Publisher Portraits: Awaken Realms

Awaken Realms was originally founded as a game that made minis. This is pretty apparent if you look at the board games that they have put out. Granted, not so much with the first one they put out, This War of Mine. That game was based off of the popular video game. From there, they have branched out into a lot of other genres of game with Cyber punk in Lords of Hellas, grim dark Arthurian legend with Tainted Grail, ancient China with Great Wall, dreams with Etherfields, and most recently space with ISS Vanguard.

What Are Their Games Like?

Awaken Realms prides itself in making games that have great theme in them as well as amazing components. This really comes across in all of their games that I have played. They also try and give you an unique experience in all of their games. This can be pushing the story element or it can be creating interesting mechanics.

When I did my different types of gamer article, found here, Awaken Realms very much creates those experience games. Great Wall is basically a euro game, but it has minis and tries to immerse you in the theme. But Tainted Grail, the combat is a very interesting puzzle, but the story element just has you exploring and discovering so much in this huge world. This is really a hallmark of what Awaken Realms does. The knock can be that their games can be a little rough around the edges, but that adds into the immersion and the experience of the game most of the time.

Board Game Spotlight

Tainted Grail

I’ve talked about it some already up on what type of games they make, but Tainted Grail is an immersive story driven game. It really takes you on an adventure as you fight monsters, try and survive and deal with this grim dark Arthurian legend. This isn’t about nights in shining armor, it is about surviving and seeing if you can save the lands of Avalon. The game is really driven by the exploration and the story that you play through in 15 different chapters, but the combat and diplomacy mechanics are interesting as well. I like the card puzzle that you are given when fighting someone and trying to figure out how you can optimize it. I’ve done a lot of videos on Tainted Grail that you can see below.

This War Of Mine

This is the only Awakens Realm game based on an IP (Intellectual Property) that I can think of. Another survival game, this one I have picked up but haven’t played yet. You are trying to survive in a war torn land, build things, go out and find food, and survive another night as fighting can break out at any time. It’s a very depressing game, from what I’ve heard, but has a solo mode which is why I picked it up. Rolling Solo has a video that goes over the rules and how a day works in the game.

Lords of Hellas

Lords of Hellas is a little bit like a ton of other games but also like no other game I’ve ever played. In Lords of Hellas you get a hero from Greek lore and are fighting to complete various objectives to win the game. But how the game plays is just wild, you can win by conquering lands, building and controlling temples, fighting and killing monsters, and more. And each hero that you can play is different and you unlock other things that make you even more different as the game goes on. Plus, you are building minis in this game, there are towers that you end up building and those minis are amazing looking. This game really highlights that Awaken Realms is good at minis. The Dice Tower has a great play through of the game.

Flick of Faith

Now, for something completely different. Awaken Realms also has a line of lighter games. This is one of them. I haven’t played, but I really want to, because it seems like a ton of fun. You are flicking discs onto a board and trying to get them to stop in different areas to score you points. Now, the concept isn’t the most unique, but there are discs of different sizes and values. And there are special rules each round that the players can vote on which one they want. The game seems like a lot of fun, and when Man vs Meeple played it, well, you can see for yourself.

Final Thoughts on Awaken Realms

Like Mythic Games, whenever Awaken Realms puts out a game on Kickstarter, or now on their own Crowdfunding platform GameFound, I am going to be interested. The experience of playing an Awaken Realms game is truly hard to describe. There is something that makes it unique every time. Whether it be the story that they create, or the mechanics that they put together, it works. Now, I haven’t backed everything of theirs, I did skip their worker placement in Great Wall, but even that has more theme than most worker placements. If you want a game that will have interesting mechanics and be dripping with theme, Awaken Realms does that so well.

Which Awaken Realms game interests you the most? Or do you have a favorite already that you’ve played?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

The format is going to go along the lines of this:

• Company Overview
• Highlight The Feel
• Game Spotlights
• Final Thoughts

Let’s get to Mythic Games.

Publisher Portraits: Mythic Games

Mythic Games was founded in 2015 by Benoit Vogt and Leonidas Vesperini. Generally, Mythic Games has made very big immersive games, like their first game, Joan of Arc. This kind of set the tone for their company for a while as they have followed that up with massive games like Solomon Kane, Reichbusters: Projekt Vril, and a less story driven but still big game Super Fantasy Brawl. Recently, as of 2020, they announced a smaller line of games, their Phoenix Line, which started out with the game Enchanters. They have a few games, including one based off of a popular IP, Darkest Dungeon, still in the pipeline of Kickstarter having been funded and waiting to fulfill.

