WONDER WOMAN: CHALLENGE OF THE AMAZONS Is Fantastic with More Than 2 Players
Wonder Woman: Challenge of the Amazons is a new game from Ravensburger who were kind enough to send me a copy. I’ve played the game a few times now, and I have some thoughts. Overall, the game is a lot of fun and a great cooperative experience. If you enjoy cooperative board games and Wonder Woman, this is a bit of a no-brainer.
OK, let’s start with the biggest problem. The box says that Challenge of the Amazons can be played with two players. The cards even support this claim. Playing the game with two people is impossible though. I played it with my wife a couple of times with Ares (the Easy mode I think) set as our villain. We are not strangers to cooperative board games; in fact, we love cooperative games. We lost every time. It wasn’t even close either. Ares starts with 15 health in a two-player game, and we were lucky if we got him down to 13. There’s simply too much that goes on to allow for a two-player victory to be viable.
With that out of the way, let’s move on to what’s awesome. First, the miniatures that come with the game are incredible! They look great and are painted gold with what appears to be a nice wash coat over them. If you want to add some color, they don’t appear to have too much clean up to do before spraying them with a primer and painting away. Another plus is the artwork. It looks fantastic and really lets you feel like you’re in the comics.
Third, once you add a third player, the game becomes doable. This helps it feel more fun as well. See, the problem I had with the two-player game is that Ares would spawn too many obstacles for two players to tackle on top of attacking Ares. With three players, two of you can address those obstacles while the third can either help if you’re getting swarmed or continue on the main objective of murdering Ares. This planning takes strategy and trust and really does help. It also felt very thematic. One of our players was Diana, and she would usually be the one to go after Ares because of her Relics, and she had so many Warriors with her that it felt like those who weren’t Diana were splintering off to deal with the minor threats while Diana went after the source and it felt very thematic which only added to the fun.
One of my favorite things about Challenge of the Amazons is how it is played. A turn starts with the villain doing their thing and bringing chaos to Themyscira. Then, all players are dealt two face-up cards and three face-down cards. Before looking at the face-down cards, everyone can talk and strategize the turn. This is also when most character abilities can be activated. Then, when you pick up all your cards, everyone is supposed to go silent and this is where things get interesting. You can either stick to your plan or you may have to adapt your strategy based on the cards you are dealt. While looking at your hand, you select three cards to be used for your actions and then, once everyone has selected their actions, you go through and do the actions. I really enjoy the way there’s a point where you can all strategize, but then there’s a period where there’s no cross-talk. I know a lot of people don’t like cooperative games because it’s easy for a single player to take over and just dictate what everyone does, but this helps prevent that from happening.
Challenge of the Amazons is a fantastic board game that any fan of Wonder Woman and/or cooperative games should be able to find great joy in. Just don’t play with only two players. You can purchase a copy now from your local game store or online via sites like Amazon.
