Barbarossa

by

The Knowledge Company

  I like to do a little bit of history behind the games that I review. In this case I hope it is not necessary at all with this game. If the date June 22,1941 is not etched into the brain of every wargamer who has lived since then, I do not know what date would be. Most gamers would find it easier to remember this date than the one they were married on. I am talking about your current wife. If your closet holds one or more, you are totally forgiven the remembrance of those dates. 

 Strap on your seatbelts and hold onto your hats, the big one is coming. Barbarossa is a simulation, definitely NOT a game, about the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The simulation plays out between June 22,1941 and June 30,1943. The invasion of the Soviet Union was the largest military campaign in the history of the world. Just like the invasion, The Knowledge Company has delivered up to us a simulation of monumental size. Up until now I have never compared one boardgame to another. There is just too many variables in every game to really compare them to each other. I am doing this only as a size comparison, not anything about each game's rules etc.

 Fire in the East by GDW:

Time Scale - Two Weeks per Turn

Hex Size - 16 Miles per hex

Counters - 2500 +-

Maps - 6 - at 21" x 27"

Barbarossa:

Time Scale - Half-Month Turns

Hex Size - 15 Miles to the hex

Counters - 7840

Maps - 14 - 18" x 26"

              2 - 10" x 26"

              2 - 18" x 14"

Just as an extra comparison I will also give you another monster game that I was awarded the honor of reviewing; Australian Design Group's World In Flames Collector's Edition Deluxe:

Time Scale - 2 Months

Hex Size - 90 Kilometers per hex

Counters - 4900

Maps - 4 large (574 x 820mm) maps covering most of the world (West Europe & Africa, East Europe & the Middle East, Asia, and the Pacific);

One 297 x 420 mm full-color map of The Americas 

 So, you can see that Barbarossa easily stacks up as the largest of the three games. It has twenty-eight counter sheets! That was not a typo. If you are into corner clipping, good luck. I believe you will need a new clipper and a set of hands when you are done. Either that or you will have the grip strength of the world's strongest man. 

 This is the perfect time to compare monster games. I mean we have Godzilla against King Kong coming out soon, although I am not sure how a 50' King Kong is supposed to do battle with a 200-300' Godzilla. They must have fed him steroids or zapped him with radiation. But I digress, we are here to pay homage to a simulation that is literally worth its weight in postage stamps. As an aside, I have been weightlifting for 47 years and I was surprised at the heft of the box. 

 So, now let us list what comes with this behemoth (take my advice and sit down and get a cup of coffee, we will be here for awhile). This is the list from the Colonel's Edition:

Game Rules Book (notice I did not write booklet) - 174 pages

Soviet Order of Battle - 84 pages

Axis Order of Battle - 107 pages

Axis Minor Nations Order of Battle - 40 pages

Western Allied Order of Battle - 49 pages

At Starts (for the numerous scenarios) - 125 pages

Maps - 20 From the top of Norway to Iran, and from Budapest to the Aral Sea

Game Charts  - 18 separate pages, with 17 of them double-sided

Replacement Schedule booklet  - 8 pages

Terrain/Unit Identification Charts  - 4 pages

These are the scenarios:

A. Learning Scenarios:

  1. Target Berlin

  2. Stuka

  3. Panzers Los!

  4. The Battle of the Barents Sea

 B. Crimea Scenarios (Discovery Group)

  A. Scenario One (D): The 'Neck' Taken

  B. Scenario Two (D): The Crimea Invaded

  C. Scenario Three (D): The First Assault on Sevastopol

  D. Scenario Four (D): The Soviet Amphibious Attack

  E. Scenario Five (D): Trappenjägd

  F: Scenario Six (D): The Final Assault on Sevastopol

 C. From the Danube to the Don

 D. The Crimean Campaign

 E. Kalinin - The Northern Gateway to Moscow

 F. Operation Mars

 G. Operation Uranus

 H. November 11 1942

 I. Northern Finland 1941-1942

 J. Fall Blau: The 1942 Campaign

 K. Rommel Goes East

 L. Hitler Goes East

 M. Barbarossa Extreme

 N. The Beginning of the End

 O. Enemies of the Blood Royal

 Scenarios L,M,N, and O require other games and their assets from the TSWW series.

