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This is a game of high adventure. A game where you take on the role of kingdoms in the world of Hyboria. You are striving for power and supremacy in a backdrop of this rich setting with Conan, the barbarian, having a board presence that can make or break players attempt to gain overall power.
An Overview Of The Rules
In Age of Conan – The Strategy Board Game, players take on control of one of four kingdoms. Each one has armies to engage in battle and emissaries to use diplomacy to help convert territories to their cause. Players roll dice with actions depicted on them. Once a set of dice are rolled, players use these to decide what action to take until they are used in which case the dice are rolled again. Through the course of a turn, players may attack territories, attempt diplomacy, accumulate cards or use them to gain advantage. Ultimately, players are seeking to achieve objectives to win victory points via tokens to represent power whilst Conan engages in his own quests which acts as a game timer. If you are lucky, you may even get to crown Conan king, which gives a large boost to winning the game, but we warned if you fail, Conan will eliminate you.
Strategic Play
One of the aspects of the game that I like, is that you do get good strategic play. Each turn you have a choice over actions. This is based in part on what other players are doing as you seek to take advantage of weak spots to attack or accumulate sorcery tokens to help fuel later actions. The board is tight enough to force players to expand into areas that will be contested for much of the game, so there is really no option to turtle and be too defensive. There is a mechanism for controlling Conan. If you time it right, then with a little luck, you can control Conan’s progress through his adventures and maybe win the right to try and crown him. Ultimately though, the game is mostly about conquering territory and keeping control. For players who like a ‘dudes on a map’ type game, this game holds up as a valid choice to give you a tactile feel to area control. I played this game again recently and whilst the ruleset is not as well drafted as it arguably ought to be, we enjoyed getting this game on the table again. It is a game that I would refer to as an experience. I do feel win or lose that I am engaging with a great theme and can exercise strategic thought. I love the plotting, trying to anticipate my opponents moves whilst advancing my own cause. This is the heart of the game and Age of Conan – The Strategic Board Game delivers on this.
Components
These are quite good. Nothing special, but they are good enough, with nice chunky towers and the map board serves its function well as it is clear and easy to read. The miniatures, whilst not being spectacular are still nice to use and add another dimension to gameplay. The board allows for a reasonable amount of expansion without being too large. This forces players to interact with each other, to form temporary alliances for mutual gain or to attack each other for gold used to further buy troops etc. You can’t get away from the area control and conquest aspect of the game, but the game is more than that.
Fantasy Fun
Age of Conan – The Strategy Board Game is a medium weight fun game. It’s not as deep as it might appear and for the most part is fairly straight forward to play, with a little weakness in the rules in that they could be better drafted. The ease in which you can play is an asset learning the game although players wanting a deeper longer game will likely be disappointed. Where is shines is the theme as it isn’t a lightly pasted theme like some games. You are controlling troops and emissaries and this gives that conquest theme. The fantasy theme is clear from the components and adventure paths and if anything, if I had a complaint (apart from the quality of the rules) is that Conan doesn’t feel like a core part of the game, even if his adventure paths act like a game timer.
Overall
This is a game I would be happy to play again and a game I think is nice to own. This is ultimately a key test. It may not see many plays – partly because there are so many other games to play – but that doesn’t diminish its value and I’d recommend it.