What Are Their Games Like?

The general feel I get from Mythic Games is that they generally produce epic and memorable games. Now, their Phoenix Line is a bit different from that. From what I can tell, the Phoenix Line was meant to bring in smaller and more accessible games versus their larger style of game.

Immersive and Experience Driven

With the larger games, though, they are extremely immersive, sometimes to a point where the rules don’t always work perfectly. That has been a knock on Mythic Games in the past, they make really interesting games, but he rules for those games can be a bit rough the first time around and generally they end up releasing either a 1.5 version of the game or just a new rules book. This is obviously a negative, but if you make it into the game, the experiences do hold up to the effort that was put into learning the game.

Board Game Spotlights

Super Fantasy Brawl

Normally I am not a big fan of skirmish games. Skirmish games tend to lend themselves to one person getting lucky in a lot of them. And because they tend to be 1 vs 1 battling, I find them harder to get to the table. Super Fantasy Brawl does a good job of giving more options than just to beat someone up. In Super Fantasy Brawl you are taking a team of three champions up against another team of three champions, so nothing that unique. What works so well for me, though, is the game play.

In Super Fantasy Brawl, you complete you actions by playing cards. Each card matches a color and a hero, you can play each color once per turn and that’ll activate the champion shown on it. The play is super simple, but gives you a lot of choices. And you aren’t just trying to knock out your opponent, though that is part of the strategy. You are going for five trophies, and you can do that by completing goals or knocking out your opponent. I find that you need to do both to be able to win. This is longer than how the game normally goes, but that is because GloryHoundd is talking with the chat which slows things down.

Reichbusters: Projekt Vril

You are the Allied Forces going on missions into Germany to stop the horrible experiments that are going on and the new soldiers that are being created. Honestly, this feels like you are taking the Howling Commandos from Captain America, and going up against Hydra and the Red Skull, to be honest. And I love that about the game.

I also like for a campaign style game with dungeon crawl, you don’t always just kick down the door and throw in a grenade. Most dungeon crawl games give you that option, but Reichbusters, it’ll go sideways fast if you do that as the more noise you make, the more bad guys can show up. I also like that even though this can be played campaign, it can also be played as a one off scenario. Gloryhoundd again takes on the game, so check out their playthrough below.

Solomon Kane

Another campaign game with dungeon crawling feel to it, Solomon Kane strives to be more than that. Solmon Kane has you playing through the story adventures of the Solomon Kane short stories and books but in a not so normal way. Normally in a board game you play directly as the heroes. In Solomon Kane, it is a bit different.

Instead, you are all playing a virtues, Courage, Prudence, Temperance, and Justice, all of which influence Solomon Kane on his journey. This makes it so that no one player is playing the main hero. This game also leans heavily into the narrative element as well. You can see me unbox everything for it over on Malts and Meeples below. Plus some solo game play from Rolling Solo.

Joan of Arc

Final one I’m going to be talking about as I’m still waiting for my copy to come in, Joan of Arc. I do also have HEL: The Last Saga, but no one has received that yet, so I don’t have any videos for it. Joan of Arc is not a game that I thought I was going to love. Mainly because it is a minis game, and who knows, I still might not. But it is a scenario based game that doesn’t just have you taking two armies up against each other.

Plus, I love the setting for Joan of Arc. It is the historical world, but it pulls from the history of that time and adds in fantastical elements that were presented in the history. So if something was eating sheep, it might have been werewolves, or some unexplained sighting, maybe a dragon. It takes those accounts from real history and adds it into the actual events that we know happened. The setting is just really interesting to me. And over on the Dice Tower they played through a scenario.

Final Thoughts on Mythic Games

I’m a big fan of theirs and their games. Mainly because they tend to have a great experience behind them, which you can see in the game plays that I have highlighted. Even something like Super Fantasy Brawl that doesn’t have an epic story behind it, it still has memorable moments and the game play is so light and fun that it works really well.

Have you played a Mythic Games game before? What is your favorite, do you have any that you want to try?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.