Set in a alternate 1920's, eastern Europa is basically a land filled with resources and some giant old factory, all the nations near by want it after the great war left them all poor and broken. You take control of a character from that nation (basically a propaganda hero) and lead your workers and mechs into claiming the land for your nation. A very bleak but beautiful game that at the core is a resource management game with the hint of war. Let us quickly go over the basic details
Players: 1 - 5
Age: 14+
Time: 115 minutes.... ish
What is in side the dreary looking box?
You actually get a lot of bits in this game for your money and I like that, I like that a lot! So without any more hesitation let us talk about what you get inside this box.
Inside the box (yes I am taking the p**s now) you get;
1 Quick reference guide 5 Player mats 1 Game board (damn its big)
80 Resource tokens (20 of each type (metal, oil, food and wood)
80 Cardboard tokens
12 Multiplier tokens
12 Encounter tokens
6 Structure bonus tiles 42 Combat cards 23 Objective cards 28 Encounter cards 12 Factory cards 2 Power dials (some assemble is needed here)
5 Riverwalk cards 5 Quick-start cards That is a lot but guess what?! I am not even finished here! The game contains 5 factions (Nordic, Saxony, Polania, Crimea and Rusviet) and each of these contains the following;
1 Faction mat 1 Action token 1 Popularity token 1 Power token 6 Star tokens 4 Structure tokens 4 Recruit tokens 4 Mech models 1 Character model 8 Workers 6 Technology cubes So that means for example you get 20 Mech models! Nice! There is of course the rule book and other bits of paper that you get (poor trees), maybe it is time that board games did not come with rulebooks but you downloaded them instead? Though I imagine a lot of people would cry about this but its about time we did something for the environment!
How the hell do I set this up?!
The set up for this game is so big that it is split into two parts! You have the game board setup and then there is the player mat set up! We shall start with the gameboard;
1: On the game board you will see the encounter token symbol, on each of these spaces place 1 encounter token. There will be 11 placed in total. 2: Find a place that everyone can easily reach and place all the resource tokens, ideally put them in separate piles to make life easier when you need to grab one. Now do the same for all the coins in the game, make sure everyone can reach these!
3: Gather all the combat cards (these are yellow) and shuffle them all, once they are shuffled place them on the matching space on the game board.
4: Gather the factory cards and now give them a good shuffle, once you have shuffled them like a boss you draw the same number of players + 1 and put this amount on the space on the board. These are the purple cards and go on the matching space on the board. If there were 3 players you would have 4 cards here, the rest return to the box. 5: Objective cards! Gather these bad boys and give them a good old fashioned shuffle, once they are all shuffled place them on the matching space on the board and laugh like a evil genius. These cards are a beige colour with a red border. 6: Now finally gather all the green encounter cards and shuffle them, once you are happy with the shuffle place them on the matching space on the board and we have set the board up. This was easy right? I know when I saw it was split into two sections for the setup I might have done a little poop but there is nothing to it. Now we need to pick a Faction and player mat, this is done at random, shuffle the faction mats and deal one to each player, then do the same for the player mats. There are two pairings that are not allowed;
Rusviet faction mat + Industrial player mat Crimea faction mat + Patriotic player mat If you get any of these combinations draw the player mat again! On the far right hand side there is a box with a objective symbol, heart symbol and coin symbol, just above this will be the player mat type. Now let us finish setting up the game board with the mats were have been given;
1: On the faction mat you will see on the far right a little box that shows your starting power and combat card amount, each player places their power token on to the matching section on the power bar at the bottom of the game board, you then also take that many combat cards for the start of the game. 2: On the player mat on the box that states the player mat type you will see your starting objective card amount, the popularity amount and of course your starting coins. You need to take the amount of objective cards, place your popularity token on the tracker on the gameboard and finally take that amount of coins from the coin stash. So now we have the game board set up, our starting coins, our starting objectives, some combat cards, we can see how much power we have and how popular we are. The last step is to place our main character model onto the starting home base logo on the game board and finally place 1 worker (2 in total) on the two spaces next to your home base. See the image below.
