I’ll be blunt, direct and honest. And more than a little asshole-y, but… sometimes a critique needs to be blunt and direct. Sometimes games just suck.

This game doesn’t suck.

This game is horrible and a kickstarter so successful for it is depressing.

If you look closely to the site you can find my perplexed face testing it some years ago.

I never changed expression.

And I’m currenty in the process of finding legal ground to ask them to remove my partner and mine image from their site. Because they never bothered asking, of course.

As Renato said it is the board version of a fantasy heartbreaker. The authors started tinkering with Risk! in the early nineties, adding complexity to complexity in a trial-and error way. And then convinced themselves that, since they had a lot of fun with a game tailored in twenty years over their habits, it was a great game.

They ended up with a game pefect for their own group and only that. It’s baroque, complex, full of rules over rules over rules, and felt old ten years ago.

It’s the kind of monster game where you sit quiet for whole phases, then you start acting all at the same time, but don’t worry, because what a player at the other side of the map will do will never influence you.

And, anyway, the component will create such a chaos that you will not understand it.

It’s baffling.

The authors had this lobster-like tenacity (and I’m actually admired in saying that, it’s the only positive thing I will write) and persevered in touring it to cons, adding, year after year, pieces, minis, minigames and baroque tables.

Five years ago you had an auction stage for the turn order.

It used metal daggers as tokens, but only the first three place (out of 8) mattered something.

It’s that kind of game.

Recently they added a 3D, resin cast map in their con copy.

So you can move miniatures on a 3D map with a baffling ruleset.

The price is so high because there are TONS of materials, but it’s irrilevant.

It’s a game that I will buy for 10 dollars or less, just because my rats need a box to nest in.

The idea that people are throwing money at it without even reading the rules, making it the most succesful Italian crowfounding campaing is depressing.

Do not buy, do not look, turn away.

Please.