Rising Sun

BaBalleflassstar7,0

Maybe E. Lang's best, but not for me. It was fun the first 3 times with and without thr Kami expansion, but it gets old quite fast as the season card abilites starts to feel samey and mundane. Some cards and gods are really subpar compared to their price and early/late availability. Auction combat is ok, but this just makes the economy cards so much more important than most others. It's much harder and riskt to gain money through taxation than "War income" cards. Sold as I found Cthulhu Wars, Kemet, Root, Inis, Forbidden Stars, Starcraft, Falling Sky and Time of Crisis as better dudes on a map games at 4.

Vic Granellstar8,5

Love the asymmetry, the action minis and like the combat system quite a bit! It feels like an improvement over Blood Rage, but I don't know which one I enjoy more!

EvEvanstar4,6

This is a dudes on the map game. Each player gets a strong asymmetric power. The balance of these powers is somewhat questionable, especially with one of the expansion factions. The game functions around these action tiles. In turn order, one player selects a tile from the top 4 in the pile, then they and each other player get to resolve the action on that tile. The person doing the choosing and their ally if they have one for that round, get an extra benefit. There are seven action selections that resolve each turn, which means there's a substantial advantage to ally with someone early in turn order for that round, just so you get two action effect bonuses, and thusly get to do more. Combat is resolved in a frustrating, but unique way. Each player gets a little action board where you make blind bids with money into the boxes you want to resolve. Everyone reveals, and the player who spent the most on the effect gets to resolve it. After resolving the effects you look to see who has the most strength left with each unit typically being 1, then the losers kill their remaining figures, and the winner gives the losers all the money they spent on those special actions divided evenly. This makes for some odd play in a number of ways. First, it's strange the way the special monsters are largely treated as regular 1 strength units. Actually, when they do have some different rule or strength applied to them, it can often be hard to remember as several of the monsters have similar looks to them. For example, one oni is 1 strength, and another might be 2 or 3. Additionally, some of the effects are rough. One captures an opponent's unit off the board, and steals a point from them. Another gives you victory points for each guy killed. Yet another kills all your own units and gives you steps on the tiebreaker track. Adding to this, is the idea that you never really hold territory in the game, and you never have a safe space. Players can place their stronghold markers anywhere regardless of presence, from which new units can summon, and there's an action tile that swaps 1 unit from 2 opponents off the board with yours that can be done from anywhere. The central idea is you are looking to win one battle in at least 7 different areas before the end of the third round, to max out your endgame score, and I don't mind other games which encourage mobility over turtling such as Forbidden Stars and Kemet, but in those games there's a more natural flow of units moving. This has more of a feeling of teleporting things around. Most crucial is an utter lack of being able to follow through with your plans unless players ignore you. Even the smallest goal in the furthest corner of the map can be easily thwarted by someone who bothers to do so. Something I harp on about games I enjoy is a sense of back and forth. When my opponent makes a move against me, I like to be able to respond, and then have them respond in kind. This isn't that. It's more like a feeling of you trying to walk and other players constantly remotely untying your shoes somehow. :star: Art, Iconography and components functional :star: Clever or interesting mechanisms :star: Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players :star: Multiple plays stay interesting :star: Low or mitigatable luck elements :star::nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar: Raw enjoyment