Right that should do it for the game board, finally! Now we need to make sure our player mat and faction mat are set up for the game! 1: Place all your coins on to your faction mat in any of the space, you do not need to hide these but can stack them if you wish to make it harder for the other players to see how much coin you have. 2: Place your 6 star tokens on to your faction mat.
3: Gather all your mech models and place 1 on each of the circles on the faction mat to cover up the bonus.
That is the faction mat taken care of let us move on to the player mat as there is a few more bits we need to so on this! 1: On the top section of the board we need to do the following;
a) Place all workers in the long strip provided for them
b) Place the structures in the matching cut out spaces for them
c) Finally place 1 technology cube in the cut out spaces for them, all 6 should be placed 2: At the bottom of the board place 1 recruit token on the circle cut out space for them.
3: Place your action token just off the board as we start with no action.
4: In the box we need to gather the number shown for objective cards, place the popularity token on the same space and gather that many coins, I did mention this above but thought I would cover it here also.
5: In the type box for the player mat there is a small black number, the player with the lowest number is the starting player and they take the first turn. If you want to make life easier at this point then just give each player a quick reference guide and a river-walk card so they know what to do and stop nagging you when they get stuck! We have made it, we have managed to make it to the end, the board and player areas are set up and now we need to know how to end the game and how to play the game.
How to end and win the game!
Just because you end the game does not mean you win the game, in this game the winner is the player with the most coin once all tallies are added up. The game ends when a player places their 6th and final star token on the star token tracker! This is a game about keeping your coin and resources because they all add up at the end of the game!
How do I play this game?
To take your turn it is so damn easy it makes your eyes bleed, however that 1 turn could mean that a lot takes place! Firstly the turn order is always clockwise, on your turn you MUST place your action token on a different space on the player mat. That is the basic action you MUST complete, there are 4 different spaces on the player mat. Once you have moved your action token on to a space you need to do;
The top action (if you wish to do so)
The bottom action (if you can or wish to do so)
You can do neither if you want to do that but must move your action piece. It does state that after the top action is complete (this must always be done before the bottom action) the next player should start their turn to keep the game moving, however for your first game or two ignore this and let the player take both actions if they are doing so and just wait to get to grips with the game. Now no two player boards have the same top and bottom action pairing so in this section I am going to cover the top actions and then the bottom actions, this will make it easier to under stand the player board. First thing I want to clear up is that if any action shows / it means you do one or the other but never both, like the move / gain a coin action is not move and get a coin it is move or take 1 coin.
Next thing to cover is any action spaces that have a red colour means you pay that price, any green sections mean that you gain them! Now for example if it shows 2 movement boxes that means you can move 1 worker 1 space and another worker 1 space (allowing you to move 2 workers). Also when ever I say pay it means you must have that resource and put it back into the resource pools.
NOTE: When I space space I am referring to a territory hexagon, it is just easier to type space each time. Move action;
Move 2 different units 1 space each or gain 1 coin
That is the action at the core however we need to cover rules about moving!
a = No worker or mech can move through a river or lake (unless a faction rule or another rule allows this).
b = Mechs and workers can collect any number of resources and move them when they move.
c = Mechs can also pick up workers and move them and this counts as 1 unit moving. If they do move a worker that worker then could use the 2nd move to move 1 space.
d = Tunnels (some spaces have the tunnel symbol on) are classed as adjacent spaces for movement.
e = There is no limit to the amount of units (tokens) that can be on one space.
f = No units can ever willing move on to a home base.
g = If your main character moves on to a space with an encounter token they must remove the token and perform an encounter (this will be covered later). Mechs or workers DO NOT trigger encounters!
Moving into other players spaces;
Okay if another player as a unit in a space and you move into it firstly that unit gets no further moves and then we need to check and see what happens.
