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Mysthea Overview!

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Category: Age: 14+ 90 - 120 Min 2 - 4 Players 2018

Tabula Games is an indie board game design Studio that mixes Euro-style mechanics and deep theme along with high-quality components and miniatures. Now, they come to Kickstarter with their 3rd project, Mysthea, and the task of making it at least as successful as the other two.

Game Overview

You are set to discover Icaion, a world shaken by mysterious forces where anomalies bend the world of physics and dreadful monsters roam free. You will gather powerful forces and fight for dominance over the various landscapes to gain the most Glory!

You will start with a mighty champion, a strong asset to your forces and a strong assist thanks to his unique ability. But be aware, if wounded, his ability and strength will take some time to be replenished. Golems, troops, and fortifications are the other types of units at your disposal.

The game plays into three Era’s and each Era consists of three phases:

  1. Beginning of the Era: This is essentially the refresh phase of the game where you will get everything ready to start the Era.
  2. During the Era: This is the meat of the game where all the action takes place. Players will keep taking turns in clockwise order until the “End of Era” is triggered.
    On your turn, you have one normal action(Act, Develop, Meditate) and one optional special action(Activate an Accessory, Start a Battle, Move an Island, Face an Encounter) before or after the main one.There are two main resources in the game, Command and Energy points. The first kind is the one used to manipulate your forces, like traveling, deploying, recruiting Etc. but you can also spend them to gain Energy points. The latter type is used to trigger certain card effects, gain more cards and more.Let’s take a brief look at the main actions:
    Act: Play one of your cards, gaining the depicted amount of Command points and/or resolve the card’s effect. There are four kinds of cards, each with a unique effect type.
    Develop: This is a way to gain cards by paying the appropriate amount of Energy.
    Meditate: Gain Energy and the various bonus of each region in which you have at least one of your units.The other actions will give you some additional options to make the most out of your turn. Start a battle to gain Glory, receive the bonus of an Accessory, face an Encounter to gain Glory along with a bonus and lastly you have the option to move the Island where your champion is to the center of the game board.
  1. End of Era: The game has an Event deck and an Event path in which the cards are laid out throughout the Era. When a fifth card is laid on the path the end of Era is triggered and all remaining players take their last turn to close the round. Then, all Event cards are resolved in order. The deck consists of Region cards and one Storm card. The Region cards let the player who controls the depicted Region receive Glory points and the Storm card activates the vicious monsters!

Play continues this way and after the end of the 3rd Era, the player with the most points is the winner.

General Thoughts

The first thing that caught my attention in this game it’s the aesthetics. The artwork is gorgeous and the graphic design seems clean and smooth. As I read the rules I noticed that there is no text at all and all the cards have a combination of symbols instead, making it language independent! The overall productions seem high with the miniatures being detailed and stunning-looking. I love to see new companies that pay attention to the detail and want to create an immersive experience for the players.
Another interesting aspect of the game is how it blends the various mechanics and offers a lot of options and paths to gain Glory to the players, making me want to try it for sure.
Find out more about Mystea on Tabula Games Website and make sure to check out the Mysthea Kickstarter Campaign.

 

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