Overcoming issues with printing EoA (long story about a printing arrangement gone bad) that delayed it for some time, the game recently became available directly from Thanes Games. I bought it as soon as I had money freed up to do so and it arrived Priority Mail within three days of my order. Reason I mention this is that you are dealing with the company, not a distributor, when you buy EoA. It's good to get good service and I wanted to point that out in addition to the product review.
I tore open the package and saw the game's box covered with the same art style that graces the AoA rulebook with the customary descriptive blurb on the back panel describing what fun I was about to have. Inside the box were several small ziploc baggies, a 8 1/2 x 11 rules booklet, a reference sheet, a fold-out gameboard and a hand-signed note from the author himself thanking me for being one of the first people to buy the game.
The ziplocked baggies contain square counters representing troop units and structures for the game; the game supports 2 to 6 players. Counters are dual-sided with single units on one side and 3 units on the other. There were also card counters for magic power (mana - printed on hot pink cardstock), gold (cool gold-colored cardstock printed to look like ingots), goblin counters (thick constructed chits like the army counters), a deck of province cards and a whole bunch of six-sided dice.
The gameboard, which is made from fairly sturdy stock, reminds me a lot of LOTR Risk. It's a 2D depiction of a fantasy world containing 50 provinces---that you'll soon be fighting to control. Laying that puppy out, I divvied up three armies' worth of pieces and read the set-up section. The process is very similar to Risk or Twilight Imperium but with an added twist or two. I refer specifically to goblins!
Each player is dealt six cards representing provinces that he or she has settled prior to the game's start. You don't have to use all of the cards but you must use at least four of them in order to place your starting forces. Everyone has equal numbers of towns, infantry, and cavalry to begin with and there are limits on how many can be grouped together in one place during set-up. Once everyone's got their territories staked out, the greenskins get a go.
Goblin warrens get placed in areas not claimed by the players and the game begins with a warren for each player (with a minimum of 3) drawn from the remaining provinces in the deck. Warrens can boost the number of goblins that randomly appear in the game and can be a real pain to clear out. Once these are placed, you put an upturned mana counter in all the remaining unclaimed territories. These are the unexplored areas that will be your mission to conquer in addition to opponents' lands and goblin-held realms.
Winning the game requires you to accomplish one of three goals. You can wipe out all the other players. You can control a majority of the board's provinces. Or you can be the first to earn seven reputation points. Reputation points are earned by achieving big goals in the game like owning x number of wizard towers, making a large enough gold profit, having a large enough military force above x or for destroying goblin strongholds.
The turn sequence is pretty intuitive for strategy/political/wargame hybrids like this. Everyone completes a phase before moving to the next. First everyone gets their income (gold and magic mana) for provinces, towns, castles, etc. This gold and mana will come in handy later. Better developed provinces (with castles and wizard towers) can help increase your gold and/or mana income----but these structures require investing gold to establish them.
After income comes the goblin phase. Goblins appear on the board based on a random draw of the province cards (discarded cards are later reshuffled into the deck to help the process and to make sure that nobody gets the idea that they're safe from the greenies). Goblins appearing in a settled province launch attacks that must be completely fought off or lost altogether since gobbies never retreat. Goblin attacks on claimed territories are resolved like normal combats with one side being the victor or a mutual decimation.
Once the goblin incursions have been handled, the next phase is the Warlord phase---when the players become even more actively involved. The phases are Sorceries, Movement and Combat Resolution. Players roll initiative and carry out all of their Warlord phases in order. That is, Player 1 does her Sorceries, Movement, then Combat Resolutions before Player 2 performs these sub-phases of the Warlord actions.
You can use towns, castles and wizards towers as focal points from which to launch magical spells called Sorceries. Sorceries can be used to thrash enemy provinces' units, structures, convert mana to gold (helpful when you have large armies that take up maintenance resources) or even siphon gold away from your opponent's supply. Sorceries are ranged effects that are dependent on the structures from which they are cast. Towns (the basic structure) provide much more limited range than, say, the more advanced wizard towers.
Mana points are used to fuel these efforts. Each mana typically converts to a d6 added to the pool---increasing the chances of the sorcery succeeding. For example, a player could attack a neighboring players grunts with a Firestorm sorcery. This is a power 3 attack, which means every d6 roll of 3 or lower succeeds in killing an enemy unit. If the player spends one mana, he gets one die to roll. If he spends more mana, he gets that number of dice to roll, each succeeding on a roll of 3 or less. You cannot launch a sorcery bit by bit, so there's no rolling a die and seeing the result, then committing more mana if needed; you commit your mana, then roll those dice all at once.