 Looking at the list, you can play scenarios from only one map up to the full twenty. This is excellent for people with limited space now that are going to have a larger area to play on in the future.

 All of the books, Game rules etc. come in black and white, and four of them are hard bound. The maps are a sight to behold. They are designed to be totally functional and good looking without any added garishness or unnecessary clutter. They are not just paper, but 'single side matt laminate'. Per TKC, that means you can spill coffee on it and not ruin them. The counters are also well done, and are a 1/2" in size. The land units are very easy to read, and the ship and aircraft ones come with a side-view depiction of the type.

 This is a rundown of a very few of the rules you will be dealing with in a full campaign game:

 Geography and Climate

 Facilities (Fortifications, Air Bases etc.)

 Ground Unit Movement

 Air Unit Movement

 Naval Movement

 Air to Air Combat

 Antiaircraft Combat

 Logistics

 Administration

 Political & Economic Rules

 As you can see, everything including the kitchen sink and the installation instructions for said sink are included with this edition.

 While we are discussing the game's editions here is a rundown of the different ones that you can buy from The Knowledge Company:

Download (Print & Play) - £120

Quartermaster (Print & Play DVD) - £130

Lieutenant (Maps and Counters with all rules etc. on a DVD) - £380

Colonel (Everything except the General's Edition add-ons) - £435

General  (includes the Arctic Front and Generic Counter Set) - £520

 If you are handy and have the time, the print & play versions are a perfect fit for you. If you are a wargamer like me who is both time and artistically challenged, let The Knowledge Company do the work.

 Is it an expensive game, in a one word answer: yes. Is this simulation for you? Please see the next paragraph. The simulation is of unbelievable value for not only the grognard, but also to anyone who is interested in the history of the first two years of the Eastern Front in WWII. The amount of information and erudition that has gone into the simulation is as imposing as a mountain. The amount of enjoyment and time that you are buying with this simulation is almost limitless. For the simulation collector, I have no doubt that this will be worth its weight in gold once it is no longer in print. 

 We now have to go into a very personal decision about the simulation Barbarossa. The question that is always asked about monsters is "are they worth it?". That is a totally unanswerable question for any but the wargamer in his own mind. Do you have the space or time are much more pertinent questions. We have no idea about your personal finances or tastes. We can however tell you that you will need both time and space to enjoy Barbarossa to its full potential. Some of these scenarios are not ones  that you are going to be thinking about taking down and setting back up. If you are lucky enough (the writer falls to his knees and pleads to God) to have rooms that are empty because your children have moved out, or from some luck of inheritance etc. then of course it is worth it. We are Grognards, not mice or lemmings! This is a sign of worthiness in our hobby. Say with pride that you have enough empty space to set up Barbarossa for as long as you want with no repercussions. This is like similar badges of courage in our hobby, much like "I played Campaign for North Africa for a year", or " I got into an internet screaming match with Richard Berg". Every hobby has its marks of honor. When model making, who hasn't glued their fingers together, or pulled numerous muscles playing some sport you were good at forty years ago! Monster wargames cost a lot, but they in turn give a lot back to the player. So you may hear "Is this game too expensive" from a man who just bought a 70K Camaro or what have you, because he can no longer cover the bald spot with a comb over. Ever since H.G. Wells crawled about on his dining room floor, or the German General Staff devoted entire rooms to Kriegspiel we have been in love with monster wargames. It is certainly not a new phase.

 Thank you so much to the Knowledge Company for letting me review this masterwork on the Eastern Front. I will be following up this unboxing with a review of gameplay in the near future. Please take a look at the other simulations The Knowledge Company has to offer, at all price ranges. I especially like the look of their 'Merkur' about the Battle of Crete.

  The Knowledge Company also gives some fantastic vassal modules free of charge (thank you Tom Wenck) with all of their games except; Merkur, or Battleaxe. For those who want to play online or have space issues this is an extra bonus.

The Knowledge Company:

https://www.tkc-games.com/

Barbarossa:

https://www.tkc-games.com/shop/games/europe/barbarossa/

Robert

Rome, Blood & Power

Reform, Murder and Popular Politics in the Late Republic 70 - 27 BC

Gareth C Sampson

 

 This book shows the history of Rome and the political machinations of the years 70-27 B.C. The first part of the book goes back in time to the Civil War between Marius and Sulla. This is so the reader is grounded in the massive political upheavals that had occurred before 70 B.C. The book's timeline includes the last throes of the Roman Republic through the first years of the Empire.

