bought LEGO Champion game 3861 today!

BothSidesOfTheBrick

Went to the LEGO store to see what was new and saw that they had a couple of copies of LEGO Champion game 3861! I've been looking forward to this game for a while, but didn't think it'd be out yet. It's good for a lot of players, which is what we've needed. And there are 5 different challenges in the box so that'll be good for variety.

I'll post again when we've played it.

andhe

What's the idea behind this game? My friends struggled enough with the Creationary...

BothSidesOfTheBrick

I don't know yet, but we should be playing it in the next couple of days. I'll post again then.

It doesn't look like it'll be anything like creationary, but yeah, we've had some trouble with that game, depending on who's playing.

BothSidesOfTheBrick

Well, we played it tonight and didn't have as much fun as we hoped. It really is for kids, not for adult fans. Unless you come up with your own challenges and use the alternate challenges.

Anyway, the basic game is you are traveling around a track and participating in challenges to move around. The first one who gets back to the start and wins a challenge becomes the Champion.

The 5 basic challenges are:
On Target - each person throws a 2X4 of their color at the die and whoever is closest wins the challenge. This was the most fun of the basic challenges.

Bluffing Bricks - each person secretly takes 3 bricks of any color. The challenger makes a guess as to how many of one color are among all of the player's bricks such as I think there are 2 red. The next person has to guess at least 3 more of a color. At any point a person can say reveal if you think the previous person's guess was too high. Everyone reveals and count up the color. If there are fewer bricks than the guess, you win. If there are more, then that player wins.

Toople Tower - the challenger takes on brick and puts it down as the base of the tower. The next person takes 2 bricks, connects them and balances them on the base. The next person takes 3 bricks, connects them and balances them. When it topples, the previous person wins.

Codebreaker - The challenger builds a secret code by stacking 3 different colored bricks in secret. each person gets to ask yes/no questions. When someone thinks they have the code, they build it and then compare. If that person got it right, they win. If they didn't then the challenger wins.

Speed Builder - challenger takes 1 brick of each color and secretly builds a shape. Then reveals it and everyone else tries to build that shape the fastest. As soon as someone has it, they say finished. If it is exactly the same, they win. If not, the challenger wins.

I think it's overpriced considering it's mostly 2X4 bricks, though the two new female microfigures are nice - a pink princess and yellow barbarian. All the other microfigures look to be repeats from other games.

But I do like two of the alternate challenges, Bowled Over, where you play a bowling type game using the 2x4 bricks as pins and the die as the bowling ball. The other challenge allows you to make up a challenge when you roll that color. If you've got a group with good imagination, this could be a lot of fun. Or, like I said, just make up a bunch of challenges ahead of time and substitute the ones you don't like for the ones you made.

Overall, though, I give it 2 studs out of 6. It's overpriced for the pieces you get and you really need to make up a lot to make it better for older players. But with the right group and imagination, it could be fun.

andhe

This sounds really weird. But thanks for posting. You could do all those things with your own bricks, but I guess most people use lego to actually build with, rather than throwing or playing guessing games?!

As with all the lego games it seems, the initial idea is there, but requires the players to add their own rules to make it really worth playing.

BothSidesOfTheBrick

Welcome for the info.

Champion seems worse than most of the others. I actually really like the Harry Potter one, Minotaurus and Ramses Pyramid. Those play very well as is without modification.

But the games I really really like are the new Heroica games. They are great on their own, but I have lots of ideas on how to modify it and add expansions (like Ninjago).

But I think with most LEGO products, its fun to play as is, but even more fun to modify it and make it your own. That's the great thing about LEGO, it's so flexible and allows you to customize it.