Speaker 1: Every table has rules, but the best stories usually begin
when someone ignores them. A risky move, a broken alliance,
a perfect role at the worst possible moment, and suddenly
it's not just a game anymore. It's the victory nobody expected,
the argument everyone remembers, and the story your friends will
still be telling years from now. I'm Scott Ralph and
this is table tales, where board games, card games, and
role playing adventures become stories worth retelling. So pull up
a chair. The next tale is already on the table.
Speaker 2: We played Scyth. We played as a series where we
talk about an epic board game that we played this week,
and this week is the Old History nineteen twenties Eastern
Europe inspired steampunk flavored kickstarts at Bahemoth Scythe. In this episode,
we'll be diving into the things we liked. I'm breaking
down the element that make it great, because at the
end of the day, we only play awesome games, and
Ssyth is truly awesome. Syth was released in twenty sixteen.
Plays one to five players has an oddly specific length
of one hundred and fifteen minutes listed on the box.
It's a competitive engine building slash four x slash action
selection game and is published by Stone Byre Games. Designed
by Jamie Stegmayer of Wingspan Fame and Charterstone. So another
chapter in his history of excellent game design. So first,
let's talk about the components and art design of the game.
So what do you think of the components and the
art design?
Speaker 3: I am going to put this word out here straight away, luxury.
If someone asked me to describe the components of this game,
the first and foremost, the only thing I could say
is luxury. It is beautifully built.
Speaker 2: It is luxuriously. I think that's a great way to
describe it. It comes with a variety of plastic minis.
You have some almost steampunk esque mechs, these mech plastic minis.
You have some wonderful wooden tokens to represent the resources
that you might gather during the game.
Speaker 3: It's the wooden tokens that really yeah, they speak to
me as much as the plastic models for your main
player character and your mechs are fantastically three D printed.
It's the little wooden tokens that you get for your
me pools in your resource management. They're just oh yeah,
a little.
Speaker 2: Bit yeah, they're that little bit extra, and you have
some buildings as well. You have a wooden action selection token,
which looks like basically a pawn. Yeah, it's yours. Your
classic board game porn. You have a variety of different
sized cards. The card stock is of fantastic quality, and
the artwork on the cards is beautifully illustrated.
Speaker 3: It is incredibly evocative of the scenes that they're trying
to set, and the map itself is very well designed.
You've got a reversible board game. The map, I believe,
is the same on both sides, except the flip is
half of an upscaled version.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's already a massive board. I mean the board
is not. I mean it's not small. You need a
lot of table space, especially to accommodate the additional player
boards as well, which we'll get into a little later.
Speaker 3: Maybe two by three feet. Yeah, it's a big old board.
Speaker 2: And the other side of it is an upscaled version
where you can buy an additional add on to make
an even bigger board, which I don't even know why
you'd need that.
Speaker 3: I can't imagine playing this on a four x six board,
but perhaps when you get up to the max five
players and you've got all of the resources loaded out.
You might want that tile space, I.
Speaker 2: Mean even the standard sized board. Like you say, it's
big enough, and it is beautifully detailed, the colorization, the artwork,
the little villages, some of the snow drifts. It's an
alternate history nineteen twenties Eastern Europe inspired art design.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you zoom yourself in as it where and
take a close look at any given hex. The board
is divided into hex panels to control as territories, any
given hex is full of little details if you care
to look in. The board quickly gets busy with your
tokens and items, so do take a good minute to
look at that before you start filling it up and
appreciate some of that artwork.
Speaker 2: The game also comes with a player board and a
faction board, and these will denote the kind of actions
that you can take and the special abilities that your
faction will have. And again the artwork follows through to
those elements of the game. And yeah, it's stunning. Really,
it's one of the most beautiful games I've ever played,
and the most thematically consistent across everything, the backs of
the cards, everything from the font even the tiniest details
seem to be tied together.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think, with the exception of the plastic mech models,
it's almost as though the game itself was created from
that alternate universe, as it's a wooden cardboard of high quality,
but with a muted and consistent color set as well,
So you've not got a vast range of color. It's
all reds, yellows, and blues of muted tones, but they
pop in comparison to each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a good point to make. Actually,
this isn't an ultracolorful game.
