by Brant Guillory, 21 March 2024 ~ #UnboxingDay
We saw this one during the opening night Media First Look at Origins, and design Chris Solis graciously granted us a copy of the game to check out. While we haven’t gotta a full game in yet, we did want to get it unboxed and the photos up.
click images to enlarge
Mandatory boxiness. The sidewalls of the box are also decorated, and the thumb-cuts on the sides of the box top do help with cracking the lid
All the toys – a big deck of the cards you use to play, a handful of tokens, the rules, a d12, and some propaganda.
Very nice touch on the punchboards: look around the edges and you’ll see the token types printed on the margins to inform the players what they are
The rulebook is well-illustrated but does feel a little chaotic in places. A little better spacing, and reducing the background watermarking, would reduce the visual clutter in there.
And look – a soundtrack (?!) The QR code takes you to a custom playlist of mood-setting tunes for your games.
Two-sided player aid cards. Five total, in case you’re playing a full battle royale.
Each of the five factions has their own unique background, so you can sort each desk, and any relevant tokens, into their own bag (the game comes with a bunch).
Detail of 2 of the factions, all of which are individual and asymmetric. You get a card with some advice about how to play them, and some factions have special effect cards, like the red door for the Vacuus Army.
The other 3 factions, with some of their special cards.
Ultimately, it’s a lightweight lane-battler, but one that expands all the way up to 5 players, where you’re taking a whack at the players on either side of you, plus the folks across the table in a royal rumble in the center. There’s plenty of bluffing and ‘lane modification’ before combat results are adjudicated, and players score medals for victories rather than fully attritting their enemies. This keeps everyone competitive from round to round, as you’ll (almost) always get your strongest cards back for the next fight.
We’ll get some full games at some point, and let you know how well it scales, but the artwork is pretty nice and the production values are rock-solid. Again, not a wargame, but a recent acquisition that wargamers might enjoy with some non-wargamers around the table.
Thanks for joining this month’s #UnboxingDay with the Armchair Dragoons and we hope you enjoyed a look under our hoods! You can always leave us your feedback in our #UnboxingDay thread, or in the comment area on this article, below.
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The Armchair Dragoons with zest,
Unbox games for all of the rest.
With dice and cardboard so neat,
They unveil and can’t be beat,
In the tabletop world of the best!
