Search
Review of Scythe: The Rise Of Fenris
Blurb from the publisher: 'Empires have risen and fallen in the aftermath of the Great War, and Europa stands on the precipice of a new era. The economy is robust, morale is high, and defenses are strong. There are reports from the countryside of strange soldiers with glowing eyes, but they seem distant and harmless.
Scythe: The Rise of Fenris, the conclusion to the Scythe expansion trilogy, enables two different options for any player count (1-5 if you have Scythe; 1-7 players if you have Invaders from Afar):
- Campaign (8 games): The story of Scythe continues and concludes with an 8-episode campaign. While the campaign includes surprises, unlocks, and persistent elements, it is fully resettable and replayable.
- Modular (11 modules): Instead of—or after—the campaign, the new modules in The Rise of Fenris can be used in various combinations to cater to player preferences. These modules are compatible with all Scythe expansions, and they include a fully cooperative module that isn't part of the competitive campaign.
While the exact nature of the episodes and modules will remain a mystery (most of these components are in 5 secret tuckboxes and on 6 punchboards), the components in this expansion include a detailed episodic guidebook, 13 plastic miniatures, 62 wooden tokens, 2 custom dice, 25 tiles, 100+ cardboard tokens, a campaign log, and 1 achievement sheet.'
What you get: Your EUR 50 or equivalent will buy you Scythe: The Rise Of Fenris, the expansion that concludes the Scythe game line. For those who hadn't read the review of the base game, it is a 4x game for two to five players that ends in... 115 minutes (that's exactly what the game claims) and accommodates from one to five players. Scythe is a persisting sensation, has won a few dozen nominations and awards, and looks the world from up high from BGG's top-10 three years after its initial publication.
Seeing how the publisher's blurb covered the game's components, it is pointless for me to restate them. At different points during the game the players will get access to hidden elements inside small boxed sets, new cards, punchboards etc.
In the interest of full disclosure, I playtested the present expansion with Scythe alone. I do not have the other two expansions in my hands, thus I cannot comment on how it works with them.
Gameplay: The present expansion can be played as a campaign with eight sequential episodes, or utilized as a modular expansion with eleven different modules that can be mixed as your groups sees fit.
The campaign starts at the end of the Great War, or rather, the Great War with mechs roaming the battlefield. Each scenario has its special rules and objectives, and slowly reveals new elements. Scenarios branch out through a mechanism relating to the acquisition of stars. The first few scenarios do not use the material from The Wind Gambit, one of the game's previous expansions. Fluff-wise, the eight episodes cover three years, from 1921 to 1924. The campaign is won by the faction that wins the last of the eight episodes as well as had the best performance up to then episode after episode. The objective? Defeat Tesla who has been driven mad by remorse from creating these monstrous machines, and who is indiscriminately attacking everything he encounters. Tesla has quite the power and will need a high number of attacks to eliminate.
The mods range from really small affairs like the War Triumph Track to brand new factions. Some of them are add-ons to the existing game, others substitute parts of the existing game, while some are mutually exclusive.
Mech Mods is a semi-random method of adding variety to a faction at the beginning of each game.
Idem for the Infrastructure mods, which can be used once per game when certain prerequisites are met.
The War Triumph Track increases combat in game due to its differentiated mechanics from the traditional track (e.g. no stars for maximizing popularity or placing all eight workers).
The Peace Triumph Track is War's mirror image (e.g. combat victories mean nothing) and encourages peaceful activities over confrontation.
Rivals is a module that can be played with either the War or the Peace Triumph Track, even though it is designed for the former. It effectively promotes grudge matches, and rewards the players that take it out on those who wrong them.
Alliances is a more formal system of diplomacy compared to standard Scythe. When entering an alliance, a player gains the other faction's special ability and grants it his.
Vesna is the faction of Tesla's daughter (which, for the purposes of the campaign, are the good guys). It has only two fixed abilities. Through a semi-random selection out of eighteen mech tiles, the faction will add an additional four to its board. In addition, the faction starts the game with three factory cards which can use as one-offs during the game.
Fenris on the other hand (the bad guys in the campaign but a fully playble faction in standard games) is a powerful faction with handicaps. It effectively begins the game with -16 money, which are disbursed on the board as Influence tokens. These stop the movement of non-Fenris factions which stumble upon them, and which are now burdened by having to pick them up and keep them, penalizing themselves in the process.
Tesla might be the ultimate hostile in the campaign, when used in normal games however he can be a unit to be claimed by the first player to have three Encounters. As such, the module promotes exploration.
Triumph Tiles randomize the Triumph Track, and provide variability.
Mad Tesla is an alternate take on Tesla, this time as an opponent for everybody to fight.
Desolation is a cooperative module which can be played as long as a faction remains unclaimed. The objective is to fulfill global goals, namely have at least one star in every triumph category before the (automated) desolation faction wins. Alternatively, the players can try to destroy all of Desolation's units before it wins the game by claiming 6 stars or the game's internal clock runs out.
Finally, Multiplayer Automa is a module that allows a game between both human and automated opponents. This is not a coop. Automa factions win under the same terms as the humans.
