ASHES: RISE OF THE PHOENIXBORN Preview
Plaid Hat Games is back with their newest game, called Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn. The game actually doesn’t have a board, but is rather a card-centric game that focuses on conjuring spells and summoning other units into play. All the units and spells on the board at any given time revolve around your chosen Phoenixborn that you pick at the beginning of play. Each one, of course, comes with unique abilities as well different limits on how many units they can have occupying the board at any one time. Let's take a look at the Phoenixborn you get to choose from.
Now that we are acquainted with the demigods you'll be playing as, here is how gameplay works. At the start of the game, you'll pick either one of the six pre-constructed decks that come with the game, build your own deck, or complete a deck draft, if you want something more customized to your style.
The first phase is the prepare phase, where you roll your set of dice to see what resources you will have to work with this round. Each symbol stands for a power level, and via the reference card (to the right) you can see how each one can be swapped and used to power a given unit, spell, or ability. The dice are the resource pool that most actions in the game are powered from. At the beginning of the game, you actually get to pick your first 5 cards, allowing you to get started on the right foot.
Next is the player phase where you can take one main action and one side action. In the cards below you can see both represented (symbol in the top right corner under the card name). You can either attack one of your opponent's units, attack the Phoenixborn directly (though you might have to go through a few units to get to him first), or of course you can pass. What I like here is the flexibility at play, as you don't have to use all your actions in a given turn to pass. As a side action, you can choose to play a suitable card (ones with the aforementioned side action symbol), meditate, or activate a dice power. As you can see on the reference card, each type of magic includes a different dice power. If you don't like your current resource pool, you can meditate, turn in some cards, and then adjust your dice as you see fit to help you power some of your abilities. This allows the player to never really be out of the fight just due to getting a crap dice roll.
After that, it's time for the recovery phase where you can heal your units, remove exhaustion tokens, and prepare for the next round. Because you and the player are constantly going back and forth, and there are only a few actions per turn, the game seems to move a brisk pace once you get the hang of it. You can see it in action below (via the excellent Watch It Played), and you can even download the rulebook here if you are interested in finding out more about the game. I'll do a full review on it in the future, but in the meantime, you can pre-order the game directly from Plaid Hat Games.