Again, I am fully in my "area control" era. This is Chip Theory's take on the genre. I had looked at the KS originally and decided to back out before pledging for one reason or another. 2 things swayed it into my collection though. First, I saw an update for this and 20 strong that said they were probably shipping in March, and with the late pledge open took the plunge. The second reason was something about the metal troops upgrade being unsustainably cheap. I ended up doing the late back and ironically received this before some of the guys in the group I game with. The wife and I played it once and I thought it was alright, pretty good but not amazing. Then I brought it to a more "war gamey" crowd. Absolute hit. The design is simple but incredibly tight. We played 3 games in a row with everyone switching factions between games. It was easy to pick up and teach, the components are lovely.
Gameplay Thoughts
I've waxed lyrical about Warhammer as a concept to almost anyone I've chatted with about design but I'll repeat my mantra here. Warhammer is a well designed game where the designers never stopped. The core concepts (roll to hit, roll to wound, roll for save) work great and in moderation the design space (specials rules are exceptions that allow for flavor) is great. The problem comes when in order to introduce that flavor you need so many convoluted rules tacked on top of each other. As a brief totally hyperbolic example, if you normally roll one die a model for melee, a good addition would be something like "I roll two attacks when I charge because of my blood rage." A bad addition would be something like "I roll 2 attacks for blood rage, at plus 1 because of my priest. My captain has a rule that allows me to reroll but only if I spend blood points. Each blood point I spend allows me to double move." I digress. My point, as long winded as it is, is that Wroth isn't Warhammer.
Your core gameplay is very clean. Roll and draft dice. Spend a die to do the action on the die. There's an action to get Corra, the games resource, a couple actions to add troops or move them and one action to attack. Attacking is either into a space you occupy or a space adjacent. That is hyperbolic simplification but honestly the core is really that simple. There's some nuance in the economy and the variable objective tokens but generally, if each faction was the same we'd be playing it already.
Now where this game really shines, and I truly mean shines, is the asymmetry. Each faction has access to special troops represented by dice. Each special troop (between two and three per faction) usually only has one line maybe two of rules. The overhead is near nonexistent. The only other asymmetry comes from a one time use Feat card (each faction chooses 1 of 3 unique to their faction.) So let's look at one faction up close
Now where this game really shines, and I truly mean shines, is the asymmetry. Each faction has access to special troops represented by dice. Each special troop (between two and three per faction) usually only has one line maybe two of rules. The overhead is near nonexistent. The only other asymmetry comes from a one time use Feat card (each faction chooses 1 of 3 unique to their faction.) So let's look at one faction up close
These are the Koda, the Viking like berserkers. If we look at their player board we can see they only have two special troop types. The gentlemen on the left are basically werewolf types. Big angry dudes with a ton of health. First, one thing to note here is that even though they have a ton of health, they only count as one troop for the purposes of controlling an area. If we look at their special rules, they get to punch on the way into a territory and when they attack an area they are already in they do an extra damage. Let's look more in to this. First of all on first read you'd be right to think "beat stick." Those abilities are both about damage right? Drop guys in to the fray and spend your attack dice on them. Its subtle but one of the real draws is if you don't get any attack dice, now all of your maneuver dice are effectively attack dice too as long as you have one of these guys in the move. Add on to all of that that these guys will score you some victory points each turn and it makes sense to scatter them to the wind and let them tear your opponents apart.
Now lets look at the trappers. These are a "follow the ball under the cup" type of mechanic. When you place a trapper (into an area you occupy, not your off map deployment area) you choose a face for the die. When an enemy moves into its territory you flip the die and spring a trap (steal Corra, deploy two more troops or attack for 2.) These are pretty simple in terms of rules overhead but the potential for shenanigans is there. If you come in to my area and i flip this, maybe your guys die, maybe I steal a precious resource.
Now for the icing on the cake. Lets look at a few of the feats. The Koda persistent ability is to make the trappers score VP each turn. Couple this with the face that allows you to drop more troops when revealed and suddenly you can potentially score mountains of points each round as you scatter deep into the board. Alternatively, you could use the feat that allows you to mutate three troops into werewolves. Now the tight economy isn't much of a concern as you have this ace up your sleeve.
Each faction has its own tricks and abilities and its all achieved with very simple tweaks. Take the Ooglan Karn troops. Their rule allows them to drop into an enemy controlled region. That's it. Everything else reinforces areas you own but the Karn pop up out of no where. The Venna have some rules where they can reinforce from their discarded troops where the other factions generally cant. Lots of very very simple tweaks and exceptions to that base core ruleset that really vary the factions.
We had a game where I played the Guild who have a one time use ability to take 10 Corra to their bank to spend. One player had the Paldeyn, who every time they would gain Corra, they can deploy a die instead. The third player had the Eldan, an elven faction that could spend Corra to fire arrows around the map. As the guild i had access to more or less the whole bank of resources, my troops stealing from the Eldan. The Paldeyn never took Corra opting instead to deploy their whole suite of troops. Just the faction choices dictated a completely different economy for that game. The round with Koda, Eldan and Ooglan devolved into a slugfest over the one extra Corra each round that resulted in the Koda taking off with the lead by virtue of their cheap traps. Very minor changes resulting in a very different landscape.
Component Thoughts
Now let's talk about Chip Theory, Price and Components.
So first of all the elephant in the room. My late pledge included the Core Game, the Venna and Paldeyn expansions as well as the addon for the metal troops upgrade. The price tag for all of that with shipping was just shy of $140.
If you aren't familiar with Chip Theory I'm sure you can tell from the photos that their production is incredible. No boards, all neoprene mats. High end poker chips for tokens. Custom nice dice. PVC cards that are much more durable than usual. This all makes for a beautiful product and if you like this art style it really can't be beat. It's an expensive buy in but I do think it was well worth it.
Now, on the subject of the metal troops. I bought these because they mentioned somewhere that the retail cost for the troops would be significantly higher. I did not realize when i bought them that the plastic pieces included were also the unique faction sculpts. The plastics are totally acceptable and the metal actually weigh the tray insert down enough that it makes me a little nervous when people grab it by the middle. All this to say, metal cool, not necessary.
I do however think the Paldeyn and Venna expansions are totally necessary. In a game that really thrives on that asymmetry adding more factions is kind of a no brainer. The Venna in particular are just so cool. They play like zombies but look like fae wood elves. I lost horribly but the mechanics they add are super cool.
Overall I am really into Wroth. The game plays very quick managing a teach and 3 games in just over 3 hours. Once the initial teach and play is through, the overhead to learn a new factions basics is very minimal. Compare to a game like root wherein you could spend a half hour just trying to figure out a new faction only to lose horrible because you never really got it. Our games haven't gone past round 5 yet and the game is very snappy. I have yet to dive in to it but there are also 3 solo/coop scenarios per faction to play through. Overall an absolute winner.
