A War of Whispers

Maxstar7,0

A War of Whispers takes the iconicism of games like Risk and El Grande and turns it on its head, crafting a subtle mix of complex strategy, delightful novelty, and just a spoonful of scuppering. The game, while seemingly fiddly with its multitude of cubes, cards, and tokens, is actually quite simple to learn, comprising of very few mechanics and recognisable iconography to denote them. This makes the game strategically satisfying while also being simple to teach, one of my most important criteria. As aforementioned, the novelty of the game arises from the core principle: the players are NOT the armies. Instead, participants play as cloak and dagger factions with varying influence and interest in the movements of the on-board, tangible empires. This means that any player can influence any empire, allowing for exciting and intruiging gameplay. However, I would be loathe to finish a review before mentioning the game's weaknesses. One such annoyance, for example, is the repetetive nature of the gameplay. Outsidr of the push-your-luck style exposition to each round and the follow up actons, each round feels distinctly samey, contributing to a general feeling of boredom and lack of interest by the end of the game. What's more, the game experiences some minor physical limitations in its irritating tokens (strangely prone to sliding out of their allkcated position), leading the game to be a somewhat better experience on a platform such as tabletop simulator. Overall, however, I do believe A War of Whispers is a great game, diversifying seemingly stale niches of the world of board games by providing a refreshing twist to the genre of wargames.