One of my favorite board games is getting a new ios app update: Featuring the newest army Steel Police Neuroshima Hex number of armies rises to a grand total of 9!!
If you haven't give it a try yet, now it´s a great time to start!!
If you haven't give it a try yet, now it´s a great time to start!!
The game
Neuroshima Hex is a polish tactical board-game
for 2 to 4 players based in an obscure polish RPG called Neuroshima and has
gotten a pretty successful adaptation for iOS and Android. The game sets us as the
commander of a post-apocalyptic army during conflicts for supremacy on the
barren wastelands of a devastated USA.
Neuroshima’s premise is simple: the good and
old “kill’em all”. Translated to game mechanics: you have to tear down your opponents
headquarters, or be the one with more life points remaining when the dust sets.
The battlefield is set on a small board of
hexes where players will have to set their troops and maneuver to overpower all
the opposing armies into submission.
Each turn, the player will receive at random 3 hex “cards” from his stack of available resources. They will then choose one of them to be discarded and up to two to be used or placed on the board. Any hex not used or discarded will remain in your hand and since you draw until having 3 hexes in hand there is really not a solid reason to hold on to them, so you pretty much always play 2 hexes per turn.
Each turn, the player will receive at random 3 hex “cards” from his stack of available resources. They will then choose one of them to be discarded and up to two to be used or placed on the board. Any hex not used or discarded will remain in your hand and since you draw until having 3 hexes in hand there is really not a solid reason to hold on to them, so you pretty much always play 2 hexes per turn.
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| 3 tiles... yet so many options. |
Battle hostilities will only start when a
player plays a “Battle!” hex from hand, or when the board is full, so you are
never quite sure when battle can begin unless you play the battle card yourself.
This forces you to always be wary of every movement and placement on the board
as to react accordingly and keeps the tension always high in a cold-war like
style.
Battle
Every troop hex has one initiative stat, and
may have a various number of attack powers in every facing of his hex, as well
as some special abilities. This makes positioning and facing crucial as you may
be a monster facing one certain direction and a harmless hex while facing the wrong side.
When battle starts, attacks will resolve in
decreasing initiative order. Starting with the highest initiative, all hex will
attack their targets and place damage, when all of them have attacked, damage
will be calculated and casualties will be removed from the board before
proceeding to the next initiative tier. This means controlling initiative is a
crucial point of the tactics in play, as you can eliminate potential threads
before they are able to attack and harm
your much powerful but slower units.
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| Each troop and army has a different flavour, fitting various play styles. |
Some hexes
have special abilities, giving extra healing capabilities, extra attacks or
initiative boosts for the troops around them, while some play as instantaneous
effects that allow you to snipe enemies, nuke them or even make them turn
cloaks.
Multiplayer
While the game plays the same for all armies, factions
are asymmetric and their troops and special actions are usually focused to
enhance one type of play. Thus, faction specializations vary from close combat,
to ranged, to mobility… some even have the ability to turn enemies into their
own troops!
This makes the game very dynamic, and due to
the randomness factor of the hex drafting, you will rarely see a typical
pattern that players stick too. This makes it more a tactical game that
strategic, as you cannot plan in advance and are always reacting to the very
specific conditions on the board. This also means that a significant amount of luck is involved though, which may annoy some players.
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| The game features 4 different armies, but there are lots of expansions which further the choices. |
The design of the board is one of my favorite
points of the game due to its deviousness. By being hexagonal and tiny, players
can’t easily position themselves symmetrically and can’t flee from the fight.
In 4 player games, the board gets crowded very fast, and as many hexes have
multiple attack sides, there is no way that you can maintain alliances or
non-aggressions. Everyone is forced into a battle royale, and being like this
for everyone people don’t get so upset when you target them.
Overall:
A fun
and fast game to play. It will keep you coming once and again until you try all
different armies and manage to get a hold of their strategies, and even then
you still be coming back just for the mindless fun of a 4 player game battle
royale.
I definitely recommend this one for people used to tactical games, but i should not throw it at casual gamers as may probably scare them off. Also purist strategists may find it unappealing due to the luck factor and the fact they can´t plan in a long term focus.
I definitely recommend this one for people used to tactical games, but i should not throw it at casual gamers as may probably scare them off. Also purist strategists may find it unappealing due to the luck factor and the fact they can´t plan in a long term focus.
You will like it:
If you
are into some fast thoughtful fun.
If people
who hide in multiplayer games annoy you.
You like collecting expansions
You like collecting expansions
You won’t like it:
If you
can’t focus on more than one thing at a time.
If you
like long term strategic planning and a luck based draft sound too casual.
Post-apocaliptic settings scare you.
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