Namely, because it didn’t involve playing people off of each other in a twelve-hour Twilight Imperium fest, but that’s ultimately still my fault. I couldn’t get a handle on the area control. I didn’t manipulate the mechanisms in the most effective manner. Most importantly, though, Fall of the Mountain King does its own thing… really, really well. And it’s got a central puzzle that will delight many players as they discover the best paths to victory.
It’s got freakish swarms of gnomes and battered but beautiful trolls. It challenges players with a twisted tango of strong and weak actions each turn. It introduces new ideas for area control. The mechanics may seem disparate when being described but they fit together nicely and make for a very satisfying puzzle.įall of the Mountain King immediately casts aside any doubt that you might have when you hear words like “prequel” or “sequel” and it tosses those uncertainties out the window along with a few unruly gnomes. There is a somewhat un-intuitive aspect to the area control that is actually very interesting and encourages you to approach it differently than other games. You need to balance where you are on the map with where you want to be when the gnomes make a big push. But when the end-of-wave invasion occurs, players will want their trolls on the front line because dying first is what gives the most victory points. When gnomes are present, killing them grants you victory points and helps you solidify positions and relationships with the respective clans where the gnomish invaders are. Pushing into more territory is necessary, as it gives you access to other parts of the map and it builds influence with the clans. You get to decide how you go down fighting, though.Īnd speaking of how you fight, the area control has several layers to it. At the end of each wave, the gnomes attack and push further into the mountain, pushing the players back and killing off more trolls.Īt the end of the game, troll presence around the great halls is tabulated and influence with each clan is scored. In each wave, players have a certain number of actions they can perform based on the specific wave and any barrels that are present in a player’s action-selection tableau. They can inform how a player uses their Ancestry (which is the tile-based action selection part of the game). Troll champions give benefits that are either passive or active throughout the game. And then the Gnome action enables you to take a peek at upcoming invasion points and the relative strength of certain gnome units. Influence is how you endeavor to recruit champions and gain favor with the clans. Advance moves trolls around the board which can initiate conflict or influence-gain with certain clans. It gives more variability but isn’t as big of a play.īolster gives new trolls for deployment and fighting. A Weak action is one of those same options but with a value of 1, allowing you to perform two smaller actions of possibly different types. That’s how you can make big plays on Influence, Bolster, Advance, and Gnomish surveillance and espionage. Strong indicates an action with a value of 2 or higher.
The strategy is complex but the basic turn structure is pretty straightforward.ĭuring your turn, you can take one Strong action or two Weak actions. That’s what you have to decipher in order to win. I’ve mentioned it already but the juxtaposition between the unique area control mechanism and the puzzle-y action selection is the thumping troll heart of Fall of the Mountain King. And a completely different game.ĭesigned by Adam Daulton with art from Xaiver Cuenca and Fahed Alrajil, Fall of the Mountain King is live on Kickstarter and I’ve got some thoughts for you! What It Does The mischievous mites swarm into the tunnels and overwhelm the larger denizens of the dark. Now the ancient story can be played out in Fall of the Mountain King! We will face the gobs of gnomes. How did these lawn ornaments devise such a destructive plan? Why did they make such a pivot from helping travelers find great rates?
The ignominious Gnomes had been the ones to bring the mighty Trolls down into the darkness. It was a good game, but the shadow of the past loomed over it, threatening to spoil the progress of the present. Which is the best word you’ll read today. Trolls reclaiming their mountain homeland by unearthing great halls, recovering historical totems, and rebuilding the past to assert a glorious future!Īlso, players of In the Hall of the Mountain King were assembling trollsmoots.
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