 The cover shows us four of the main players in this tragedy: Pompey, Crassus, Caesar, and Octavian. This volume is a continuation of the author's Rome, Blood & Politics. That book showed the political history of Rome from the Gracchi brothers to the Civil War between Marius and Sulla, and the reforms of the latter.

 This book shows the deals that went on behind the scenes and the open jockeying for position by the different factions in Rome, until it just became a power play by Octavian to destroy the Republic in all but name only. We see how Sulla's reforms that were meant to strengthen the Senate and Republic were just pushed aside by these newer men eager to write their names in the history of Rome.

 Then the book goes into the history leading up to the First Triumvirate of Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. This three way power play continued until Crassus's death in Parthia. Then both Caesar and Pompey fought over whether the Republic would remain intact or a strong man (Caesar), would become emperor without a crown. After Pompey's defeat and then the assassination of Caesar, the book shows us the political history behind the Second Triumvirate of Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus. Then we go to the ousting of Lepidus from his position and the final showdown between Octavian and Antony.

 The author ends the book with some good information, but it is still a bit odd compared to most. The first appendix lists the murdered politicians by year. The second appendix gives a list of the Tribunes that served each year.

  I can easily recommended this book, and certainly both, for anyone who has any interest in the history of the period. Thank you Casemate for letting me review this excellent addition to Rome's history.

Robert

Book: Rome, Blood & Power: Reform, Murder and Popular Politics in the Late Republic

Author: Gareth Sampson

Publisher: Pen & Sword

Distributor: Casemate Publishers

What more can be said about Scythe?  I will offer my own review of this exceptional game – and I’m not someone who particularly enjoys ‘dudes-on-a-map’ games.

Scythe was originally released in 2016 after a hugely successful Kickstarter. It has continued to romp up the bgg rankings and currently sits just outside the all time top 10 games.  Scythe is based in an alternate-history version of Europa in which a heavily mechanised city-state collapsed allowing its neighbouring countries (the players) to target its natural resources and compete for its leftover territories.  What follows is 2 to 3 hours of ‘aggressive walking’ with your Mechs and workers into new territories whilst trying to optimise your own engine; assuming your opponents don’t get in the way.  Scythe is your traditional 4X game wrapped in some very pretty and clever clothes.

It's Starting To Get Busy

Gameplay

Before you start each player selects a faction and player board. The player factions have unique, but balanced, powers and the player boards have asymmetric yet balanced action spaces.  Each player board contains two rows of actions which are not only different between player boards from top to bottom but the cost and reward for each action is subtly different as well.  Which means that you’ll probably have to play dozens of times before you have the opportunity to play the same faction and powers again.  This combined with the randomness of your opponents provides a unique experience almost every time.

The winner is determined by scoring players amounts of territories, stars, and resource.  This is added to your remaining money and whoever has the most (of everything) wins.  There are a number of different viable strategies that can win a game of Scythe but these can be largely pre-determined by your player and and starting Faction.  To be successful you have to optimise your engine to exploit your player board advantages and mitigate your weaknesses. 

The Popularity Track - Essential For Scoring

The turns in Scythe pop along at a quick pace and if everyone’s familiar with the rules you can complete your top actions (which may have an element of interaction and combat) in about a minute or two. The bottom row actions will never involve another player and the next player can start their turn whilst you complete your bottom row actions.  This means that even in a six player game your turns come back around in about 5 minutes, which is mighty impressive when you consider how much is going on. And in those ‘spare’ 5 minutes you may be defending in combat and watching for your neighbours actions that give you bonuses.  There’s always something to do even when it’s not your turn.  I’ve found that there’s often just the right amount of time left in between turns to deal with any other players effects on you and then plan your next turn.  I have never felt bored or inactive in between my turns in Scythe.

Almost everything you do, if you do it enough, will gain you a star.  After any player has accumulated 6 stars the game immediately ends.  If you concentrate on getting 6 stars and finishing the game there is no guarantee that you’ll actually win; if you don’t get 5 or more stars, I can almost guarantee that you won’t… This push and pull of strategic objectives and tactical rewards is perfectly executed.  However, after one player gets their sixth star the scoring of coins, territories resources, popularity and stars etc. feels a little anti-climactic to what has probably been quite an epic game.

