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: And you do the produce action will produce a word.
If you don't use that word, it will sit there.
So you can build up a stockpile. But if you've
got an encroaching enemy player to one or two hexes away,
and then they suddenly unlease that mech which allows them
to move one extra space, you instantly stop panicking of
can I move this resource? And you can move your
resource if you take your worker away. But if they
get to you before you choose to move, they're invading
the space. Oh, your workers flee and the resource is
now theirs to use.
Speaker 3: But it is I think quite wonderfully thematic and terrifying
when you have just a bunch of resources and some
mechs nearby. Even if the other person isn't even considering combat,
just the fact that they're there definitely keeps your edge.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had a fairly neutral standoff across the river yesterday. Yeah,
and there was no intention I think from Wayne to
sink across that river or stride across it in his
giant mech. But I suddenly realized how close he was
to all of my workers and all of my resources,
and I thought, I'm going to have to do something.
So I then start essentially pulling back and treating it
as they face off, and going, well, I'm not sitting
on the edge of this combat ptental combat. I'm going
to move, which then changes my next set of moves
and opens up different options, but also shuts down some
of that resource building because I'd maybe set up a
mine there. Yeah, and now I can't use that mine
or that windmill to.
Speaker 4: Produce the extra thing.
Speaker 2: And then I have to think, well, I'm going to
have to bring my commander back, or I'm going to
have to stock up on my max somewhere get them
to move in as a pincer movement. Yeah, I suppose
leaders onto the combat mechanic, which I think is fairly straightforward.
Speaker 4: Do you know what. I love this mechanic.
Speaker 3: I mean, we had a few comments the first time
we played it, and because I was mostly desperate to
see how it works, so I was building on my
max and just throwing them at people and saying that, yeah,
it was super fun. But it's essentially like say a
wheel with the numbers naught to seven on it on
a again a fantastically evocative piece of art, and you
just pick the number on the wheel that you want
to spend, which denotes the amount of power that you
want to spend from your power track, adds your combat
card to that value, and the combat cards are essentially
values from one to five.
Speaker 2: I think two to five. But yeah, it's a bit
of a modifier. You may not even have a combat
card left. I played yesterday, I didn't have one, And.
Speaker 3: Then the other player does the same thing on their
combat wheel and adds their combat card should they wish
to or none, because you can sometimes fake people out
into spending all of their power or spending their highest
combat card.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you get them to over commit to a combat
You're not really worried about you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe you just entered that space to pull that
out of them because you're actually, in fact you want
to invade another hex.
Speaker 4: It has other resources.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and once they've spent that power, once they've committed
from that power track, you can build it back up again,
but takes a little while, it does. I think the
most I ever managed in a turn was three power,
possibly four towards the very end game. But if you're
spending seven in one combat encounter, plus any combat card
you've picked up, then it's not an easy commitment necessarily.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the option the number on the wheel and the
combat card that you add to the wheel is done
in secret, and then at the same time you then reveal,
and the player with the highest value in total wins
the combat. And it's quite devastating for the loser. All
of the losing workers and mechs and the command that
if they were involved in the battle, retreat back to
their home base.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they don't lose the characters that they've got
on the board, they just have to start from the beginning,
in which the progression.
Speaker 3: Due to the slow nature of movement in this game,
if you do combat in the early game, when you
haven't unlocked some of your mechabilities.
Speaker 4: That can be really.
Speaker 2: Painful because it's a slow grind, slow creep back out.
If nothing else, you have lost any resources that were
on the tile that got invaded, So that might have
sat there with three oil and two would because that's
what you'd carried into it that now belongs to that invader.
If there is a matching amount of power on your
power wheels when you reveal the than the invading force winds.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it almost a little bit of aggression.
Speaker 2: It pays you to be a bit aggressive if that's
what you're going to angle for, but not necessarily, as
we found out today, because you can play a farming
version if you.
Speaker 4: Were a farm simulator, I guess.