Speaker 3: I mean it is.
Speaker 2: It's full of beautiful color, but it's not massively bright contrasts.
It's this almost gently oppressive kind of color palette.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they've got the red, yellows and blues as some
of the main strongest colors that pop out, but then
there's a layer of oppression almost being painted overswathed over
it to feel like you're grinding under the oil and
gears of these giant mechs that are stomping the landscape.
Speaker 2: The game comes with some really well written rules. It's
incredibly language independent, and I am normally skeptical with some
of that because a lot of symbolism in a game
can make it hard to learn and give it a
steep learning curve. But Syth is so well designed, so
elegant that a quick read through of the rules and
with the very well written quick guide that comes with it.
Speaker 3: Yes, I set the game up yesterday to maybe ten minutes,
and that was my first time ever setting it up,
and I just used a quick reference guide. I didn't
need the main book at all if for any reason
I did get lost. There was a very good opening
spread which told you this is what every single item is.
Also gave you the color background, so there's essentially three
types of cards, and it described them, but also then
said green or red or yellow because that's the main
color you'll pick out. And it just makes it that
much much more straightforward to set up.
Speaker 2: So how do you win smythe you have the most
money at the end seems simple, have the most money
at the end of the game, and it kind of
seems to try it, and it makes you think, just
through our brief description or try description there, that this
is an economic game, and in some aspects it is.
You're generating resources, you are trading to get resources, you
are triggering events to get money, but it's much more
than that, and you have a multiplier on that is
denoted on the board links to your popularity, where you'll
get additional money given to you at the end of
the game depending on how many hexes you control, how
many resources you've managed to generate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a degree of different options to choose from.
You essentially have six activities that you need to complete,
but there are more than six that you can choose from.
So it might be building on your mechs, it might
be employing all of your people. You start with some
on your board and they've got a beautiful little recess
on a double layered player card for you to sit
them in.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I think that's something that's worth
mentioning that I didn't talk about in the components of
the game. Yeah, that those player boards are. When you
said luxurious, it is top of the line. I mean
that that little cutouts. I mean I've played plenty of
board games where you get a player board and you
knock something off it you have no idea where it's gone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had never seen anything like this before, and
it's it just it makes you not even have to
think about what's where it's well, it can only go
from here or to here, and it's just perfect.
Speaker 2: I read I think it was on Stone my Game's website,
or maybe they did a tweet about it or part
of the FAQ that these were an absolute pain in
the ass to make. They were in especially in large quantities,
and they're so much more expensive, and especially because they're
also unique to each player.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they vary by player card as well. There are five,
one for each player, and then there's the separate faction
card which goes with it, and they combine. There's a
couple of band options that you can't have the combination of,
but each single one is detailed and slightly different to
the next, so it's not mass produced feeling game at all.
Is very much got that hand built feel to it. Yeah,
it's absolutely fantastic. I mean yeah, I literally cannot shout
loud enough about the quality of the components and the
art design of this game. It's one of my favorite
things I've ever opened. I think it's brilliant.
Speaker 2: And let's take a look at some of those things
that you might be able to do on your turn.
Your player boards are divided into four sections, and on
your turn, you essentially choose one of those sections.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a relatively straightforward choice, or at least apparently,
so you can produce on the tiles that you own
or a limited number thereof. You can move a couple
of figures. You've got a bolster option, which allows you
to gain more power, so if you were to enter combat,
you'd be in a stronger position. And the last one
is to trade, where if you've got the coin, you
can essentially buy either popularity, which is a rareer choice
in our playthrough so far, or you can just buy
the raw materials that you need to then develop your
next option.