These Stars Tell A Great Story

The rules are extremely well written and contain helpful strategy snippets throughout.  They also include a ‘Delay of Game’ variant rule which I think should be applied to every game, not just Scythe: “if a player delays the game for more than 10 seconds by trying to calculate the final score, they lose 2 popularity”. This is one of my favourite rules ever! It is intentionally difficult to glance at the board state and determine who is ahead at any point in time, it can obviously be done and AP-prone player may delay a game that, in my opinion, was designed to be played quickly.

Each player mat contains 4 top row actions: Move, Bolster, Trade and Produce.  These do pretty much exactly what they say do, you pay the cost and then you can take the relevant action although each of them have an alternate action as well.  Move allows you to move …(duh!) (or gain $1 if you don’t move as the alternate action). Bolster provides more combat power (or combat cards), trade converts money into resources (or popularity) and Produce uses your workers to generate resources.

Two Different Player Mats

The bottom row actions that you take are dictated by the top row action taken.  You have to do the bottom row action immediately beneath the selected top row action. However, each player mat, has a different alignment of top row and bottom row actions; the cost and benefits for the actions are also subtly different as well.  This asymmetry, for me, turns this game into a work of genius and gives each faction a different feel and play style.

The bottom row actions are: Upgrade, Deploy, Build and Enlist. These aren’t as intuitive as their top row counterparts but are arguably more crucial to getting your engine humming.  You’ll never be able to afford a bottom row action on the first turn of the game but after that working out how to pay for a bottom row action along with an acceptable, if not good top row action, are the key for success.

Deploy allows you to place your Mechs on the board and consequently gain new abilities. Build allows you to build one of four buildings which each provide a top row action bonus.  Enlist allows you to gain an immediate bonus and provides an ongoing bonus anytime you or your neighbours choose the relevant bottom row action.  I always enlist my Upgrade recruit first as I think that’s the most important bottom row action and assume my neighbours will think the same.  Sadly for me it doesn’t always play out that way though.  

Two Different Faction Boards

Upgrade allows you to decrease the cost of a bottom row action and subsequently increase the effect of the top row action.  These are tracked by moving cubes from the top row actions into any available slots in the bottom row actions.  I’ve not worked out whether upgrading your good asymmetric powers further or reducing your negative asymmetric powers into parity with your opponents is a better choice.  I believe the decision comes down to a myriad a factors and which are different every game.  However, calculating it is often straightforward and immediately obvious.  This is another example of why this is truly a genius of game design and why Scythe fully deserves its place at the top of most board game charts. 

With big hulking Mechs and Characters roaming the landscape you’d be led to believe that combat is a fast and furious affair.  However, I’ve had games with fewer players where combat didn’t happen at all.  However, once it does it is quickly resolved and often rewarding.  Thematically, I like to think the countries are all a bit war-weary and will only enter another fight if absolutely necessary.  Unlike some area control combat mechanisms where buckets-of-dice randomly determine the winner, you enter combat in Scythe with some intelligence of how much power your opponent can bring to bear.  This allows for a nice element of bluffing and calculated risk management, although it is quite a simple affair.

Will They, Wont They?

There are a number of other mechanics (Structure Bonus Tile, Player Objectives, Encounters) which I won’t describe here as they’re all fairly minor parts of the game; they all serve to change the game from play to play and suffice to say I like them all.

Encounters, Factory Cards, and Objective (left to Right)

During the Covid-19 lockdown I have had the opportunity to play a number of solo games of Sycthe using the Automa provided which plays very well and truly gives a feel of playing scythe against an aware and intelligent opponent.  However, you do need to wrap your head around the valid territory selection process which I initially found a bit cumbersome.  Arguably, the Automas provide an interesting opponent and if you were every caught playing Sycth with 2 or 3 players I would definitely add in an Automa.  I’ve managed to beat the Autometta, and Automa levels (beginner and normal difficulty respectively) and have attempted the Veteran level (Automasyna) twice and lost handily.  I’ve not bothered with their Ultimasyna – an expert level AI (AI may be too strong a word for what is quite scripted).

