Here we are again! A little extra for you this month, we thought we might get back to our comic roots with the magnificent Harrow County Board Game from Off the Page Games, along with the brilliant, manga-inspired madness of Re;ACT The Arts of War.
Have a read, tell us your thoughts, and snag yourself 5 BONUS entries for our NEXT giveaway – which if you’re a regular reader you’ll know is one of the 2 big annual giveaways, the Summer Spectacular!
HARROW COUNTY
(RRP: £79.99)
Step off the path with me, and tread the trails of witches and haints, to learn the secrets of the small, sleepy, backwoods county of Harrow, a place of ancient horror and twisted folklore. Based on Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook’s award-winning graphic novel series, with Crook’s art throughout the game and flavour text from Bunn, Off the Page have produced a truly fascinating upper-mid weight game that is creepy, challenging and innovative.
BEWARE THE WITCH OF THE WOODS
Without going into too much backstory, the game revolves around the titular Harrow County in the US, and is steeped in Southern Gothic ambience with rich, sinister autumnal colours throughout. Emmy, the protagonist of the comics (well, initially) is your first Protector character, as you battle the twisted intents of the Family, the dark spirits that seek to corrupt the land. However, Emmy has her own secrets, found as she was in the roots of the tree where the dark witch Hester was buried by the townsfolk. As the game unfolds, new characters become playable, with Hester herself offering a
completely different playstyle to Emmy or the Family (and even for more variation, the Fair Folk expansion allows you to play as the Fae in another fashion again).
The manual is straightforward if dense; as players, you are given very clear instructions on how to set- up, with the game playing over a number of narrative scenarios. Whilst this might seem limiting, it is anything but: there are many different leaders for each faction, each with their own particular set of skills: Emmy musters haints across the land, whereas Mordecai, battles his Family through brute strength, whilst the Skinless boy slithers across the countryside with speed, and Kammi [spoiler alert – she’s a baddie] turns the heroes’ abilities against them. Also, the revised digital version of the rulebook does away with the Chapter format after the initial scenario, so you have even more flexibility to chop and change as you see fit.
BEWARE THE FAMILY
The game incorporates a number of interesting mechanics. Essentially, it’s a path maker with elements of area control, but it’s much more than that. You have 3 actions per turn, from a choice of 4 (“contained” within Mason Jars, which again digs into the comics): you can use an Ability (Advance, Spawn or Strengthen), Attack with your haints (the only ability you can use more than once per turn), use your character’s Legend Ability (as mentioned above), or take a Wild token (which also trigger an ability, but are CUMULATIVE – so the second time you use Wild, you trigger two abilities, and so on). However, how Abilities trigger is different by faction, with the Protectors’ advancing along an ability track, whilst the Family’s essentially being a bag-builder. Advance is movement, Spawn generates Haints, but Strengthen is where it gets interesting. The Battle ground tray is shared and can hold up to 6 cubes per side, which determines the strength of your attacks. However, the combat mechanic is… unusual, to say the least. When you attack your opponent, you scoop up your Strength tokens (adding 1 if outnumbering your opponent) and then you drop them down the inside of the box, which when turned on its side becomes a dice tower of sorts. There is a funnel that attaches to a slot and the whole thing becomes Hester’s tree – and there’s no guarantee that all the cubes will come out.
This adds real risk to combat, as even overwhelming strength is no guarantee of victory. This could feel frustrating, but instead is THRILLING – there’s a very real sense of jeopardy in every attack. Every two of your cubes that makes it through the tree-tower allows you to remove an enemy haint (or affect your opponent’s character if they had been involved) – it’s a truly innovative, quirky mechanic that adds great fun to the game.
BEWARE THE BRAMBLE
To begin with, the aim is to rescue townsfolk by laying paths across the board or to destroy the town, by laying a trail of storms across – so, again, path/tile laying. At the centre of the map, on both sides, is the Bramble; occupying this is worth extra points, but anything in there is easier to kill. As the game progresses, you will gain new objectives, card decks for new Protector tactics or upgrading Family members, additional bonus tiles, and so on. The game adds layers of difficulty at each step, all clearly laid out in the excellent rulebook (along with a comprehensive glossary). There is a LOT to take in, no doubt, but this is a highly impressive, and very crunchy game. And if that’s not enough, there’s both a strong, scalable solo mode and a very nasty 3 player variant with Hester herself as a character, infecting and controlling other players’ haints and indeed the dice tree itself! Or indeed, you can add in the Fair Folk, who take double turns but have to negotiate and extract information from other players, making it a fascinating semi-coop.
RE;ACT: THE ARTS OF WAR
(RRP: £89.99)
It’s very difficult to describe exactly what Re;Act is as it’s such a unique game. It’s a manga-inspired Asymmetric PvP battler with card timing stack mechanics – that’s a mouthful – in which each player uses their Art to attack their opponent. Each Art Style has completely mechanics; most, but not at all, have a deck of cards to support the cards you start with in play. Across the table you move your pieces to attempt to do damage to your opponent, whilst activating your abilities and unlocking your Masterpiece: your super-move, in true epic FIGHT! mode.
Each character is completely distinct visually and mechanically, and has both a Difficulty and Complexity rating (which the designers acknowledge sound a little too similar): how hard they are to play, and how many components you need to keep track of, respectively. The Dancer, for example, is hyper-mobile, flitting non-stop across the board, with low Difficulty and High complexity; the Calligrapher (the game’s signature character, and also my personal favourite) is the reverse in every way: slow, steady, high difficulty, low (ish) complexity). With a huge range of characters to choose from, and an array of expansions to further this, you’ll definitely find something to suit your playstyle. Some characters don’t even use the game’s core deck mechanic, using dice instead, so if you’re more of a dice gamer than a card gamer, you can enjoy the madness also.
At its core is the Reaction chain, which is a fascinating mechanic. In your turn, you play cards to the reaction chain, with the chance to play red cards to your opponent’s chain (you can also play them in your own, as well as the blue cards you normally play). The chain is layed out right to left, but triggers left to right once complete – so triggers as a stack (think MTG). Your card effects are usually aiming to summon and move your creatures, with a view to damaging your opponent – however, you’ll also be looking to interfere with their chain. You only have a limited number of cards, so you have to decide when to play; also, cards (such as your charater or summons) typically have exhaust abilities, which can only be used once per turn.
Visually, the game is stunning, whether you’re a fan of japanimation or not. Each character looks and feels totally unique, as well as coming in their own handy deck box that holds them and all their components, even using the upgraded deluxe acrylics. It’s a huge box of stuff, with a lot to unbox – which does mean the buy-in is pretty high – but the game is clear, well-presented and surprisingly accessible. Very highly recommended by all 3 of us!
BONUS ENTRIES
So to snag yourself 5 Bonus Entries on our Summer Giveaway, tell us what YOU’D like to win – any game at all! Can’t guarantee it’ll be there, but just interested to see what folk would WANT! And as always, head over to @big_geekingout on Instagram for more information!
The Writer of this piece was: Sam Graven
Article Archive: Geeking Out
You can follow Sam on Instagram at @big_geekingout
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