successes you roll. The buildup to the battle is the most fun and thinky part of the game, so I appreciate how straightforward the actual battle is.
- It’s great that you can remove the weaker Joes from your deck when they’re involved in successful missions. While deck-thinning is common in deck building games, it feels thematic here as you recruit stronger soldiers over time.
- The game is well-balanced. The designer did a great job of making the missions tougher as the players get stronger.
- They included Expert Mode cards to make it easy to ramp up the difficulty once you’re good at the game. I’m not quite ready to add those in, but I like that the option is there.
- I love the look of the game. The artwork on the cards really pops.
Cons
- There are cards to help mitigate bad dice rolls, but you’re still fully reliant on getting the successes you need to beat the missions. That can get frustrating if you have a bad run of luck.
- The card quality isn’t bad, but some cards did get marked up pretty quickly. I don’t sleeve my games, but I do recommend getting sleeves for this one.
- This game probably should have come with a playmat or a board to make setup and gameplay a bit smoother. I’m tempted to get this playmat printed out.
- This is minor, but I wish the game had at least two more dice. You often need more than the eight included in the box.
Final Thoughts
I can’t tell you how well they did with the theme in G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game since I’m not super familiar with G.I. Joe, but I can say that it’s a great deck building game. I really don’t have any major issues with this one.
The highlight of the game for me is the co-op group missions, and then you add in the vehicles, a nice mix of characters (good and bad guys), and the awesome card art and you’ve got a pretty fantastic game. I’d personally love to see this system used in a WWII game.
My recommendation is simple: If you enjoy playing deck building games, you should definitely give G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game a try. You’ll probably get even more out of it if you’re a G.I. Joe fan.
- A bunch of G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game expansions have already been released.
- Update: G.I. Joe Deck-Building was added to the Best Cooperative Board Games list!
- Update 2: It was also added to the Best Deck Building Games list!
G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game Links
BGG | Amazon | Miniature Market
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