Marathon is a fantasy race game where
Players take the roles of Gods, secretly influencing six Heroes as they strive to complete the mythical Marathon race. You must be subtle as you influence your Heroes: once a God’s favorite Heroes are known the other Gods will work to thwart them! At the end of the race, the God whose favorites have moved the furthest wins the game!
I recently got in a play of Cthulhu Wars, with miniatures gloriously painted by my friend David. The play reminded me of what the brilliance of this game.
Cthulhu Wars is an area control, action points management game with strong asymmetrical factions. In it, you play as a faction of one of the Lovecraftian Elder Gods, scoring points by area control, and performing rituals. Action points are used to raise forces (cultists, monsters and summoning the Elder God itself), fight opponents, build gates, capture enemy cultists, cast spells and use your own faction’s special powers.
The rules are quite simple: Spend a point to move. Spend a point to attack. Spend x points to summon a cultist, monster or Old One. Restock your points at the end of the round based on the board state. Score points based on the board state.
What makes Cthulhu Wars so good is the way in which each faction bends, breaks and modifies those rules. For example, in the last game, I played the Ithaqua faction which — among other rule breaking powers — allows you to hibernate and carry action points over from one turn to another. One of the monsters allows you to push a single opposing unit out of a battle before it commences.
In all, there are (as far I know) twelve playable factions. I’ve played six or seven of them, and they all somehow seem simultaneously over- and under- powered. I look at the player board (with the faction rules) at the beginning of the game and think “how the heck am I supposed to win with this?” Then, a turn or two in, a path to victory becomes clear. Unfortunately, the other players are also gaining clarity on their own factions at the same time. The powers seem to balance out; each seems to have a way to offset the others. In the end, every game I’ve played has ended relatively close.
I suppose that if you played the same faction multiple times, you would skip that initial bewilderment phase. However, with 495 (by my calculations) different possible combinations in a four player game, it would be a very long while before one is able to cement a strategy for each of the factions to counteract each of the others.
Every one of my plays of Cthulhu Wars has has been a delightful exercise in exploration and discovery of my faction’s abilities both on their own and in relation to the other factions on the table.
Cthulhu Wars also has a huge variety of maps for various player counts, many of which have unique rules of play.
The miniatures are well-done, and in many cases, huge. Cthulhu Wars is visually impressive.
If you have not played Cthulhu Wars and get the chance to do so, I recommend you jump at the chance.
Santa’s Workshop is a game I get out during the Christmas season for a couple of playings.
From Elf Creek Games, Santa’s Workshop is a light medium worker placement game about collecting resources to build toys on childrens’ wishlists.
It is, in many ways, a standard worker placement game. You place your elves on spots to pick up letters (toy orders), collect resources, hang ornaments on trees, help with the reindeer, upgrade the elves’ abilities, expand your personal workshop and fulfill orders (build toys) with the appropriate number of wood, metal, cloth and assembly tokens (which look like blueprints).
An interesting twist in Santa’s Workshop relates to the assembly tokens. In this, the first person to visit the assembly hall gets one token (many toys require two or more). The second person gets one assembly token AND a second if they “ask for help” from the first player in the assembly hall. If they do, the first player gets three points. The third and subsequent to visit may take up to three tokens, awarding the second person in that spot two points and the first three points for their “help.”
The first person to that spot gets only one assembly token, but can quickly run up the points.
Points are awarded for toys built, sets of Reindeer collected, upgrades to elves and your personal workshop, and for the amount of Christmas Cheer you you have displayed in building toys and hanging ornaments during three Santa Inspections over the course of the game. Going heavy on reindeer is a winning strategy, as is focusing on toy building and upgrades, or a mix of all three. I like that players have options.
Santa’s Workshop also has a good mix of the tactical and strategic. Jumping on opportunites as they present themselves is important, but so is upgrading so you have more options as the game goes on.
Santa’s Workhop is fun and doesn’t overstay its welcome. There are three rounds of three worker placements each, which makes it tight and relatively short. A group of focused, experienced gamers could easily finish this game in 70 – 90 minutes.
The game also has a built-in “easier” version for families, with a simplified version of the game board on the reverse side, and some lighter rules.
Feather River College offers a free online version of the classic solo board game Israeli Independence: The First Arab-Israeli War 1948 – 1949. The original printed game was published by Victory Point and now is many years out of date and hard to find.
It’s fun (and educational).
I recently played a game of Shallow Sea at a friend’s house and immediately wanted a copy for myself.
Shallow Sea is a tile laying, open drafting, set collection game. I have a fondness for tile laying games, so was probably predisposed to like it.
In the game, you choose tile and fish pairs from the “market” and place them on your board for scoring. The tiles go on the blank grid spaces. The fish initially go on bubble surrounding the tiles.
There are two types of tiles: coral and sea life.
Coral tiles score when you are able to place the required colored fish around them and flip the tile to its scoring side. For example, a tile might require a green fish on a bubble on one side, and a yellow fish on another. When the tile flips, one of the activating fish is placed on the tile.
Sea life tiles score when certain conditions are met, such as three coral of the same color in a row on one side of the sea life tile.
Completing a tile awards a shell token, which allows players to change the basic rules slightly.
What stood out for me is that the game is very easy to learn, but remarkably thinky in its play. For example, coral score a bonus if a matching colored fish is placed on top when it is flipped. However, if you do, the fish is out of play and can’t be used to fulfill the conditions on another tile. Properly placing tiles with similar requirements adjacent to each other will allow a single fish to work toward the requirements of both. However, that might not be the best move to score the sea life bonuses.
It was one of those games where after the teach, I thought: How hard can this be? A couple of turns in, as I was trying to figure out which pair of fish and tiles to select, I thought: Wow. This can be a brain burner.
The Kickstarter version my friend has featured colorful fish meeples and beautifully illustrated chunky tiles and nice player boards. Hopefully, the retail version is as good.
Find it on Noble Knight.