Review on First Roll 650 R Games by Andrew Walton

With just nine dice and some magnetic ball they managed to create one of my favorite board games. The game is a simplified football simulation, you and another player take on the role of the coach of any team and you choose your moves by secretly choosing one of three different dice. There is a die for a tie, a die for a pass, and a die for intermediate, short, and long passes, ties, sweeps, and the like. The attacker chooses one of these three dice and then rolls it, which gives the number of yards he has advanced in play (there are more numbers on the pass die than on the run die). If the defender guesses what type of play the offense chose, they can also roll, which takes yards from the game, often resulting in a loss of yards. And that's basically it! But it's a really great job of abstracting a football game you can imagine trying to outsmart your opponent. Sure, luck is the main factor, but you're still the one rolling the dice, so it seems like you're heavily involved, even if it's more about getting lucky rolls. On the negative side, while I enjoyed playing with the rule base, it was a bit lacking and I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much if I hadn't used the house rules. The biggest problem is that the offense isn't strong enough and towards the end of the game the results are more like baseball points. To fix this, I recommend that every time you roll two escape results in a row, add an impact die to the roll for the third roll and add it in as well. This allows the offense to play big without always having to rely on the Long Bomb option. In this regard, to make the game of running more profitable, as a result of the breakout on the running die, roll the attack die corresponding to the die chosen by the defense (so if they chose green, roll your green die), present the risk of being hit - Focuses on running and therefore refuses to play bigger games. Also, on a successful play (ie, defense picks yellow or green), count each result of square 2 (broken tackle) as +2 and reroll no matter how many times you roll square 2. This makes the game a lot more fun. and adds a lot more tactical depth, rather than just offensive moves that revolve around choosing a green die when the defense foolishly chooses a yellow one, so you can roll deep. much more so than many of my more expensive and much more complex board games.