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In this game, players incarnate clan leaders during the Golden Age of Easter Island. The board represents a simplified map of the island. Rock platforms (ahus) are where the Moaïs (monumental sculptures) will be erected.
Your clan competes against others, and you will earn more prestige by building and transporting larger, more imposing Moaïs than your opponents' clans.
Each of your pawns represents a group of men. You can grow your population if you wish. You will choose each turn which part of your population will sculpt Moaïs and which other part will transport them, in cooperation with other players.
Statues are transported from the quarry to the ahus (the rock platforms) using paths made of pawns and the help of logs.
You can use your influence (Tribal Markers) to choose the best statues and mark to your color the statues you cannot achieve in your turn. You can also rely on your Sorcerer and his mighty powers, of the strength of your Chief, as well as on mystic powers of the Rongo writing tablets.
The winner will be the one who has erected the largest statues in the best places at the end of the game.
Note that there is a Official Rule Change for this game : For the final scoring, complete Rongo tablets are no longer scored and do not earn any points to the players.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I keep calling it Things on Rings now. Uh I Things in Rings, I think is fantastic, one of my favorite All Play games, and this is very much built on that.
- I will tell you right now, I very much enjoy this game.
- This is my favorite from the games in that crowdfunding campaign.
- This is a basic this is a very similar concept that is structured more as a cooperative entity.
- You have one card per person. Let's go ahead and decide where the card goes.
- It's things on strings. Remember? Not things in rings, things on strings. Things under strings is really the correct terminology, but I think it's just less catchy as the title goes.
- I like this one more cooperatively. I think I like things in strings more more competitively, even though you can play it cooperatively and I like this one more cooperatively even though you could play it competitively.
- As the guesser, same experience, love it. I like things in strings, I like things on rings. I'd say the same level as a guesser.
- As a knower, it is more involved in this game than it is in things in strings because you're creating the rules. So, I have a better experience playing as the knower in this game.
- The one thing I don't love about this is the table set up, and I don't have a suggestion as to how to make it better, but once you have all your five clues, it does become a little weird weirdly unwieldy on the table and a little harder to follow.
- I think I like them about an equal level.
- If you have things in strings already, you do not need things in wings. If you have things in wings already, you do not need things on strings.
References (from this video)
- Brilliant and fun tactical experience.
- Charming toy factor with magnetic pieces.
- Meaningful decisions between movement and deployment.
- Lots of strategy and decisions.
- Fits in a small box.
- The base game is a strong abstract strategy game.
- Provides variety and fun when mixed with the expansion.
- Fainter lines on the board than desired.
- Barbed wire design on the edge is misleading.
- Dislike for the folded playmat due to creases and difficulty standing units.
- The Supplies expansion can make it difficult to react in a true rock, paper, scissors manner by breaking the rules.
- Can feel like a war of attrition where control is lost.
- Abstract strategy nature may not appeal to all.
- two different factions trying to dominate the battlefield
- a little war battlefield
- Santorini
- Mythic Mischief
- Tak
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action selection — The base game has a move/deploy action choice, while the expansion adds supply actions like charging, assaulting, paradropping, rallying, and retrofitting.
- Area Control — Winning involves controlling central points with Grunts or Captains to gain coins, or controlling the enemy headquarters.
- Movement and Deployment — Players choose to either move twice and then deploy once, or move once and then deploy twice each turn.
- Permanent Unit Loss — Equipment units, unlike Grunts and Leaders, are permanently removed from the game when destroyed.
- Unit customization — Units can be customized with different heads (e.g., cannon, transport, anti-aircraft) that affect their abilities.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Grunts is a two-player abstract strategy game disguised as a cute little war game.
- This entire thing is a complicated rock, paper, scissors puzzle of how to prevent whatever your opponent is trying to do through the way you can move, position, and deploy in ways that stop them from achieving their goal while helping you achieve yours.
- This to me to me this is a 4.5 out of five.
- I really don't like mats like this.