Speaker 2: And those are the top options on each of those
four segments. The twist is those four segments also have
a bottom option, and on your turn, you can either
do the top option in one segment, the bottom option
in that same segment, or both if you have the
resources available to do both.
Speaker 3: And sometimes doing the top will then provide you with
what you need for the bottom. So the one in
front of us, I can see, pay a coin, you
get a trade that gets you too raw material. If
that too raw material is then the thing you need
for your bossom option, you can immediately spend it and
gain your upgrade.
Speaker 2: Such a simple and elegant design. And again these are
all slightly different.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, so you've got the same four top options,
the same four bottom options, but the combination.
Speaker 2: Of the top and bottom options is slightly different, and
the benefits that you get on the costs of them
can be slightly different.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's somewhere. Deploying a mech is all you do.
Sometimes you gain coin for deploying a mech. Other times
you maybe lose or have to pay extra to do
the same.
Speaker 2: So that's the player boards, and that's the majority of
that mechanic. You move your porn into one of those
particular segments on your player board, you do the top
or bottom or both of those actions, and then the
turn goes around the table. It also denotes the special
ability of each of the clans.
Speaker 3: And some of those are clutch. They are things you
would suddenly it's a very much wait, you can do what.
Speaker 2: This happened to think in every single.
Speaker 3: Game, yeah we played, And with that, as you say,
impending threat always ever present. It's suddenly to see your
opponent move halfway across the board in one turn, because
that's what their character option is. Is wonderful, really adds.
Speaker 2: I think it's with that sort of alternate history in
nineteen twenties Eastern Europe vibe. It definitely has a Cold
War feel in some respects, where you are generating power
on the board, You're putting these massive war machines onto
the board, You're expanding your influence, but everyone's kind of
always on the edge of fighting over resources, never quite
tipping into it because it's you know, it can be
quite devastating.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The description in the beginning of the book describes
the factory that center tile as a city state which
has shut down, and then the surrounding regional countries I
suppose you'd call them, although the scale of the map
doesn't quite reach to a country and that quite that size.
They all start showing an interest in the closed down
city state and the resources surrounding it, which is where
each of your player characters comes in to see how
they can prosper in this post war, heavily rationed environment.
Speaker 2: Each clan has some peoples, some workers who will generate
resources for you. Yep, you will have some buildings that
will offer you some sort of bonus when you build
them and put them onto the map.
Speaker 3: Yeah, getting those out is a great option early on
if you can manage.
Speaker 2: It absolutely, especially the mill, which counts as another worker
essentially and gives you a permanent extra resource depending on
where it's placed. You have a mine which you can build,
which will give you adjacent access to the other mines
on the map, so you can quickly scoot around the
board quicker than you will do otherwise, because movement can
be quite slow, especially in the early game. It's a
cleverly designed map. I think four out of the five
factions to start with are limited to three or four
peninsular map squares map hexes, and then to get to
the main bulk land mass you need to build that
mind to even get out there.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 2: You also have we talked about before, the plastic mechs,
and the mechs can carry your workers around with them,
which is going to be extra useful when they can
eventually upgrade and get more movement. They can also carry
an unlimited number of resources. And the final figure type
is your main character, I guess your commander.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they've each got a name and an accompanying animal,
which I think is a fantastic little addition.
Speaker 2: It is really cool. So you have like you have
the commander with a bear, you have an eagle, you
have like a giant yac kind.
Speaker 3: Of thing, even one with a tiger in some post
war Russia with Siberia and tiger, your ak and in
Bolshevik hat and then giant. Yeah, I'm going to war
with them. It's awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is really awesome. But your main player character
is the only one that can trigger these big events.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And there's a think a dozen dotted around the landscape.
I'm meant to count the hextes. I think there's about
forty to fifty hexes across the board. So the reasonably
well spread out certainly can't reach more than one in
any given.
Speaker 2: Turn, or certainly not not with the sort of generally
fairly slow or methodical pace of the movement, especially in
the early game, when you can only choose to move
one every other turn.
