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Photo: Maren Hoffmann / DER SPIEGEL
»Ankh«: There can only be one God - but which one?
Giant scorpions, mummies, crocodile servants: Egypt's mythical creatures put themselves in the service of rival gods in the board game "Ankh".
Osiris, Anubis, Amun, Ra and Isis fight among themselves to see who will be the only, the true, the right God in the future.
And because that's tradition in religion, they do it militarily.
We look at a map of Egypt, on which there are already a few temples, obelisks and pyramids - and us, the rival gods. In the end, the winner is whoever made it to the top of the adoration track. If no god could really inspire the people, they defiantly succumb to atheism; then nobody wins. If there are more than two players, there is also a mechanism that divides the minds of the game scene (namely into a larger part that doesn't like it and a smaller part that thinks it's very cool): From a certain score onwards, the weakest player takes his / her God out of the game and from then on controls the second weakest jointly as a two-in-one with the former rival. That may be theologically correct, but it may be that a victory then doesn't feel as good as an individual victory.But the game is excellent to play with two people, then this question does not arise.
You can tell that "Ankh" by Eric M. Lang came from the Kickstarter financing platform, even if it is now freely available in stores. Games that go into the race via crowdfunding have a certain tendency to over-motorize the equipment: Discreetness is weakness. "Miniatures" is a certain understatement for the large, detailed figures that slide across the thick board. This also makes the game look more complex than it is. Certainly not for beginners, but not overly complicated either. The replay appeal is high, because there is a rich selection of scenarios to choose from, and the gods have very different abilities. You mark off areas, march in, push back and have to use your own battle cards cleverly in order to be able to decide one of the maximum five conflicts for yourself.In the end there can only be one - or none.
For two to five people aged 14 and over, playing time a good one and a half hours
Hand on it:
Solvent material fetishists with a large gaming table
Hands off:
couples in need of harmony with low frustration tolerance
»Kemet - Blood and Sand«: equipment knockers for large tables
What do game designers always have with scorpions? Somewhere in China, an injection molding company has to be constantly busy producing hordes and hordes of large plastic scorpions. And in every game publisher there has to be at least one scorpion officer who has to edit the poisonous little animals in as many rules of the game as possible. In »Kemet - Blood and Sand«, as in »Ankh«, it is not a mistake to spice up your own army with a fat scorpion. And »Kemet« is also an opulent equipment knockout for owners of large tables.
There may be other technical terms, but basically it's a face-the-face game that requires far-sighted planning and cool calculation. Again we are gods in the ancient Egyptian Nile Valley. The winner is whoever has the most fame points at the end. Whoever owns nine first heralds the end, but does not have to be the winner because he or she will be a target in the final round at the latest. Because fame is ephemeral and can be hunted down again - unless one has done such great deeds that one could achieve permanent fame. We march cheerfully into opposing territory and happily slaughter in front of us, but with caution: You have to wisely buy power tokens, use battle cards and divine interventions, need prayer points and soldiers and strive to upgrade your own pyramids.
"Kemet" by Jacques Bariot and Guillaume Montiaget is very strategic and has many innovative mechanisms - the finely sorted display with the power tokens alone is a feast for the eyes and the brain.
For two to five people aged twelve and over, playing time one to two hours
Hand on it:
people who can combine aggression with calculation
Hands off:
equipment purists, for whom small wooden cubes would do it as armies
»Faiyum«: desert outside, crocodiles inside
The games of the green-haired Friedemann Friese always come in boxes primed green and have a certain cult status in the board game scene. Many are good, but the graphic style, which is often a bit crude, sometimes seems out of date. The "Faiyum" with bilingual captions in German and English also shows a defiantly unadorned map of the oasis-like basin of the same name, which became the breadbasket of Egypt under the kings of the Middle Kingdom. A demanding task awaits behind the rather inconspicuous facade: desert outside, crocodiles inside, a lot to do, initially few resources. Our only goal: To get to the top of the Pharaoh through brilliant performance as an agricultural advisor. Apart from reputation points, nothing counts in the end.
