Chip Theory Games 20 Strong Solar Sentinels Base Strategy Game 1 Player Solo Game for Adults, Teens Ages 14+

Grandson and friends love it!

What a great little game. So much fun if you like chucking dice. Good quality, good price, and a whole lot of fun.

This is an interesting idea of a base system of components that can drive different card games. For the intent of keeping everything small and transportable with a reduction in waste, I wanted to work for. For some background, this is my first foray into solo gaming and I can’t say it left me wanting more. The production quality of components (reflective dice are stunning and easy to read) and the cards for Solar Sentinels looked great with some foil accents (although one card had a typo missing a space between words). However, you need to have patience with learning the game and a lot of time. Two play throughs (the second one adding missions) left me more than 2 hours occupied, but confused as to what I was doing wrong for the time to take a while and both times dying before starting the boss battle. I think you may need to contribute significant time alone to understand the rules for the game. Also, I feel that the phrasing used on the cards was sometimes confusing (e.g., banishing dice is not explicitly explained). I really appreciate the suggested layout in the Solar Sentinels instruction page. Also, while the product page emphasizes this is easy to play wherever you go, it requires a fairly expansive flat surface to play. Overall, if you are willing to put in the time to learn the many steps to each round of play and OK with losing a lot, this looks like a quality option for the solo player. Unfortunately, I just don’t think I am patient enough at the moment to play this solo game enough to become proficient.

Absolutely brilliant game, loads of fun, caused a full argument between my husband and my oldest son, which honestly is the sign of a great game! It was easy to learn and so much fun to play! Loved it!!

I haven't played this yet... It just smells so bad. It's a very chemical-ly smell, though, like moth balls or gasoline, so I was afraid to play it before airing it out because it's not something I wanted to spend too much time breathing in. I have washed the dice but EVERYTHING in the box had the smell. It's currently airing out in my office.I have over 150 games in my collection and i've never had a game smell this bad or this strong. Yes, it's really that bad.The components, though, I was pretty happy with the quality. The box was neat and even had felt in the top and bottom if you wanted to roll the dice in it. The chip with the spinning dial part was a cool touch and felt good quality. The cards are magnificent. I think they're plastic and even have foil on them. Very cool. The dice, though, were a nice try. They're metallic with flake in them but unfortunately the flake comes through on a few of the dice and gives it a rough texture (or even chipped look on some faces) and it's so light on some faces that it makes the object on the face hard to make out what symbol it is. I can tell they were trying to go with a premium product with the dice but it just looks like they were not done properly. I think the dice may be the smell problem, though.I just opened this today so if the smell goes away completely soon, I will update my review. I was very excited to get my first Chip Theory Game and had my eye on Too Many Bones for a long time, but this was a terrible first impression.

If you're looking for a solo combat game, 20 Strong is an interesting option. The premise behind 20 Strong is that one set of 20 dice and a counter chip can be used with many different decks of cards to create multiple different gameplay experiences. So far all the decks released are solo games, but there may be multiplayer options in the future. As with all Chip Theory Games titles, the component quality is amazing. The cards are PVC with amazing art and even foil details and the inside of the box is even felt-lined!The base game of 20 Strong comes with the Solar Sentinels deck. In this deck, you have multiple monsters that your hero character has to defeat before fighting the boss. It's a pretty standard monster combat experience. Each round you have several phases. There are three stacks of monsters to choose from for each round, so usually you'll have three choices, but occasionally there's a mandatory monster that you must fight first. Each monster has a strength, amount of damage it does (if it survives), special abilities or effects (like bringing out additional enemies or changing the rules of combat), and a reward (if defeated). Then you proceed to the encounter, which has several steps.First, you choose which of your dice to activate. 17 of the dice are used for encounters (the remaining three track your hero's stats). There are four each of four colors, plus a single red die. Each die has a different number of "hits" on it (yellow = 2, green = 3, blue = 4, purple = 5, and red = 6). Each hit does 1 damage except for one crit hit on each die that does 2 damage. Sides that aren't hits are misses. You can choose any number of dice to commit to the encounter (from zero to all 17 if they're available).Next, you have one or more Strategy phases. This is where you roll your dice and apply hits to your enemies(s). Your hero may be allowed more than one Strategy phase depending on its stats. This just means you get to reroll dice (and commit more dice from your available pool). As enemies are defeated their effects (usually) end. So if there are multiple enemies it's sometimes important to decide what order to defeat them in. You also gain immediate rewards when some enemies are defeated.When you've completed all your strategy phases and applied hits to your enemies, any surviving enemies deal damage to your hero. Then any end-of-round effects happen (even from defeated enemies). Finally, you exhaust all your committed dice and recover a certain number back to your dice pool (based on a hero stat) and get ready for the next round. Rinse and repeat until you meet the conditions to take on the boss monster, if you survive that long.I've found 20 Strong - Solar Sentinels to be a fun, if pretty standard, solo monster combat game. It's pretty typical of the genre (think Unbroken, Mini Rogue, Tin Realm, etc.) but does a few interesting things. As with most of these types of games, lucky combinations of characters, rewards, and dice rolls can make a game pretty easy, but an unlucky combination can be really punishing. As you play and get familiar with the strategies and card combos you'll be able to increase the difficulty by adding in missions.I've quite enjoyed 20 Strong so far and look forward to trying the other decks (I have Too Many Bones and Hoplomachus: VIndication) to see what they do differently. If you enjoy this style of game definitely check out 20 Strong. It's a great title in its genre and has a lot of potential for different experiences with different decks.