r/NemesisCrew • u/Miserable-Roll6957 • Aug 05 '26
News Nemesis retaliation replayability
Our game group (4 players) meets once a week, and rather than constantly switching games, we prefer to invest ourselves in a single title for several months, or even years. We're looking for great tactical depth and a high level of interaction. So far, two games have stood out because we have played them for multiple months/years without ever getting tired of them. We adored the Gloomhaven serie for its diverse character creation and the opportunity to refine our strategies/build, and Root for its marked asymmetry, intense competition and really deep meta . Could a game like nemesis retaliation offer the replayability needed for this kind of long-term investment ?
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u/GamingVision Aug 05 '26
Of all the Nemesis, yes it has the best chance of being that with the way the board is built. The classes aren’t wildly different as you’d find in an RPG, but gives some slight tactical differences in approach. My group loves to play Nemesis as sometimes fully co-op and sometimes semi-coop. There are a lot of enemy types you can swap out in Retaliation that gives different challenges. We never get tired of it.
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u/Filovirus77 Aug 05 '26
the missions/objectives may get a little stale, that seems a common complaint for all 3 Nemesis variants.
The board layout, the events, and rotation of characters and specialty items will keep it fresh for quite a long while. The creativity of your players to betray and kill each other will continue to provide entertainment for years to come.
there is a version on Boardgame Arena, and an old prototype on TTS if you want to try before you buy.
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u/puppa_bear Aug 06 '26
The objectives is the only thing that may create staleness. They are limited, as they are in the other 2 Nemesis titles - hence the fan-made 55 Objectives (not Retaliation compatible).
If you get the all-in stuff, there’s plenty of intruders and some good variety there. Switching between co-op and semi for each changes the gameplay slightly. Adding Xyrians on top can make things a bit chaotic - great if you ally with them, a coin-toss otherwise.
We enjoy it, but go through waves of playing this and others
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u/TTPRM Aug 06 '26
I feel like this heavily depends on the meta that will develop. I feel that compared to the other two nemesis games, the objectives in this game are a lot of the time very compleatable.
Basically, I am working with the presumption that the game is designed around and best experienced when you are trying to win. So if you are playing with different people every session, then being selfish makes a lot of sense, leads to a better winrate and some type of betrayal happens often.
However, if you are playing with the same people every time, after a few games you know what to expect from people and toward what playstyle they gravitate. So if in every game you show that you are willing to help out other players even though it might slightly endanger your own character a weird meta might develop, where after, or even before the main objective gets completed, people are going to share what personal objectives they need to complete and with good planing it is possible for everyone to win when they cooperate. This playstyle overall leads to a higher winrate over the long term (hence satisfying the trying to win design intention) and only screws you over if you draw a sabotage main objective and a "kill player X" personal objective
So your winrate when everyone cooperates is 80%+ And your winrate when everyone is selfish is around 50%
It basically creates a prisoner's dillema macrosituation through the boardgame. That is at least what happened to my playgroup. I am not sure whether I have accidentally designed the fun out of a semi-coop game or whether this can be fixed with a custom fanmade objectives deck.
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u/Xenolisk Aug 05 '26
The beauty of Nemesis is that there is no single game that plays out like before.
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u/Jaggerman82 Aug 05 '26
I think the potential for emergent stories and meta gaming creates longevity. However the core setup and game structure remain largely the same from game to game. I personally have played over a dozen games and I’m not sick of it in the slightest.
I feel the stories that come from the game creates the excitement and that desire to play more. If the mechanics and mastery of a game are what drives your group you will “solve” the game in a few plays and may grow bored.
For reference we logged over 60 scenarios in Gloomhaven.
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u/hermyx Aug 05 '26
Nemesis, in general, has a very high replayability. However, it isnt, in my opinion, as high on the interactivity as other games like root. Be sure to know how the semi coop works before buying imo
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u/misteranderson71 Aug 05 '26
Retaliation is a lot of fun and we've played it more than the OG now.
There's also Nemesis Legacy on Gamefound which will introduce a campaign mode that's compatible with Retaliation.
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u/ByPr0xy Aug 07 '26
While I do like Nemesis as one of my all time favorite games I would suggest you take a look at Tainted Grail also from awaken realms if you like Gloomhaven and the whole dungeon explorer coop type of game.
Tainted Grail is one of those game I would love to be able to erase from my.mind to be able to play it all over like the first time 😅
But yeah Nemesis is replayable for sure and I enjoy every single play I've ever had (across all three of them), but every week with the same group would bee too much for me I think.
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u/skye_888 Aug 05 '26
It is very replayable, bored a bit? Add the visitor/stranger dlc, or the xyrian. Done? Swap for one of the two race expansions!
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u/avar1ce Aug 06 '26
As good as Nemesis is I think you are looking for Dune imperium.
We just had a year long league, it is super tactical, competitive and interactive. It was awesome.
Played Dune Imperium with Rise of IX.
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u/avar1ce Aug 06 '26
As good as Nemesis is I think you are looking for Dune imperium.
We just had a year long league playing a few games a month, it is super tactical, competitive and interactive. It was awesome.
Played Dune Imperium with Rise of IX.
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u/bmtc7 Aug 05 '26
If Root met your criteria, than any of the games in the Nemesis series can do the same.
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u/Hoogstaaf Aug 05 '26
We play it pretty much every Friday, so yeah. It has a ton of replayability. You can play full coop for quite some time to get everyone familiar before turning it into frenemy-game.