Arghhhh! Martians AKA aliens are here and I think they mean business, but do not worry I have a cunning plan!
Now let us get the usual dribble out of the way!
Players: Yes the game needs them, 2 - 7
Age: How rude to ask, 15+
Time: 60 - 90 minutes and that's about right
There we go, sorted, now let us look at what we get inside this box!
Inside this box!
Inside the box we get the following;
30 map tiles
30 Martian cards
40 event cards
100 Martian figures (3 different poses, la de da)
6 player figures
1 dice
Bullet tokens
Life tokens
6 fertilizer token
6 TNT token
6 fuel token
Crop circle token
3 overlord token
1 mothership token
That about sums up all the pieces you get in the game! You do get a lot for your money, mainly because the game can be played in two modes, this review is covering the competitive mode and not the humans vs alien mode.
The aim if the game?
In competitive mode the aim of the game is to either;
Blow up the mothership, Be the first player to reach the mothership token with fuel, fetrilizer and TNT.
Collect 30 killed Martians that you wiped out because you are a badass!
Very easy, well you would think so but 30 is a lot to kill!
Setting up the game
Find the start tile and place that in the middle of the table, no Martians start on this tile but your character figures do.
Shuffle the other map tiles and place them in an easy to reach location because all players will be using this. Now it does not state if you put them face up or face down but I do not think that matters or affects the game. We played with them face up.
The rulebook here is a bit strange as it states to mix the crop circle tokens together and put them to one side, we only had 1 crop circle token. We thought this might have meant the other tokens that you need to blow up the mothership and keep them face down. We placed our overlord, crop circle and mothership tokens face up near the other tokens in case we needed them.
Shuffle the event cards and place them face down within everyone's reach to create the event deck. I know it just makes sense!
Now shuffle the Martian cards (these are the ones with the green border) and place them face down near the event cards to create the Martian deck. I bet you did not see that coming!
Now that is the same setup for both the games, however depending on which version you are going to play you need to follow the additional setup rules.
In the mode, I played you need to deal 3 event cards to each player.
Then you all place your starting figure in the house on the start tile.
You all gain 3 bullet tokens and 3 life tokens.
Each player takes 1 random game item token from the pile we made earlier.
Create a Martian pool with the figures and make sure people can reach them.
Pick a starting player and play will always go clockwise!
That's it, we have set the game up and we are ready to play the mother f***ker.
How to play?
In your turn you must do the following in order;
Draw and place a map tile.
Fight any Martians that are on your tile space.
If you have less than 3 event cards draw back up to 3.
Roll a dice for movement.
Roll a dice for the Martians movement.
Place a Martian on any crop circle token that does not already have one on. If the mothership token is in play do the same above but for this.
You can now discard 1 card if you wish to do so from your event cards.
That is your turn in a nutshell but just like any game, there are more rules to each step! I mean would it be a game otherwise? No!
Map tiles!
We need to talk about these, when you start your turn you take the top tile and must place it adjacent to any other tile making sure that the roads meet! Tiles can be placed in any orientation that you see fit.
If for any reason the roads do not meet then you need to discard this tile (put it at the bottom of the pile) and draw another one.
Also! If a tile would then become a dead-end by placing the next tile then you need to discard this tile and draw another one.
No tile can have a road that leads to another tile without a road, so if you
Fighting or also known as kill, kill, kill is how combat is resolved in the game. Any time you start with a Martian on the same space as you, o you walk into space containing a Martian combat starts!
To defeat a Martian you need to roll a 4,5 or 6 on the dice, if you roll any of those numbers congrats you just beat a Martian to death. If you fail you have two options!
1 = Lose 1 life token and try again (you can never flee unless an event card will allow you to).
2 = Spend 1 bullet token to raise your roll by 1 to kill the little bast**d. This would mean if you rolled a 2 you would need to spend 2 bullet tokens to kill the Martian scum.
If you beat the Martian at its own game then you take the figure and add it to your collection, remember in this mode we want to kill 30 of these!
Now if this all goes wrong and you have no life tokens to discard then you are dead! This is not the end though! You just need to do the following;
Lose half of your defeated Martians rounding down.
Along with weapons or items that you are currently using (not your hand).
You skip to the Martian movement phase instead.
You lose all your tokens and these are placed in the nearest empty building where you died.
At the start of your next turn, you spawn back at the start with 3 life and 3 bullets,
Event cards, give you cheeky little bonuses that can be quite handy!
You can only play 1 event card in your current turn.
You can never have more than 3.
If you discard 1 this ends your current turn! This is an important rule as it is the last action you should always take.
The event card can be played at anytime long as the card text makes sense for you to use it at that time!
Event cards overwrite any rules in the rulebook.
If it runs out shuffle the discards and start a new pile.
If a card tells you to remove a Martian but it does not say add it to your pool these are pout back into the main Martian pool! Do not be cheating here!
When moving you start by rolling a dice, you then add that total to your life tokens and that is how far you can move UPTO this turn, which means you do not need to move the full amount. If you roll a 4 and have 5 life tokens you can move up to 9 this turn. Simple!
You can not move diagonally this is a simple forward, backwards, left or right movement scheme.
If you move into space with a Martian you start combat, if you win you can move normally with the remaining amount you have left.
If you move on to space with a token but no Martian you collect that token. You can stop or move through space with another player on.
Moving Martians is also simple, just roll a dice and move that many Martians on the board by 1 space, if you rolled a 4 you would need to move 4 different Martians by 1 space. If you can not move that many because there are only 3 left you only move the 3. Martians can never share the same space.
That is mostly how to play the game but there are some other rules we need to quickly go over.
Martian overlord, when this card is drawn the overlord token is put under the nearest Martian to the player who draws that card, tough luck mate!
The Martian overlord makes all other Martians on the same tile harder to kill! They can now only be killed with a 5 or a 6, well done you f**k nugget.
If the prick manages to end on a Martian icon this means all Martians on the same tile and adjacent tiles get the bonus above. This just got hard people!
The Martian overlord always moves in the movement phase of the Martians and counts towards the total, if you rolled 3 you would move the Martian overlord and 2 Martians. Also, he always heads towards the nearest player, woo0 I said he, I am judging that he is male because he is a prick.
Saying that if you kill this twat you will get him and all of the other Martians on this tile and put them in your killed pool! Another cheeky bonus that can be handy, oh did I mention you can only kill him on a 6? Roll a 1 and that will take 5 hard-earned bullet tokens!
Final Thoughts?!
What can I say about this game other than the fact I actually had a blast playing it, the rules at times can be a bit hard to follow, I mean reading them again to write this post I realise we played some of the parts a little incorrect but nothing major.
I like how you build the map and collect resources on the game, the event cards really do help you out and when you can go on a Martian bashing rampage it is very satisfying! RAMPAGE!
I did lose the game but I had fun playing it, I did get confused, I did make mistakes but at no point did I think oh this is s**t. I just got my head back into the game and went on a RAMPAGE!
There are some elements of the game that I found confusing, I am still unsure about crop circles, I played it that every time a farm came out just use the crop circle on the tile and have loads of Martians spawning, we also played it that when you moved the Martians you moved them where you wanted them to go.
This did hinder the game, but only by a little, however, it was a fun and enjoyable game. I got this on sale and paid very little for the game and I believe I got an amazing deal! Would I say buy it? Actually yeah I would, buy it!
7/10