1: Controlled by a players worker
If the other player only as a worker in that space you can only move a mech or your character into this space, you CAN NOT move in a worker. The other player collects their worker (leaves behind any resources) and places them back in their home base. However for every worker you make flee you must move your popularity rating down by 1! If it is at the lowest mark you do not do this of course but still perform the other actions. 2: Controlled by a structure
Any unit can move into a space where another player only as a structure, you gain control of that space, structures can never be destroyed or moved once built!
3: Controlled by a mech or character
Once again you can not move a worker into this space but only a mech or character and you are starting combat! We will cover this later on in the book.
Bolster action;
You must pay 1 coin
Gain 2 power or gain 1 combat card
These are needed for combat in the game but like I have said before (or hinted) this game is not about combat it is more about the threat of combat and maintaining power.
Trade action;
You once again must pay 1 coin
Gain any 2 resources of your choice (oil, wood, metal or food) or increase your popularity rating by 1.
Now we have some things to cover here quickly;
a = The resources that you pick must be placed on a space you control with 1 worker on.
Now trading can be really useful because if you are stuck in a zone that can not produce metal you can use the trade action to gain metal but sadly it is going to cost you! Produce action;
Pay the cost (this is not always the case, if you have not created any workers there is no cost, however as you create workers the cost will appear).
You can then produce 2 resources on 2 different spaces that contain workers!
Now let us quickly talk about the spaces to help with this, if you look at a space you will see that in the top area there is a symbol to show what type of space this is, we have;
Mountain = Metal Farm = Food Tundra = Oil Forest = Wood Village = Worker There is also Lake Factory (talk about this later)
This means that you could pick a space with a worker of course that is a mountain to make some metal, you place a metal resource token in that space, you can then maybe pick a space that contains a village to create another worker, take a worker token from your player mat and place it in the village space. Of course there are rules to this;
a = Must be 2 different spaces but can be the same space type.
b = Must contain a worker c = You can only produce 1 if you wish instead of 2 d = Once you create a worker they are always on the game board and never returned to the players mat, this can become costly in the long run.
e = If a space contains say 3 workers and you pick that space you will make 3 of that resource for 1 produce action.
Just going to give an example of the last one because it can be tricky, if you have a space with 3 workers that would make metal and a space with 2 workers that would make oil that means you can pick both these spaces and make 3 metal and 2 oil for the produce action.
We have now covered the top actions you can perform and we need to take a look at the bottom actions! Now remember you do not need to do both on on your turn, you do not need to do any, you can perform a single bottom action if you wish, however if you do perform a bottom action you can not then perform a top action!
Upgrade action;
You must pay the cost and this varies depending on the player card you have for example it might be 3 oil. Unlike the top actions you usually get multiple awards here so in this one you will get to upgrade one technology and collect 3 coins! If you have performed all your upgrades you can still use this action to collect the coins. Now when you upgrade you take one of the technology cubes from the top of your player board (this frees up an action!) and cover one of the costs for a bottom action (these are spaces with a black border and are cut out to allow the cube to sit in nicely). The upgrade action is brilliant for getting more from your top actions while lowering the cost of your bottom actions. Deploy action;
Pay the cost and this is usually metal and a random amount
Then you can deploy a mech (YEAH BABY) and collect some coins.
Now you must place the mech in a space that you own with a worker in, also once the mech is deployed the text under its circle is now active and your mechs and characters gain that ability (not your workers). It is wise picking the right mech to deploy to gain the abilities underneath that you need first! Mechs are great for moving workers, keeping resources safe and basically scaring the other players.
Now all the faction mats have different variations of the mech abilities that you can unlock, I am not going to go over them instead it would be best for you to check them all out and find them out for yourself. Build action;
Pay the cost, this is wood and will depend on the players card for the amount. You then get to build one structure from your playing mat and gain 1 coin. Now each structure underneath will have a bonus, once you have built this structure you then gain the now showing bonus each time you play that action. This is a great way to boost your top actions along side the upgrade option. There are of course rules to this action;
a = You can not build more than 1 structure in 1 space b = They can never be moved or destroyed once placed c = All structures (except the mill) still allow you to gain the bonus they revealed if you do not control that space.
d = If you have a space with only a structure in you still control that space
e = Other players can take a space with your structure in, they control that space but your structure stays there.
f = The random selected building bonus card we placed in set up is important to where you should build your buildings. Check this card out before you place any to make sure you get the best end of game bonus you can. That covers the build action and now we have the last one to talk about. Enlist action;
Pay the cost, this is usually food and varies amounts
Place one recruitment token from the bottom of the board on to your faction mat, there are 4 spaces on the left hand side lower corner of the player mat that contains 1 time bonuses you use when you place a recruitment token.