Speaker 3: Really, so yes, yeah, taking That's a key thing to
note is that with the extension of one of the
faction boards, you can't take the same option more than
once in a row. So if you've moved last time,
you have to do something else. So you're either trading
to buy resources, you're producing your own or maybe you're
reserving power and bolstering your forces.
Speaker 2: So when you move your lead character, your commander figure
over one of those events, you get to draw one
of the incredibly evocative and beautifully designed event cards.
Speaker 3: Yeah. For me, they're the thing that draws me back
into that stylized world more than anything else. I find
that I pull away slightly from the theme when I'll
get to the engine building mechanic of the game. But
then you pick up one of these encounter cards with
a glorious artwork on it with it or again in
the background, normally the giant mechs whole over some farm worker.
Speaker 2: Almost almost etherial in nature, kind of shrouded a little
bit by fogging a lot of them, and just looks
like it's looming with an ever present threat.
Speaker 3: It's like the old school War of the World's creep.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of almost that kind of atmosphere.
Speaker 3: To it, combined with a little bit of wild wild West.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, Like I said, just over a farm or
something completely innocuous, you have this correndous war machines or
hulking around the place, and by triggering these events, we'll
give you a we'll give you three options generally, and
they are all good, but it depends on what's good
for you at the time.
Speaker 3: Yes, there's normally a neutral option in terms of you
gain a little benefit and not really any cost to that.
There's a more outward benefit. You gain quite a lot
of resource or potentially popularity, which you definitely want in
this game, but it will cost you a bit of coin,
which if you've got it to spare fair enough, you're
almost paying your way. You're you're buying favor with the populace.
And then there tends to be a third, more negative
option in the sense of nicety. You'll lose some of
your popularity, which will reduce your overall multiplier in that instance,
but you gain a hell of a lot for it.
Sometimes it can be build a mech, building a mech
straight off just for losing some popularity, you're essentially getting
forced labor, I think is.
Speaker 2: However, I think that's what it's kind of is you're
forcing the populace to work and build that for you,
and the mechs are super powerful on your faction board
where the mechs are. Underneath those mechs is an individual
ability A couple of which are unique to those mechs
or unique to that faction, and the more mechs you
get out, the more powerful they become.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it applies to every single one that's on
the board as well as your main player character. So
you can suddenly cross the lakes and river, or you
can one of mine I had yesterday. It was essentially
teleport if you will use some backward route that's unguarded
to make your way halfway across the map, utterly unfettered,
and you suddenly just pop out halfway across the world
and you're now open to a new set of resources.
You've tenentually got a pinter attack coming. If you're looking
to go for all out war. There's some powerful stuff
in there.
Speaker 2: So you'll generate resources inscythe by getting your workers out,
and you get workers out by doing the produce action
on a hex which generates workers, which are known as
villagers in this game. When you have all of your
workers out and they start to spread across the land,
when you do the produce action, you'll start to generate
a variety of different types of resources, which you can
then spend on various upgrades and will be put towards
the other actions on your player board.
Speaker 3: So when you've then built up some pile of resource,
and according to your playerboard, as we mentioned earlier, you'll
have a varying requirement for resources to perform a certain action.
So if you want to build that mind that we
mentioned to help move your workers around some of them,
you'll require up to four pieces of wood that happens
to be the resource which is chosen for all building type,
and that's a bottom rowaction. So you take your relevant
top roaction, which will be varying depending on your player.
You then take the bottom row action, pay any associated cost,
which is normally just the resource, and you get your
building out.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've played this both three player and two player,
and in two player we were kind of just exploring
the map, generating our resources, upgrading our plan and our
player boards, and kind of left our own devices with
pretty much no combat in that game. In the three
player immediately felt tighter and more of a fight for resources,
and I can imagine with four and five players it's
going to get very tense.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to play this on five player. Yeah,
as you say, even though with three on the board,
if you haven't used your resources, and they're sitting where
you've produced them, which is how that works. Any player,
any worker that's on the tile with the forest,