Components

The production of Scythe is an exemplar of how good board game components can be.  I know we’re experiencing a golden-age of board games with glorious components but I don’t think it gets much better than Scythe.  There are even intrinsic game functions intrinsically built into the component material (e.g. plastic pieces fight, wooden pieces do not).  I think this shows how well designed and published this game is.

I Love Me Some Double Layer Cardboard

The cardboard components are similarly fantastic and I really appreciate the effort to put double layer player mats into the game (even in the retail version).  This helps you to place your upgrades and buildings with much less risk of dislodging them and forgetting where there were.  (Here’s looking at you Terraforming Mars)

Criticisms

I had to think hard to find my criticisms.  I think this is a marvellous game and one I would play anytime.  I’m not the world’s biggest fan of dudes-on-a-map games so let me tell you my very minor gripes.

Mmmm Marvelous Mechs

When played with lower player counts the map feels quite empty for a long time and combat is a rare beast.  This fundamentally changes the flavour, for worse, of the game.  To shine I believe you need a minimum of 4 players (even if one or two of them are run by the Automa). However, it scales well at higher player counts.  Out of the box you can play with 5 players, and with the expansions you can play with 6.  I’ve tried both and would recommend both as long as you’re not teaching it.  I have been in a learning game with 6 players and that did outstay it’s welcome.

I would like to have an option of playing with a smaller map, or increasing the number of resources of pivotal hexes, for example instead of 1 resource produced in a hex, there could be a few bountiful hexes which produce 2 resources per worker. This would provide more chokepoints, particularly among games at smaller player counts, and combat would occur more frequently.

Conclusion

The Game Ends - I Came Third

Scythe tries to unify the typical Euro game (worker placement resource management etc.) and Thematic game (area control, miniatures, direct conflict etc.) functions into one game.  And you know what? I think it’s the best game that manages to implement features taken from both camps, albeit favouring the more thematic mechanisms.  It is evidently a huge success and has spawned a slew of expansions that expand the game further. Unfortunately, it won’t appeal to a more casual gamer, or on the other side of the spectrum, a die-hard grognard/18xxer but the game that appeals to both will probably never exist.  The fact that it can provide an epic-feel in close to 2 hours and broadly appeals to typical gamers, makes it a perfect game to take to game night.

I’d like to thank Asmodee UK for sending this review copy. This is in stock in many stores and you can use this link to find your FLGS

Designer: Jamey Stegmaier

Bgg page: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/169786/scythe

Play time: 120 minutes +

Players: 1-5 (I recommend 4, 5 and 6 with expansions)

Keyforge is a two player card game with a unique twist... What sets this game apart from all the others that I have played (including Pokemon TCG, Lord of the Rings LCG, Android Netrunner LCG and Magic the Gathering CCG) is that you’ll never ‘build’ your deck. The decks are all pre-made and inviolable, you’ll never replace cards or alter your deck(s) in any way.  This is a fundamentally different from any other ‘deck-builder’ and in my opinion is a breath of fresh air.

In video-game parlance ‘loot-boxes’ have come under fire for giving kids an easy path into gambling; although their legal status is still under review (in the UK at least). Buying booster packs for MTG or whatever your crack CCG (or even LCG) of choice feels exactly the same and I find it bizarre that they are not considered the same as loot-boxes.  Keyforge avoids all of those issues by providing a unique deck in every box and an in-game ability to handicap a deck if it appears too strong.  According to FFG there are 104 Quadrillion possible decks. If my maths is correct, if you stacked all the possible Keyforge decks on top of each other they would reach to Pluto and back!

A Few Boxes

But the best thing about every deck being utterly unique is that you don’t have to take things too seriously (here’s looking at you Magic)…you can relax and have fun; and enjoy the game for what it is rather than how much money you’ve spent on it.  The deluxe box comes with two decks and all the counters and introductory rules to play the game.  Additional decks are a snip at about £7.  I have friends who own large boxes of Magic Cards that probably represent thousands of pounds…and they only run with 2 or three decks. Absolutely bonkers in my opinion.

However, this isn’t a Magic the Gathering bash, but a review of Keyforge so let’s get into it. Keyforge was designed by no other than Richard Garfield himself and so its pedigree couldn’t be better.  During a game both players are trying to forge three keys to win the game.  The keys are forged by collecting a resource called Aember through playing and activating your cards.

