Raiders of Scythia in about 3 minutes

Kia Ora Koutou and welcome to raiders of scythia in about three minutes review copy used it has a solo mode using AI cards. it's a game for 1-4 players, playing time is medium and it's a moderately complex game you come from the land of the ice and snow, no wait you don't you come from Scythia, a vast land on the steppe populated by nomadic horse tribes you are the leader of one of those tribes and are seeking to gain riches and fame by raiding Assyria Persia and Greece will you become the greatest of all Scythian Raiders?

the winner of this game is the player with the most points once all but two regions are raided or there are only two quests left on the board worker placement: each turn you will place workers and locations to get the Associated benefits card management: cards in this game have multiple uses engine building: throughout the game you will assemble a crew with different special powers Each player starts the game with a leader and one follower, each follower can also have an eagle and a horse there are seven types of resources Kumis, provisions and silver are obtained in the village and livestock, wagons, equipment and gold are obtained by raiding there are two main actions: work and raid if you work place your worker in a free village space and claim the reward for example 3 silver from the silversmith you then take one of the other workers from the board claiming that benefit in this case playing a card special ability or using your leaders ability Raiding is a whole different thing!

You'll need a war band and provisions to go raiding your raid strength is equal to the total of these numbers in this case Six we want to raid this place in Assyria, it requires we use of blue or grey worker, have three members in our war band and spend four provisions we then roll the dice shown here as well as one yellow die per region with gold we get lucky and roll seven and two wounds, we add the seven to our raid strength for a total of 13 now we could claim the two victory points here but we spend three kumis in order to take our total up to 16 and claim the 4 vp's instead we then assign wounds to our crew, because the gravedigger took more wounds than their raid strength they are eliminated but both The Conspirator and grave diggers card powers take effect Finally, we take the resources off the area of our choice and the worker above it and turn the quest token over so it's available let's go back to the village, the farm gets you provisions and wagons for raiding the market is where you can sell cards the Meeting tent where you get cards and kumis the barracks is where you recruit cards to your group and heal wounds the stables lets you get eagles and horses and the Chiefs tent let you get provisions and complete missions for Victory Points why would you like this game?

the elephant in the room here is Raiders of the North Sea but I'll deal with that last on its own merits Raiders of Scythia is a well-tuned game where you build up your war band with measured moves and then take explosive and dramatic raid actions and how you manage and time your raids is intriguing and the crux of what makes this a compelling game if you love multi-use cards and engine building there's plenty of options to explore here as well the best thing about this game is the place one worker take one worker mechanic it's just a classic however, if you are looking for the Mico he is nowhere to be found there is a new art style and compared to Raiders of the North Sea it's leaner and meaner taking out some of the system's I never cared much for like Valkyries and armor and replacing them with wounds, variable leader powers and animal upgrades I think it's superior in practically every way to the original game but it doesn't have all the expansion content so if your perfect game of North Sea includes fields of fame and Hall of Heroes you might find Scythia lacking in options raiders of Scythia, like north sea, only pithier