Faiyum is easy to learn but difficult to master; According to the author, it is a "strategic game for fans of predictable games." You play through your own cards and acquire new ones on the market. The cards give you raw materials, money, additional cards and reputation. Gradually your own deck just keeps getting better. The order in which they are played is crucial, because you always get your cards back into your hand in exactly the opposite order - and you should pay close attention to the timing so that the weaker ones stay on the bottom. There are plenty of tactical and strategic options. It is appealing that all structures on the board - roads, bridges, settlements, cities, businesses - can be built by all players, but can then also be used by all. Those who prefer to puzzle (or train) alone,is well served with the solo mode.
For up to five people aged twelve and over, playing time around two hours
Hand on it:
dice hater and forward thinker
Hands off:
Spontaneous decision-makers based on their guts
"Tekhenu - the sun obelisk": Complex machinery
Complications are the name of the ingenious mechanisms in mechanical watches that ensure that the date or the moon position are displayed or that the watch plays a small melody on the hour. If you look over the shoulder of a watchmaker who has a movement with several complications in front of you, you have a similar feeling to a round of games looking for the first time at the "Tekhenu" schedule by Daniele Tascini and David Turczi: There is an incredible amount Stuff, an incredible number of symbols and mechanics, everything is somehow important and everything interlocks in a way that is difficult to understand. If you are scared off now, please go one more game to "Min Amun", which is pleasantly simple and yet really nice.
But if you love complex challenges while playing, this is the right place for you. The biggest hurdle is likely to be to find teammates who, when explaining the 32-page rule, do not announce at some point that they will get a beer from the kitchen and then never come back.
The game is great once you have delved deep into the subject and, like a mechanical clock, unfolds its own magic once it is running. Everyone only has a total of 16 actions in the game - but they need to be carefully considered. The central element on the beautiful plan is a golden obelisk on a turntable with cubes around it - depending on where they do this and how it was rotated, you can take them or not and then you have to decide whether you want to leave the Served on the light or the dark side. The dice give raw materials, but also god actions; you build statues, columns and factories, try to increase the satisfaction of the people and to achieve a good balance between different types of dice.
It is immensely satisfying when you can manage to mesh the actions like a well-oiled machine.
However, it doesn’t work entirely without luck - after all, dice play along.
And if you can't find a teammate, you can play solo against the Botenchamun variant.
(The game is currently available in German at Spiele-Offensive.de.)
For up to four people from the age of twelve, according to the publisher, one to two hours of playing time.
Hand on it:
people who knew their cheat sheets by heart in school.
Hands off:
people who think long and hard about a move.
That can really get out of hand here.
"
Min Amun": Deben and Deben
Papyrus, cattle, grapes, wheat and alabaster - the fertile Nile Valley gives generous amounts of goods. We are all trying to turn our own small towns into lucrative trading spots. The diminutive is appropriate here because the resources are only a few millimeters in size. The fine, peaceful tile-laying game by Cyrille Leroy appeared two years ago under the name »Fertility«. It is ideal as a small nightcap or a game aperitif for an evening when you have other plans.
"Min Amun" goes over nine fast laps, in the end the winner is whoever has the most deben, that is, the money. You get that in the shops that you put on your own city board. But of course you have to offer something to the customer for that; you collect the necessary goods by placing valley tiles on a central, variable game board. In return you get raw materials, which you immediately put in suitable stores - surplus raw materials expire, so be careful when choosing a store! Whoever finds the right balance between raw materials, store purchase and resource placement and also pays attention to their own monuments and a little worship of gods wins.
The family game is a fun tinkering, not too difficult, not too easy, learned quickly, and not every mistake catapults you straight onto the loser road.
A bit of luck is also involved.
The fun goes over nine fast laps;
the fixtures could have been a bit more robust, however.
For two to four people aged ten and over, playing time just under half an hour
Hand on it:
low-aggression optimizer
Hands
off:
Action lovers who need a lot of interaction