Aember Keys Completed

Gameplay

In the universe of Keyforge there are 9 different houses and each deck will be comprised of cards from three of those houses. The players take on the role of an Archon that is trying to unlock a crucible of hidden knowledge…This theme is probably the worst thing in this game, in that there is no readily accessible Intellectual Property or generic setting that I am familiar with, which would help me to understand this concept and get immersed in the story. Although, you could argue this is also a feature; let me explain...

The cards, their powers and text and even deck composition is all generated by an algorithm.  This leads to some quite ridiculous named cards. The cards do have a consistent art design amongst the houses but other than that they don’t appear to link to one another or tell any coherent story.  This randomness is echoed in the overall concept and I got to the point where I just didn’t care why I was playing but I was just having a blast playing the cards and seeing how I could best use the cards I had.

A Small Selection of Cards From One Deck

There are many familiar mechanisms, tapping cards, battle lines, upgrades etc. that enable any gamer to literally learn as they play their first game.  The rules are fairly succinct in the starter set, and you’ll likely have a few questions left unanswered by the rules. The living rules are kept online and is the definitive source for any rule questions. But even though I have had a few questions, I’ve never felt the need to stop a game and look up a rule. It’s just not that type of game and it doesn’t create the super competitive atmosphere other card games can.

On your turn, before you start playing cards you have to choose which of the three house will be active for that turn.  You’ll then be limited to playing, activating or discarding cards from that house for the rest of your turn. Although this is a simple concept it allows for a good deal of strategising with your hand of cards and it helps to keep the game moving quickly as you’ll rarely be in a position to play more than 4 cards from your hand on any turn.  And if your opponent is doing their job you will not have too many creatures on your battle line to activate either.

Playing My Son...I lost this one.

There are four different types of cards: Creatures are played into the battle line and have lots of different passive and active abilities; Upgrades are attached to creatures to enhance them in some way, Artifacts are played behind the battle line and provide additional abilities and actions that could be used, and the last type of card are Action cards which are played to the discard pile and have an immediate effect.  Every other card enters play exhausted and so you’ll have to wait until your next turn in to use it’s abilities…(unless it has a Play ability - did I say there was a lot of variety in this game?)

When a creature is activated (belonging to the active house) you can Reap or Fight with it but not both. Reap collects Aember from the common supply and places it on the creature. You have to work out how you can collect the Aember from the creature back into your pool before your opponent kills the creature and collects it for their pool.  Fighting is very simply a simultaneous creature power number of hits applied modified by creature defence.

Snarette has 4 Power and no Shield.  Thero Centurion (did I say this was generated by an Algortihm) has 6 Power and 1 Shield.  If they were to Fight, instead of Reap the results are as follows:

Snarette takes 6 damage from Thero, killing it (its Power is only 4). Thero takes 3 damage from Snarette as Snarette applies 4 hits and Thero has 1 shield. Combat is resolved simultaneously and is simple as that.

 

All the mechanisms in this game are easy to understand and also easy to forget about.  After four or five rounds you’ll have a tableau of cards with many different actions and abilities to try to follow. I guarantee you’ll forget some of them, but you know what, in this game it really doesn’t bother me that I may have forgotten a rule when for example a creature has a Destroyed ability because this game is all about have a fun and exploring how the cards interact within the deck and how they manage against a different deck. The entry point is so low that I can’t help but recommend picking up a few decks to try it out.

Components

The components are all typical FFG quality but unlike most FFG games you’re not tracking dozens and dozens across an expansive board.  You’ll normally have less than ten or twenty in play at anyone time and I’ve even seen some people (online) improvise all of the components with common items / other board game pieces.

The components you get in a Deluxe box

Criticisms

The artwork is a bit cartoony for my tastes but it fits the overall nature of the game perfectly, it stays light and humorous. Unfortunately for me I prefer the more serious and dark art you get in Lord of the Rings LCG and MTG.

I don’t really have any criticisms of a game that is so accessible, cheap and easy to learn, doesn’t take itself too seriously and yet still provides a similar depth of play as the more serious card games.  A huge bonus of this game, if you are or you play with a sore loser (or a child still learning how to lose gracefully), is that there is no personal affront for losing, you can excuse any poor play by blaming the inferior deck and trying a new deck, or swapping decks for the next game.  This non-confrontational meta-game will unfortunately be its downfall.  As a species, we enjoy seeing winners and losers after a fair contest.  A game of Keyforge isn’t really a fair contest (who knows how equal 2 decks out of 104 Quadrillion are) and even when I lose, I consider the deck to have lost not me. 

