In Short
Conquest of Nerath offers two to four player military competition across a fantasy game board. The four factions have different starting locations and powers via unique card decks providing a different feel to each group. Player armies conquer enemy regions while hero units delve into dungeons, with each action potentially scoring victory points. The game is easy to learn and there's a decent mix of strategy in purchasing units with funds secured at the end of a turn. Nerath is a good choice for those who want a game that is easy to teach, only takes a few hours to play, and celebrates fun parts of the D&D property while being something distinct from other D&D-inspired games.The Good: Easy to learn. Distinct miniatures. Several appealing strategies can emerge, making the decision to buy any given unit a challenging one. Fun integration of land and sea mechanics.
The Bad: Some mechanical concerns appeared in our three player games. While fun in smaller doses, the set board and relatively small mix of tactics does limit replayability.
The Physical Thing
At $80 this large board game is on par with similar quality games in this range, such as FFG's offerings. The pieces are well-sculpted and each faction receives unique fighter, footmen, and monster pieces which adds a good bit to the atmosphere. The board is a simple folding affair, but to its credit the regions are very clear and there was never any confusion as to which areas bordered other areas. The box for the game easily ranks as one of the best board game boxes out there, as absolutely all of the pieces easily fit inside the expertly designed compartments allowing for easy cleanup and storage. The rulebook was easy to read and the group had comparatively few rules questions while diving right in. For production quality the game earns a 5/5.Under the Cover
In Conquest of Nerath players choose one or more of four warring factions and fight to be the first to achieve a total number of victory points, typically twenty or thirty for a standard game. I say one or more because the rules enable games of two, three, and four players but all factions must be played. A two player game, then, involves one player controlling the two good powers while another controls the two evil powers. A three player game splits up the evil powers, with one player controlling each and the other controlling the two good powers, but the evil powers form an alliance making it two on one. It's an interesting way to structure the game and it's also how I played it with two friends in preparation of writing this review.Once a player knows what faction(s) they have control of it's time to set up the game board. The board has a number of existing unit spots already mapped out, and each player has a cardboard summary of all of their home territories and which units go to which territory. We found setup to take only about fifteen minutes the first time, and after that it was about ten minutes a go to get all of the pieces out there. Setup is completely static. This means that a good strategy in game one for the first player, always Karkoth, will very consistently be a good strategy. The only random element here comes from the card decks. Each faction has one composed of unique abilities that fit their general theme. Vailin, for example, has a large number of cards that boost naval warfare and unit creation at sea thereby encouraging them to become a dominant naval power. The opening hand of two cards, plus a third drawn on turn one, could change the opening attacks of the game a little bit.
Before delving into the rest of the mechanics, allow me to lay out a standard turn. Players begin by drawing a new card and then moving their units as they desire. Units move one, two, or more spaces depending on what type of unit they are. Flying units can operate on both land and sea and are highly mobile. Ships stay in the water and can be used to ferry up to two units at a time to a distant shore or function effectively as “land bridges” to allow units to skip certain terrain to get at an enemy when positioned by coastal areas. Battles are not fought until all units a player wishes to move have been moved, and any unit must cease its movement once it enters a territory controlled by any enemy player (even if that territory is empty).
At the third step battles are fought. All the units moved into an enemy's area fight that enemy's units. Players roll a mix of dice, from d6 to d20, based on the units they have available. Any result of a six or higher scores a hit. All units can take only one hit, except for dragons which may take two and regenerate the hit at the end of a round. If an assaulting player kills all of the enemy forces then that player's units stay in the newly conquered territory. If not, the assaulting player may either continue to attack and take her chances or retreat back to the territory the units originally attacked from. Hero units (fighters and wizards) also explore any dungeons they have moved to, fighting the monsters there and, if they win, drawing a card from the treasure deck.
Step four involves exiting dungeons (heroes return to the nearest area) and repositioning flying units. This step is important as it allows dungeoneering characters to potentially be attacked and, most of all, allows the flying units to be immensely powerful as they can cover wide areas with ease. Step five has the player spend gold to acquire new units, ranging from one to five gold each where the player typically has ten to twenty gold to spend. These units come into play at the faction's capital or any castle. Finally, in step six players acquire their income. Income is set at a base level by faction and changes based on net gain or loss of territory.