Attacked warlords (players) don't have to sit by idly while they are attacked. They can use mana to attempt to negate a sorcery BEFORE it is resolved. Every mana spent this way negates an enemy die (again, the attacker will have declared how many dice she planned on rolling before this) if the defending player rolls well---it's a chance not a guarantee that the magic can be countered. The defending player is also free to launch a retaliatory sorcery against the player that just attacked him, assuming he has a suitable structure in range that survived the magical attack.
Once this part of the warlord phase is over you get to move your troops. Infantry, cavalry and (later) dragon mounted troops and wizards all have different movement rates. You can move through uninhabited provinces unhindered but must stop if you encounter enemy forces unless you're using dragons, which can fly over enemies except other dragons. Moving into an occupied province will result in combat. Moving into unexplored country could mean a fight with wilderness-dwelling goblins. Goblins enountered in the wilds are rolled for randomly.
Combat resolution has the moving player as the attacker for any already occupied province he's moved into. Different units (infantry, cavalry, wizards and dragons) have increasing combat ability and scoring low is a good thing on your dice rolls. Infantry kill enemy troops whenever they roll a 2 or less on a d6 while the more powerful dragons kill enemy troops on a 5 or less. The owning player decides which unit bites the dust, which means that infantry tend to get ground away as cannon fodder to protect more powerful troops. The attack continues until only one force remains or the attacker retreats into friendly territory.
Each attack round starts with a combat spell phase. The attacker can use mana to help his forces or to injure his opponents in the combat and gets to go first in this sub-sub phase. The defender may also use combat spells to return the favor. Once the combat spells are resolved, battle takes place. Battle continues until the attacker withdraws, one player's units are all that remains in the province or both players' units are mutually wiped out.
Once all the players have taken their warlord phase, it's time to ante up and pay for all those troops you have deployed on the board. Units cost gold for every three units in your force (rounded down). If you don't have enough in your coffers to pay your troops, you'll lose enough to take you down to your budget OR you can remove them from play and refuse to take the loss in gold. Either way, you have to have enough gold to support your troops or you lose those you can't afford. You might wanna keep some money back though because the next phase is about purchases.
Once you've finished paying for the troops you've retained, it's time to think about improving your provinces. You can add troops to help defend your lands. Note that some units, just like in RTS computer games and other long term strategy games like Twilight Imperium, require prerequisite structures before you can field them. For example, you have to own a castle before you can produce a dragon. In addition to troop purchases, you can establish towns or upgrade towns or even install wizard towers and gates.
Upgraded structures have assumed garrisons (troops not counted for by counters) that defend them in addition to or in lieu of other units being present during an attack. Upgraded structures also allow you to field more powerful units (e.g., wizards) and extend the range of your sorceries from those structures (e.g., a town has a range of 2 provinces away for sorceries whereas wizard towers can hit stuff 6 provinces away).
Once everyone's made their purchases (none are mandatory), it's time for a new turn. Because there are numerous ways to win, you will periodically check victory conditions. Once someone has complete one of the required winning goals, the game has been won.
The last section of the rules includes options to change the nature of the game. You can let players pick their set up provinces instead of drawing for them. You can allow warlords to trade money and mana or even to allow enemy troops safe passage through their lands. You can even restrain the goblin tide by removing the goblin phase altogether (though some of the little jerks will still hiding in unexplored/unclaimed lands). You can even allow defenders to retreat if you wanna play that option. Lots of good variants to keep the game fun and flexible, IMO.
Good Things:
Allows 2-6 players so you can play with just one other person or with a large group or it can even be played solo.
Fast-moving turn sequence will help keep players interested and involved as they have to interact to opponent attacks and keep track of their resources and purchases
Beautifully done artwork on the components, which are large enough to see and move about the board without being too fiddly
Well thought out mechanics with thorough explanations of special situations and examples provided
Pre-cut counters that save me from ruining game components and wasting time that could be used playing the game!
Things I Would Change:
The gameboard is made of laminated/water resistant cardstock hinge-attached so that it folds out and stores easily. I would have liked a sturdier board to better withstand the wear that this game will undoubtedly be getting. It's very serviceable as is, just my preference is all.
Some of my counters were separating (i.e., images were peeling off the counter stock) during my first run through. I will be fixing this by either laminating the counters or using clear packing tape to make sure they stay together. This is not a show-stopper by any means and is very easily fixed-- it's just something to be aware of.
This game would be a 5/5 otherwise and I really think it's more of a 5/4.5 as it currently stands because it's that good. Overall, I think EoA is one of the better boardgames I've ever played. The system works well and provides a good level of detail without getting tedious. Thane has again managed to distill the best attributes of a game genre into a very enjoyable gaming experience. If you like fantasy games with resource management, EoA is an awesome entry for your gaming dollar.