What was I saying about loot boxes being addictive!

Conclusion

After several weeks playing this game solidly with my son, I can say that I am honestly surprised at how much more strategy and depth there is in this game than I thought at first glance. It’s well worth picking up to try at its RRP.

I’d like to thank Asmodee UK for sending this review copy. This is in stock in many stores and you can use this link to find your FLGS

Designer: Richard Garfield

Bgg page: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/301607/keyforge-mass-mutation

Play time: 30 minutes.

Players: 2

INVASIONS VOL. I

from

WISDOMOWL

This was a game that I have been waiting to review for a long time. A magnum opus from Philippe Thibaut. a legend himself as the designer of Europa Universalis, and a long time in gestation - I expected something spectacular.  

Its arrival promised well when I opened the package to find not just the huge game itself, but the two expansions from the Kickstarter. It is stunning to look at.  A vast box and magnificent mounted map board with a number of important tracks unobtrusively edging the play area. Nine sheets of equally impressive counters representing all the major historical players and many, many minor ones are divided into four player factions: Romans, Persians, Goths and Huns.

These counters are the typical thick, rounded-edge Euro-game format that simply press out of their frames with no tags to be dealt with.

Here you can see just a few of those sheets, along with the two books, one of rules, the other labelled Appendices.  Barely glimpsed, still in the box are, 33 full colour cards supplying information on those many tribes and nations that play a very small to impressively large part in history and the game.

Definitely a major player!

Five A4 size player aids, each of 4 pages in length, repeat some of the details covered on the smaller cards, along with a wealth of information necessary for game play and a final sixth player aid contains information on the Events and Calamities introduced through a variety of cards.  What surprised me was that turning to the Appendices book, I discovered that this was a compilation of all six of the Player Aids.  

This is a massive game of astonishing quality that I suspect has had layer upon layer of detail and information gradually build up in the course of its development, but the more I tried to peel back those layers the more disconcerting and overwhelming the task became.

I had expected depth and detail and a need to work slowly through the rulebook.  I had assumed there would probably be a number of smaller scenarios to help build understanding and acquire enough comfortable familiarity with the parts to eventually tackle the whole campaign.  There are smaller scenarios, but you'll need to go online to download them, as the boxed game and the thick booklet entitled Appendices simply give one Scenario: the full Campaign for 4 players.

To be frank, the six Scenarios provided online look remarkably like something that really should have been there from the start.  Below is the shortest intended for two players, a mere one turn and not including all the possible Phases.

As working step by step through these shorter scenarios seems the sensible way to approach such a vast amount of information, I assume cost more than anything determined their not being included as a prerequisite of the package.

Even with them downloaded, it is still an uphill battle.  For me. one of the basic obstacles to coping has been the decision to number all thirty-one sections of the rule book in Roman Numerals.  It may be in keeping with the period, but it would have been easier to think Section 18 that's Movement, rather than XVIII - ah, that's Movement.  What's more these cross-references come thick and fast, usually accompanied with a subsidiary letter [e.g. XVIII.J], so there is a constant backwards and forwards checking, checking, checking.

Looking at the Sequence of Play in the Rule Book everything looks beguilingly straightforward.  The sequence of play has a well known trajectory from probably the first such game, Decline and Fall [1972] through the various iterations of Conquest of Empires, History of the World, plus A Brief History of the World and History of The Roman World and so on.  All of these, I should add include very little of what Invasions covers and do so by comparison in the most cursory way.

Broadly the game divides into four major Phases, starting with the TIME PHASE. What in most of these games involved no more than acquiring a new nation and a new set of units at the beginning of a specified turn mutates into a substantial section entitled the Status of Nations  This seems straightforward enough as there are only three statuses: Barbarian, Kingdom or Empire.  Then you discover that some nations are inactive and don't need to go through the usual activities of nation and don't earn VPs, but then you learn that they may become a client, federate or vassal.  At this point they do have the potential to earn VPs.  There are also Raider nations who do even less, but some may settle down and become inactive while others later become normal active nations.