The units fall into a few straightforward groups. Footmen cost one gold, move one spot, and roll a d6. They are best used to take hits to protect more valuable units on the field and for the remote hope that those d6s actually score hits. The siege engine is the backbone of offense at a cost of two. While it only moves at a rate of one point, it rolls 2d8 on offense. A few of these can lead to decimating assaults on the enemy. Monsters cost three, can move two spaces, and roll a d12. Their benefit is that when they win a battle they may immediately move into an undefended region. They can work well against opponents who leave lots of vacant areas to pile units up, a fairly common tactic, but their cost is high for this benefit. Fighters cost two, roll a d10, and may move two spaces, making them a generally useful unit especially for dungeons though my group tended to purchase far more wizards than fighters.
Wizards, like fighters, move two and roll a d10, but they cost three points and gain the ability to roll their attack die first and resolve the attack immediately. In small groups this is devastating, crippling the enemy's ability to attack and moving into areas with few to no losses. Combined with a few footmen to take hits, or a single dragon, a wizard-heavy force worked very well against small to medium sized groups of defenders. Speaking of dragons, they cost a whopping five but have a fly speed of three, roll a d20 on attack, and require two hits to be killed. They worked very well in supporting other armies, in taking control of isolated territories, and in protecting the coast from enemy ships.
Ships roll a d8 to attack and can carry two passengers while moving two, all at a cost of two gold. Heroes (fighters and wizards) aboard ships may also roll during naval conflict. To partially counter ship dominion, storm elementals cost three, can move 2 (fly), and roll 2d8 when fighting at sea. While playing the elves I loved to aggressively go after enemy ships with the storm elementals early in the game to deny them sea use, which then allows the elves to pile up units in a choke hold in their territory. The final unit here, the castle, can only defend with a d20. If defeated it is captured by the enemy. What's most significant is that the castle will allow for the deployment of additional units. Placing a castle on the island in the middle of the board, for example, allows for domination over a significant number of territories.
The core game play is reminiscent of Risk with powers constantly trying to take other territory. In this case every time a power takes an enemy territory she scores one point. The gold reward provides some incentive to hold on to territories, but not necessarily for too long. Karkoth in our games was very successful thanks to going first. Karkoth would seize several enemy areas, the enemy would push back to reclaim those areas (scoring no victory points as those areas originally belonged to them) and then Karkoth would take the same areas again on the next turn. Seizing the initiative in expanding into another player's territory is incredibly valuable in this game. Combined with the fact that Karkoth receives the smallest initial amount of gold but the largest amount of gold per turn, we observed Karkoth to kick massive butt in each of the games we played.
Fighting through the dungeon was an interesting option. The first time adventurers just have to face one monster, but after that they must face two and each monster is the equivalent of at least one strong unit. This meant that continually moving through a dungeon took a large expenditure of resources, which would not be possible if the power had lost too many territories. Our impression was that it was worthwhile to hit a dungeon at least once with a couple of extra units for the treasure card and quick victory points, but focusing exclusively on the dungeon wasn't an option. It can be part of a faction's victory path but it can not dominate it.
The Event decks are meant to provide a lot of strategy for each power as these decks offer a good amount of tactical options. Other than Karkoth's strong starting position, this is another area where I have some balance concerns. Each deck has a few general strategy cards in common, but after that they split in their focus. The evil powers tend to have aggressive decks built around taking more territories or making existing units stronger. The humans are more defensive, with stronger support for foot soldiers and warriors. The elves are focused heavily around naval warfare, too much so in my view as it causes them to suffer from the more aggressive cards wielded by their nearest enemies. I'm not making any sweeping claims that the game is unbalanced or anything of the sort. I am a critic, however, and my big criticism here is that, at least for novice players, Karkoth comes across as a very strong power. I don't believe the gold distribution or strength of the individual decks does a lot to help balance out the powers, with the possible exception of the elves who seem to have a weaker deck overall but get to go second.