The strong points: A campaign for Scythe, you say? If you know your Scythe (and being interested in this item suggests that you do), you will have no problem understanding the minimal new rules which are gradually inserted in the basic game. The campaign is not just a repetition of multiple, base-game like scenarios. Some of them are extremely short, lasting only half an hour. Others are longer, more in line with standard Scythe. I will be fairly surprised if it takes more than 15 hours for any group to conclude the campaign, and I am rather generous here. Replayability and variability are off the scale. Some of the scenarios require a hawkish predisposition, in others you are more likely to win when you play as the dove, all of them however promote a get-out-there attitude instead of turtling techniques. I obviously recommend running the campaign fully once, having done that however nobody restricts you from playing isolated episodes here and there, simply because you like them or because their time requirements suit you better.
Even though the presentation inside the box is reminiscent of Legacy games, The Rise Of Fenris is not one. It tries really hard to create a fog through which the players will discover what is going on after they complete a mission and proceed to the next one. It doesn't always succeed; the information on the cardboard pieces give certain 'secrets' away. Yet, I am quite happy that it went that way and not full-on Legacy.
Coops are all the rage today and Scythe tackling the style is a positive in my book. The game feels different, something that grants the original Scythe an even higher replayability. The rules are acceptable and a click more than that, they are not however 100% perfect. Namely, don't do things that do not directly contribute to your winning conditions. That should have been handled differently, I am sure however that a committed group can house rule a few things, either systematically or on a case by case basis, in order to play this module more often. Easy fixes for that type of design exist after all.
Idem for the combination of human/automa rules. I have to praise the originality of the design, which, unless my momory serves me wrong, I have only seen once before in Pericles: The Peloponnesian Wars. The execution here will again struggle at times. Yet, with a bit of goo will and players who wish to see real competition from the robotic counterparts, things can be fixed.
The modules are extremely varied. Not everybody will like the same, or rather, not every module will be a good match for any occasion. I really, really liked the alternative Triumph Tracks. Used cleverly in a base game, they can act as an equalizer for newer players, by slightly tilting the game their side while they are still learning the ropes. I am substantially more likely to use the Alliances module in future games around a full table (as opposed to games with a low number of players), lest factions end up samish.
The rulebook is a ring binder (!), and a very well crafted one at that. The components and production values are exactly what one would expect from a game in the Scythe line. The miniatures are impressive once again. The Fenris mechs are enormous. They dominate the battlefield by a factor of two when compared to every other faction. If the objective was shock and awe, this expansion has succeeded.
Even though this is not related to the present expansion strictly-speaking, I like how Scythe opted for a closed cycle of expansions. I wish more games did this in a planned, programmed way.
The weak points: Eleven modules sounds great and all, but I will repeat that they cannot be used simultaneously on a mouth-watering Scythe extravaganza. I do not mind at all, there are many games and expansions which take the same road. It is better however to know this in advance, in order to make an informed purchase.
Balance-wise and depending on where you come from, the present expansion might not feel perfect. Module-wise, if you are playing with newer accolytes set aside the two new factions for the time being. Vesna is hard, seeing how devising tactics for it requires quite the experience. Fenris can become overbearing if the player handling it knows what it is doing. The other modules need some prudence when inserting in a standard game. Easy example: the more war-oriented your faction is, the more advantageous the War Triumph Track will be to you.
Campaign-wise, there are certain misses when it comes to the design. Not every scenario offers the same amount of satisfaction. The final scenario has only one conclusion, while the thematically appropriate narratives at the end in order to determine your leadership style are less than what I expected. Depending on your choices in the previous scenarios, you might enter episode eight without real chances of winning the campaign. Coming out undergunned in the final game or observing obvious rich-get-richer issues from one episode to the other puts a damper to what the campaign tries to achieve. Also, if you are expecting some deep emotional scenarios with make-or-break choices and outcomes, you will be disappointed. The fluff is good, yet the progress of the fluff as the scenarios unfold is weak, ending in a rather anti-climactic tone. At the end of the day, you are simply trying to win, playing the same faction eight times in a row.
If you like solo play, unfortunately you cannot play all of the modules in it. Tough luck.
At 50 EUR a pop, this is definitely an expensive expansion. Frankly, it should have cost 25% less.
I am slowly reaching into nit-picking land, yet I didn't like how the modules were inserted in the rulebook. They work great when you are learning the campaign. Yet, if you have finished with that, and you wish to simply choose a few for your next standard game, expect quite the page-flipping. Would it have been so much to add an extra 4 pages to the rulebook and concisely put everything in the same place?
Conclusion: I am happy with the Rise of Fenris even though the price seriously bites. Admittedly the campaign might not see as much action once it has been played through a couple of times. The modules however offer a broad range of major and minor tweaks that increase the original game's replayability. A must for experienced Scythe players, a try-before-you-buy for those who like the base game but cannot easily absorb such a cost.
For more info on Scythe: The Rise Of Fenris visit Stonemaier Games at http://stonemaiergames.com/.
Shameless plug: for more gaming news and content (including, for example, pictures of Scythe: The Rise Of Fenris that I am unfortunately not able to upload on RPG.net for the time being), and to better keep track of my reviews, subscribe to my Antonios S facebook and twitter page.