Speaker 3: Although despite how it looks on the box and when
you have the sweet plastic minis, this isn't a combat game.
Speaker 2: No, No, far from it.
Speaker 3: I would say, Yeah, I think that's probably the one
thing to consider when you're looking at the game.
Speaker 2: It's going to be a rarity more than a regularity
from our experience. So far as we say that may
change with more players, It may change with more experience
or possibly even the combination of player and faction cards
that you pick up, because some of those are angled
slightly more towards a combative nature, others are more industrial
or mechanical based.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you can focus your player board and your
faction towards its end. I mean I played the Red faction,
which was geared towards I guess it's an abstraction of
Sovior Russia utilizing the people for both work and the
people's army. So the workers can add an additional combat
card in combat, but then you can also keep spamming
the same action over again, like you're forcing your workers
to keep doing the same thing to drive your drive
your industry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've not had that one yet. I'm looking forward
to that option for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, I didn't.
Speaker 3: To be fair, I didn't use it as much as
I thought I might, But it was just nice to
have that option there. We should talk about the factory
a little bit and the additional bonuses you get for
getting to the factory.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, as we say, the factory hex is in the
middle of the map, so it's at least given that
you have to alternate your move with something else. I'd
say it's at least four turns before we can get
anywhere close to the factory. When you do arrive there,
you get a choice of factory cards which are equal
to the number of players plus an additional one, and
they add a bonus option on your player board.
Speaker 3: And good god, are they powerful, super powerful. They are
so good. It really does behoove you to get their
first or get there early to get because you basically
look through all of them and pick the one that's
best for you. They act like an additional segment for
your player board. So instead of four segments, you now
have five segments.
Speaker 4: And when you look at the options, you're like, good grief,
I mean, I just get to I just get to
do that. Yeah, so free.
Speaker 2: Instead of a top and bottom row action, this is
a combinatory card which just says pay this set thing
which may be a resource and maybe money.
Speaker 4: I think mostly it.
Speaker 3: Could be money, could be force, it could be a popularity.
Speaker 4: Pay a thing.
Speaker 2: And then it gives you a combination of top and
bottom row benefits.
Speaker 3: So the bottom row benefit is always move move the
character two spaces. You're getting a bonus move.
Speaker 2: But the top one is yeah, it can be a
direct thing, like you enlist an extra player, or you
build an extra building just at the drop of a hat,
which is supremely powerful.
Speaker 4: Upgrade your player board.
Speaker 3: I mean that would normally cost you a bunch of
resources and movement and planning. Nope, there you go, just
put your porn on that particular action and you.
Speaker 4: Get to do it.
Speaker 3: You have objective cards in the game which will get
dealt at the very beginning of the game, and they'll
denote a circumstance where if you can fulfill those requirements,
you can completely objective and you get to put one
of your six star tokens on one of on the
Star Trek at the top of the board.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the object is very quite widely as well. Some
of them require you to have almost one of everything,
so I mech one of every resource, a worker of
every type, every building out. Once you've met that requirement,
then you've completed your objective card and you get one
of your six trackers on the board. Other ones maybe
to almost give yourself to the people, be very poor
but have lots of workers and be quite popular. That's
the one I went for yesterday. So depending on which
one you're going for quite affect the style of game
that you might start out with. Of course, once you've
met that criteria, you're then free to carry on playing
as in as.
Speaker 3: It will kind of point you for the first few
turns a direction that you might want to go, which
can be quite useful because it's quite an open ended
structure and how you attack the game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course you may ignore the objective altogether because
there's a number of other options up there.
Speaker 4: Quite right.
Speaker 3: I mean, the game end actually triggers when one of
the players puts his sixth or his or her sixth
star down on the star tracker if they remember, if
if they remember, But once that sixth star goes down,
the game ends and you move to end game scoring.
Speaker 4: And so it's.
Speaker 3: Important to take note of each each player's status during
the game. Once you've got all your buildings out, there's
a staff for that, you put your star out. Once
all your mechs are out, there's a staff for that
put your star out.