The 1 time bonuses are;
Gain 2 power
Gain 2 coin
Gain 2 popularity
Gain 2 combat cards Not only do you gain this one time bonus but you unlock a new gain from that bottom section, what is even better about this is the fact that you gain this ability when a player to your left or right (directly next to you) plays this bottom ability. For example you have unlocked the gain 1 popularity enlisted bonus, when ever you use that bottom ability you also gain 1 popularity now, also if the player in turn order before you plays the same bottom ability (lets say it is the build action) you gain 1 popularity because they used the build action, if the next player after you uses the build action, you gain another popularity! The enlisted bonuses under the tokens are the only bonuses that you gain on another players turn! In a two player game you only gain this bonus once and not twice as the only other player is technically to your left and right but this does not mean it doubles up! That covers all the actions, hopefully you have a better understanding of the game now and how you play the basic actions. There are some bits like faction bonuses, mech abilities once they deploy and unlock the ability, the build bonus for the end of the game that I am not going to cover, these are worth reading and discovering on your own. Combat! Do not get two excited as this game is more about the threat of attacking then attacking. Combat in this game is easy to perform and pretty straight forward! 1 = Move a mech or a character (workers can not attack but can be in a mech that is attacking) into a space with another players mech or character. First use any potential mech bonuses you have unlocked that can help with combat. Now each player takes a combat dial and secretly (this is important) inputs the power they wish to spend (max amount 7). You must have this amount of power on the power tracker to spend it, if you only have 5 power the max you can spend is 5! Once you have both locked in the power you wish to spend you then can use 1 combat card per mech or character you are attacking with to boost your power score, other players will know how many combat cards you have but not the bonus amount.
Once both players have locked in the power they wish to spend and combat cards they will use the dials and cards are revealed. The power spent on the dial is removed for each player on the tracker, finally the total is worked out and the player with the most power wins! If you lose the combat all game units are removed back to your home base. If you are the attacker and force the other player from the space you lose 1 popularity per worker they had in that space. If you were the attacker and lost the other player DOES NOT lose any popularity as they just defended their space from you. If you was the attacker and win this means you gain that space and any resources that the other player left when fleeing.
The loser can gain 1 combat card if they used any power on the dial or at least 1 combat card, they might have chose to use 0 power and therefore would not gain 1 combat card when running back to their home base. Units are never destroyed in this game! This means if you plan on wiping out another player you can not do this!
If this is the first combat you take part in and win you need to place a star token on the star token tracker on the first combat one, if it is the second combat you win you place a star token on the 2nd one, you can gain no more stars this way (unless another rule allows you to do this). We will cover star tokens in a bit so this will all make more sense.
That is combat in the game, it is really easy and straight forward.
Encounters!
In certain spaces there are encounter tokens, these are one time events you trigger when your character model and only this model move into a space with a token. If they move into a space where an encounter already had taken place they DO NOT action an encounter. If you do move into a space with an encounter token you first remove the token so no one else can do this again, you then draw the top encounter card on the deck. You show the card to all the other players and then you read out the text so everyone knows what is happening. You then must pick one of the 3 options on the card and pay the cost (if there is any on the one you picked) and then gain the resources that it says you gain. These are basically nice little side earners in the game. Once you have gained the resources and paid the cost this card goes to the bottom of the encounter deck. There are some rules we need to cover about this;
a = If you pick a option that requires a cost you can not pay then you can not pick this one.
b = Any resources you gain (mechs, resources, workers and so on) must be placed in same space as your character.
c = These cards ignore any costs or benefits associated with the action on your player mat, you only action what is on the card. d = If you move into a space that would start combat before an encounter you need to win the combat first before performing the encounter! e = The number in the top left of the card means nothing apart from that is the number of that card. Factory!
