This past Friday a friend and I had a chance to play a good game of the new Battlelore. I think we both definitely enjoyed it. Here's just some quick thoughts on it:

Setup is really active and that's pretty cool. You pick a scenario card for just your faction and set up your half of the board accordingly. Then you get 50 points to spend when mustering your army. I think you can really get a good amount of customization out of the pieces in the box.

I really like that each side has it's own special rules that may get you vp's in the scenario.

Each side gets their own lore deck, and can play one card per turn (one on yours, one on your opponents). I think we were a little nervous that it would be too much for the game, but none of the cards felt like they were breaking the system.

Our game ended pretty darn close. My friend was just a couple vp's away from winning, but I had taken out all but two of his units. We really didn't know who would pull ahead until petty much the second last turn.

It was a blast. My initial impression is that it's tons of fun, has tons of choices to make, and lots of replay ability. My friend was already brainstorming for connecting two boards for epic battlelore.

In summary, it's a great game, that I definitely think has some staying power. At least two of us around here own it, so let's play!