Speaker 2: If you reach peak power at any given point, or
if you reach peak popularity at any given point, you
gain a staf for each of those, and that goes
on the star trecker.
Speaker 3: We talked about the artwork and the theme before do
the mechanics help accentuate that theme.
Speaker 2: Esthetically, can't fault it. As I said at the top
of the session, I think it looks amazing, and when
you pick up any of the individual pieces or these
item cards, objective cards and so on, it so evocative,
so evoxative of the idea that it's trying to portray.
Once I'm playing the game and say getting into that
engine building kind of thought process, I feel for myself
I'm losing connection with the theme slightly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I will say this is definitely more
of a euro game.
Speaker 4: We're pushing towards hybrid. This game, I think does a.
Speaker 3: Great job, even in spite of it's incredibly tight and
very elegant gameplay, still being thematic and not just being
a puzzle.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's definitely a flavor to it which is present throughout.
I can't deny that for absolutely.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, I think like any game that is
this tightly designed in terms of its mechanics, you are
going to lose a little bit on the theme, gameplay, interaction.
Speaker 2: Yeah. What I did notice so the pointing out to
me earlier, is that the designers have got a full
biography almost for each of the player characters. They're individually
named on the player card, including their pet or sidekick,
however you want to name it. So they clearly thought
about a lot of the background that's not necessarily at
the forefront of your mind as you playing. If you
want to get that detail and pull yourself deeper into
the world they've created, it's there for you. So I
can't deny them that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I should probably point out as well. So
the artist is a Polish concept artist and an illustrator
called Jacob Rozowski, and he's.
Speaker 4: Known for this style of art. This is what he's
done before.
Speaker 3: And yeah, so Stomia Games have pulled him into work
on Scythe and he's done a phenomenal job.
Speaker 2: It's unquestionable. And I think I'm just looking at some
of this art in the background, and the scale of
it and the subtlety of it. It's just an accepted world.
The workers are in the fields, this enormous mechanoid is
behind them, and they're not terrified of it any more
than the real threat of it maybe being there. They're
not suddenly going, oh my goodness, there's a thing here.
Everyone just lives under an accepted, oppressive nature, and they
are striving and struggling to live as they normally would
with this happening around them.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about the gameplay flow, as simon, how do
you think the game flows? Is it smooth, is it enjoyable?
How do you find the mechanics of the game in general?
Speaker 2: I think it works really well. As we said, there's
essentially four options. Sometimes you're limited to what you even
can do out of those four if you haven't got
the coin or resource for it. So unless you're in
a particular bind or you're particularly unsure of where you
want to head for your next few turns, it's very
easy to pick what you want to do, and the
back and forth between the players or around the circle
can flow very quickly. Some of the options might give
you If you're picking the second row and you choose
to build, you can take a moment to decide that
while the next player continues.
Speaker 3: The game has it recommends in fact, this overlapping nature
of the actions, so once a player picks the top
row action while they're thinking about the bottom row action,
the next player can take their turn, which really helps
the game flow and helps it tick along at a
pace I never really felt like I was waiting for anything,
and in fact, before you know it, it's your turn again.
It really moves along at a clip once people really
get the hang of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely suffer from analysis paralysis. So if I've
got a choice to make, sometimes when you're revealing the
mechs is waited early, You've got four choices, a different
one under each mech. So sometimes I'll sit there and
it will become my go again because I've taken so
long to decide. But that's just my own downfall.
Speaker 4: I guess, So not even waiting that long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm not preventing everyone else having their go
because I can choose that while the game continues around me.
Speaker 3: So again, just another element of smart design. Yes, and
I think that's probably something that we should really accentuate,
even aside from the art which we talked about on
you know, sort of adnauseum at this point. The mechanical design,
the rule design, the interaction design is brilliant. It's very
well done and it's very clever.
Speaker 2: Yes, they have clearly put in a lot of thought
to the combination of the map design, the artwork, the
mechanics and the interaction of players and their resources with
each other.