In the middle of the game board you may have noticed a factory space, this is where the factory that is now closed is based, this is the main reason we are after this land as it was always home to the factory and the large mechs that it made. I could be making this up though.... The factory space allows you to gain a new action and if you own this space at the end of the game it counts as 3 spaces! This makes it a valuable piece of land! If your character (and only your character) ends their turn on the factory (combat is resolved first if this would cause combat) you get to look though the factory cards and pick one. Once you pick one return the rest face down to the board and place the one you picked at the end of your player mat! You now have a fifth action, just like all the other actions you pay the cost for the top action and gain its bonuses. Unlike the player mat the bottom action is the same on them all and this one means you can move one unit 2 spaces! There are of course some rules for this and lets go over them now;
a = If a mech can move an extra space with an ability you can use this move action to move them 3 spaces! Winning!
b = You can only have 1 card from the factory.
c = This card is permanent and can not be changed.
Objectives! When you start the game you will be given an objective, these are unique and will give you a goal to achieve, if at any time you complete the objective you can place a star token on the objective tracker.
There is nothing else to gain from this other than placing a star token on the star token tracker. If you complete an objective you do not need to reveal it and claim the star token you can wait. Earlier on I talked about how to win the game you must place your 6th star token to end the game and then the winner is the player with most coins at the end of the game. There is a star token tracker on the board that you use to place star tokens when you achieve a certain milestone, these are;
Complete all 6 upgrades Deploy all 4 mechs Build all 4 structures Enlist all 4 recruits Have all 8 workers deployed Complete and reveal 1 objective card
Win combat
Win combat again Have 18 popularity
have 16 power Once you achieve one of these (minus the complete an objective) you MUST place a star token on the tracker under that goal. Once you place your 6th or anyone else does the game ends. End game scoring
Once the game comes to an end you need to work out the final score for each player, use the popularity tracker at the side to see where you are and the bonus coins you gain. Also make sure you check the building bonus and see how you score on that.
Finally count the coins you already have and create a total and work out your final amount. Now it is worth pointing out that if you for some reason manage to place your 6th star token on another players turn they still get to finish their turn! That is how we play the game :) pretty simple when you think about it! Well it is a lot of little rules that all make sense when you place the game.
Final thoughts
I have spent several days writing this blog and this part as left me confused because I do like the game and at the same time I feel under whelmed by it all. I thing a major reason I got this game was from hype, there are so many people who always post that this game is in their top 10 and its one of the best games in a long time. All that hype in my head left me feeling like the game was missing something. It is hard to explain when I try to describe how I felt other than disappointed.
This is an issue with games that are talked about all the time, you go into the game with these massive expectations and sometimes the game falls flat on its face.
Do not get me wrong I am going to play the game again, I will give it more chances but it is not up there for me, I am dying to play Hellboy again, I can not wait to have another game of sagrada, I am desperate for a twilight imperium day, I look forward to lost ruins of Arnak but with scythe I just do not have that urge to get it to the table ASAP.
I like how the game plays, I like the mechanics behind it all, I like the idea that the threat of war is more important then actual combat but at the same time I wish combat had more contribution to the game. It just feels that combat is a none needed component to the game and the after effects apart from a star token are a little disappointing. I mean the other player gets to return their pieces to their home base, big whooping do! It makes the thought of attacking not worth while in my eyes.
At its core it is a resource management game because that's what you need to do to win this game.
Now I know there are people out there reading this thinking I am crazy and I am missing something about the game but not every game is going to appeal to everyone. At the same time I am not saying I hate this game because I like the game I am just not in love with it like other people. I am a big history fan and I do love the alternate setting, I love the art work because it is blood fantastic, I love the mech models, the character models, the amount of items you get with the game but I am not in love with this game. It is a good game to me just sadly falls a little short in my eyes. 7/10