You have to take into account the Aging of a Nation, the differences in play of a Kingdom as opposed to an Empire both of which count as being civilised, along with the fact that Barbarian nations will at some point become civilised and transition into Kingdoms.  Throw in the fact that differing religions also play their part along with heresies and you begin to see the depth and complexity involved.

Every step of the way is fraught with substantial detail that is given in a list of bullet points containing information that is typically presented in a sequence of short phrases which are cross-referenced to another section of the rules.  A typical example would be the rules on Nomads which, we're initially told in the first of seven bullet points, are a special type of Barbarian.  Among five of the remaining bullet points there are ten references to other parts of the rules.  Below is a picture of the typically densely texted pages with very little in the way of illustrations.

The sheer extent of detail in the Rule book alone is enormous.  On top of this each player has his/her separate Player Aid with a significant extra set of Additional rules and a minute breakdown of all the different possible victory point  scorings of each of the various tribes and nations that they will control in the course of the game.  There is a also an individual card sheet [33 in total] covering either one or several of these peoples.  Attractive though they are, they only include some of the most basic points included, but by no means all that are on the 4 page Player Aids.  So, once again it's back to checking between one source of information and another to make sure that you've got all the information you need.

So far, we've barely advanced any distance into game play.  Next comes Reinforcements  including units and two types of Leaders, who arrive with accompanying displacement of previous occupiers. Consult the timetable for these, though Civilised nations primarily have to purchase reinforcements rather receive according to a schedule.

Events covers card draw and play, plus possible raids and income from caravans!  Of importance to these and many other points in the game is Province and Area control.  Considering the huge span of years covered by the game, it's to be expected that fixed boundaries cannot be delineated on the map, instead you have a very small image on the relevant player aid card to refer to.  Most of these are fairly clear, but add another detail to check and work out

Oddly the final part of this first PHASE, Diplomacy, doesn't get covered until almost the very last page of the rules [SectionXXX], and appears to be a very simple process of card play, until you realise that you need to master the several, immediately preceding sections on Alliances, Clientele, Foedus and Submission [Vassalage] in order to execute the card you play.

The second major PHASE is the ADMINISTRATION PHASE, which takes in the play of Administration cards, Income and Purchases and Revolts. By and large, it provides some of the easier, quicker and more accessible rules with Income the lengthiest part.

Then the third PHASE brings us to the inevitable MILITARY PHASE, which encompasses the Movement and Combat rules. With the complexity and scale of detailed reference and sub-reference that I'd met so far, I approached this next stage with some trepidation.  I was pleasantly rewarded to find that this Phase is without doubt the easiest and clearest to deal with.  There is an alternative choice of rules called Advanced Combat.  These I personally didn't choose.  My main reason for missing out the latter was not because of added depth or length [Advanced Combat is an even shorter set of easy, clear rules], but because they do away with the very nice specially designed combat dice.

Must admit I'm a sucker for such touches and the rules provide two and a half pages covering 5 detailed examples of play.  Fortified Cities, Sieges and Naval Movement and Warfare do add quite a few more rules, but as with the essential Combat rules they are, by and large, a simple sequence and lack the convoluted sub-references, exceptions and multiple variations that made the first PHASE of the game such an endurance test.

Finally on every 3rd Turn, you come to the 4th PHASE SCORING.  Now that does sound nice and easy, but it really isn't! First of all, some form of scoring takes place every Turn, but what makes it so convoluted is the variety of scoring possibilities for each player and for each different historical group that come under their control in the course of the game.  Where I to focus on just learning a single one of the four player factions [Romans, Persians, Goths and Huns],I cannot imagine ever mastering an awareness of exactly when, where and how I would gain my victory points for that particular faction.

All in all, there is just too much information to comfortably handle.  So many rules, so much detail, so many exceptions, so many differing presentations of the information through differing play aids and on top of that too many inaccuracies and contradictions.  Many of the latter are fairly minor, but they all add to the problem of getting to grips with this game.

Through BoardGamegeek, the company is working extensively to support and clarify the many questions and requests for clarifications that have been raised.  Living rules are available and work seems to be underway to produce a simplified level of play.  I sincerely hope this comes to fruition, otherwise for many this beautifully lavish production will languish unplayed.

As always many thanks to WisdomOwl for providing the review copy

RRP 99 euros