Speaker 4: I also had a quick look.
Speaker 2: On ball game Geek and their own website earlier, and
they are even now the designers are giving feedback and
response to players.
Speaker 3: It's super highly rated by the board game Geek community.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think unless the game style entirely doesn't speak
to your desires, I can't see how anyone would be
faulting this game. You can't even really just be a
bit met about it. I think if you've played it,
you've either it's not for you full.
Speaker 4: Style, you don't like this kind of your style, or you.
Speaker 2: Just say, my god, look at the design and effort
and skill that's been put into this game exactly.
Speaker 3: And I think, having only played it a few times,
the more that we play it, I'm absolutely convinced the
deeper the world it's going to go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm worried about when you get real good at this.
Speaker 4: Not at all. So what do you think about the
complexity level of sythe.
Speaker 2: It's got a number of combinations which might take a
little getting used to, but overall, I think it's got
just the right level of simplicity and it's not simple simple,
but you've only ever got a limited.
Speaker 4: Number of choices.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's up to you how you choose to
use them, So I don't think it's supremely complex.
Speaker 3: I always kind of think about it as to in
terms of how often do I have to dip into
the rule book? Yeah, And I'll be honest, after the
first game, I rarely looked at the rule book. I mean,
I think that's just testament to how well designed it
is to be fair, and there's been games that we've
played plenty enough where I need to need to look
at the rules again because I can't remember. Yeah, I mean,
it just doesn't stick in. If I would normally wait
things out of five in terms of complexity, somewhere between
the two and three for me, I mean.
Speaker 2: I'd probably put it at three. You do get given
for each player a little guide, and on that guide,
it tells you what you can do on a given turn,
which is also kind of laid out on the player
board itself.
Speaker 4: And they're very clearly laid out.
Speaker 2: It also gives you suggestions for your first four.
Speaker 4: Turns, which is just so good.
Speaker 2: Try this on your first turn, So try this on
your second turn. Now that you've done this thing, now,
maybe try this thing so it gives you a flavor
for each.
Speaker 4: Really super helpful and so good for the new players.
Speaker 3: And yeah, when I talk about complexity, I'm not talking
about the strategic or tactical depth of the game, which
I think is vast and going to get bigger. I'm
really purely talking about the rules grasping.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the facility to play the game is not obstructive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly that, That's exactly how I describe it. So
what did you like most about Sith?
Speaker 2: I'm going to come back to my first point, the
luxurious design of it. It's a great fun game to play.
But I could sit here and just look at it.
I'm looking at it now and just going yep, yeah,
that's bloody brilliant.
Speaker 3: It looks sweet, that looks good. Yeah, one hundred percent
with you art design. But I think what I like
most about it is the seamless interaction of mechanics. It
is so unbelievably smart. I mean, Jamie Steigmier is an
excellent designer anyway, with Charlestone and his new hit or
my game is new hit Wingspan, But this is really
just I think, a flawless design of interaction mechanics, resource gathering, expansion,
the combat. It's great, feels clean, easy to learn, works
really well. Nothing feels unfair, it's there is no very
little randomization. Everything feels like you've done it. It makes
you feel clever when you achieve something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of the very few games I played
that doesn't have a dice roll in it. It's very
much on the player to make that decision.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because it's a.
Speaker 2: Fixed outcome each time, but it's going to be a
different outcome each time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's not even the randomization of the cards is
so minimal. You are really you are hung by your decisions.
Speaker 4: In this game. From the early game, yes, I think if.
Speaker 3: You start well, you'll fly. If you start poorly, you
end up playing catch up and before you know it,
your opponents have got three or four stars down on
the board and you're like, oh shit, will happened? And
I think that's just the beautiful nature of the game.
And there's nothing you can do about that except but
your hands.
Speaker 4: Up and go, do you know what? I made the
wrong decisions? An incredible game. Really glad I got it,
and I cannot wait to play it again with some
more players. Met