Time to do another quick talk on a board game that I know I might not get to the table again all that quickly. I want to do these when I know I’m not ready to do a complete review of the game, do the lack of plays, but I want to put down some thoughts I have on the game to help inform some opinions, if it does, and to also give myself more ability to process thoughts on the game.

First, let me set up the scenario, last night we started learning this game at 7 PM and finished at 11 PM, the game itself says 60-90 minutes (on the box, on the website 25 minutes per player), so clearly we were well over that. However, it was a learning game and we were also playing with five players. That’s why I’ve added in the Warlord Box to the title. The game out of the base box only plays four, but there is the ability to add a fifth player in the Warlord Box and another way to add a sixth in another Kickstarter thing, but we didn’t play with that. So when I look at the time, the game probably didn’t really start until closer to 8 and with the 90 minute length, I think with five players it would always be over 90 minutes and maybe at best 25 minutes per player at five, but probably a bit longer.

When breaking this down, I do think I need to point out that the fifth player expansion does change the game, and I’m not sure it’s for the better unless you’re are very familiar with the game. It adds in ports, which is interesting as they allow you to move around the board faster, they add a section to the board, a monster you can control, and more. The ports are fairly hard to see on the board, and it adds in more to teach because you have to explain how the monster can be controlled, the special temple that goes there, and how the extra board connects to the main board, how Poseidon works, and a few more things. This doesn’t massive increase the complexity of the game but it adds to what you need to teach and while there are cards for everything in the core box for player aids, they didn’t provide them for the fifth player and they didn’t provide five aids for Poseidon as compared to four for the gods in the base box. It just makes the game take longer and adds a bit more confusion, which lengthens an already longer learning game anyways.

With that, we also used more expansions out of the Warlord box, but most of them are just monsters and while some of them have specific rules for using them, they tend to be pretty similar to the other monsters that you’re already using. For me that addition didn’t really affect the game. The other piece used was the extra character choices, which you need to use if you’re playing with five players, but again, not that hard to use them and it just fit in nicely to the game versus adding all that much complexity like Poseidon and the 5th Player Expansion did for teaching rules.

But let’s talk about the base game and the game experience. Besides myself being tired now because the game went late, I really did enjoy the game. After one play through that was not optimum as we were all learning and we played with five, this game is resting around a B+/A- range for me. What works well in the game is the win conditions. You can win one of four ways, controlling a monument once it’s been completed at the end of three turns. Controlling two regions. Controlling five temples. Or, finally, having defeated 3 monsters. With that, it gives you a lot of things to shoot for. I was playing a character who got a priest to start the game, my plan with her was to go for temples first, but then that changed to building a monument and controlling two regions at various points in the game. And I was one turn away from winning at one point in time in the game. Other players, including the player who won, also switched their goals in the middle of the game as it just happened to work that way for them as well.

Mechanically, the game is fun. You’re moving your hero, hoplites, praying at the monuments and using other things like artifacts or special abilities, once each per turn, if you want. However, where the game works best is special ability board. You’re covering up abilities as you go, so you can’t use the fight monster ability, for example, twice before you have at least done one other action. And building monuments, that’s the way to get everything back, but it can also push the end of the game faster. I think that was one of the weaknesses in our game, we knew that monuments could end the game faster, so no one built on the monuments, we had one that was completed and the legs of another one, so there were, at the end, five monument actions done, but we could have done way more throughout the game, refreshing certain abilities faster, such as hunting to allow us to get closer to the end of the game, as you can do a total of nine monument actions and have not completed a single monument if you want.

This game definitely has a good amount of tactics to it. I’m going to say that more than strategy, when picking your hero at the beginning, there is strategy in that and you can try and strategize it all together so that you have better synergy with your hero, but even that can change, and I think that for basically any hero, any of the win conditions would be possible. I mainly think that some of my decisions would have changed earlier in the game had I been thinking about it. When I won, I almost was able to take over two full regions, and I thought that was working well, but I probably should have been going for monument victory, because I had been taking cards that helped me defend areas, which works well for taking over regions, but would have given me a strong force that would have been hard to unseat for giving up the monument. And I think that the other options I had available, I could have picked them as well if I had wanted to go for different victory conditions.

While the hero cards can inform some to start the game, the biggest piece of strategy, for me, came with the blessing cards, this happens when you do a bless draft after certain temples are built. These cards are all powerful, so I picked one that killed a hoplite before they even had a chance to attack when a battle started in an area that I was the defender and allowed me to fortify more troops in from an adjacent area when I was the defender. Other people picked cards that would help them with fighting or other things, it’s definitely a cool aspect of the game and gives you another very variable thing. And this game offers nice variability with event cards which change up set-up and how the game plays out, different gods to use, character powers, artifacts that come up, and blessings. I think that will make the game truly replayable.

Overall, I really did enjoy the game. I don’t think that the rule book is the best, and with a teaching video out there, before doing the teach for new players, I’d probably have them watch the video in the future. I also don’t think that I’d do a five player game again. No really issues with the expansion that adds it in, but the ports are just a bit clunky and it just adds enough length to the game, I think even with experienced players, that it probably wouldn’t be worth it. I think right now the issue is finding people to play it with again, because it can take a little bit of time, and I’d prefer to play it sometime soon so that I don’t forget all of the rules again.

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