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Introduction
The kingdom will fall. All you can do is fight to inspire the next generation in the hope they can reclaim their ancestral home from the relentless gnomes’ onslaught.
The Fall of the Mountain King is a prequel to Burnt Island’s In the Hall of the Mountain King. It tells the story of how the trolls lost their kingdom in the war against the gnomes. Whilst the games are intrinsically linked by theme, they differ greatly in mechanisms and gameplay.
In the Fall of the Mountain King, you take the role of the trolls, trying to defend your underground caverns from the invading gnomes. You strive to keep control of your kingdom by fighting the gnomes, dominating the areas and protecting your great halls. Throughout, you are in competition with each other to seek favour from the different clans and gain honour (victory points) from both victory and sacrifice in battle.
The Fall of the Mountain King is, at its core, an area control game. However, it is also a euro style game with many moving parts. To write it off as a typical area control game would not do this game justice.
How it plays
The game takes place over three waves. Within each wave, players will build their ancestry to determine their possible actions, use their actions to battle, and resolve the end of the wave.
The player’s ancestry is what determines what actions are available. Each player begins with the same basic ancestry board that has icons for all the basic actions. At the start of the wave, each player receives four ancestry cards. These cards have up to four symbols on them. They choose one card, add it to their ancestry board and then pass the rest to the next player. This is repeated until all players have added three ancestry cards. By building their ancestries, players will have access to more variety and more powerful actions.
When placing each ancestry card, the player must cover up at least one square on their current ancestry. This leads to some interesting decisions and can impact greatly on what actions are available to you for the wave. It is a clever way of creating variability as well as asymmetry between players. It creates an engaging puzzle that directly impacts on your strategy.
Taking Action
Once the ancestries have been built, players place their supply marker on their action track based on the wave as well as any barrel symbols they may have in their ancestry. This determines the number of actions they have for the wave.
Players take turns selecting either two weak actions by covering up two single icons on their ancestry or they choose to take one strong action. When taking a strong action, players can cover up as many matching symbols as they wish as long as they are orthogonally adjacent. The number of symbols covered determines how many of that action they can do. This again adds more strategy to the game as you decide how best to use the number of actions available to you in order to make the most of your ancestry board.
Types of Action
There are four types of action available to you. On your turn you can choose to advance (move trolls from one or more caverns to another cavern), bolster (add more trolls to a cavern you control). Influence allows you to move up the influence track on one of the available champion cards. The person with the highest influence wins that champion at the end of the round.
The final choice of action is the gnome action. This allows you to move the pawn on the gnome wheel to do additional actions, earn points or trigger a breach where more gnomes enter the board.
End of Wave
At the end of the wave, the gnomes continue to try and conquer the kingdom. Any cavern with a single gnome is joined by one more and then there is an invasion. The gnomes invade into three different regions determined by gate cards that are drawn randomly at the start of the wave. When a gnome invades a cavern where trolls are present, both the gnome and a troll are removed from the game. However, trolls that fall during the invasion award honour to that player. As the number of gnomes invading increases, this can provide players with a lot of points. Sacrificing your trolls in the final round can prove to be a highly successful strategy. I have played games where this has ended in victory for players.
Once the invasion is complete, honour is awarded for caverns controlled in each region. In the final wave, players gain honour for controlling the great halls.
The clans
A significant number of end game points come from the clan board. This board contains tracks for each domain’s clan. When you take control of a cavern or when you win a champion by having the most influence on their card, you gain ‘votes’ for the corresponding clan. This moves your marker up their track on the board. At the end of the game, points are awarded for first, second and third place for each clan. This gives you an additional thing to think about and plan for. Each clan is randomly assigned different points meaning you may choose to focus on some over others. This is a simple yet enjoyable addition that encourages deeper thought into your in game strategy.
Combat
The only fighting that you will do is with the gnomes. As soon as you enter a space with at least one gnome, you initiate a battle. This is a very simple mechanism. The underside of each gnome has a number between 1 and 3. When you finish your movement, you check the number. If the number of trolls you have in that cavern matches or exceeds that number, you win. If not, your trolls have to retreat back to one of your lairs. This adds a little luck element to the game.
However, the gnome action on your ancestry board allows you to look at a gnome value of your choice, allowing you to plan for a guaranteed successful attack. Beating gnomes gives you honour equal to the gnome value as well as earning votes on the clan board. Be mindful though. The more gnomes defeated, the stronger the next gnome breach will be.
Gnome movement
When there is a breach or an invasion, the gnomes have to follow certain rules to enter the cavern. In the simplest term, they aim for the easiest cavern they can get to, prioritising empty caverns first. However, their route can become quite confusing and determining their destination takes practice, particularly as the board gets more populated. The rule book does a good job at explaining the process with clear examples and a simple checklist but you may make a few mistakes in your first game.
Components and artwork
The production of this game is excellent. Granted, I have the deluxe version, but even the standard components are of high quality. However, if you are able to get the deluxe version, it is definitely worth it. The Gametrayz inserts make set up and tear down a breeze and the upgraded pieces enhance the playing experience. The artwork is the perfect balance between dark and cartoon like providing a look that is appealing to both older and younger players. The only downside is that the cards feel a little thin and tend to warp slightly when out of the box.
Complexity
The Fall of the Mountain King has a deeper complexity than first appearances would have you believe. The track mechanisms and the tableau building of your ancestry make it feel more like a euro game. Because there are a number of ways that you can get points, there are different strategies that you can adopt. The fact that your choice of actions changes each round as well as the changing presence of gnomes and opponents trolls means that you have to be able to adapt your strategy if required. On top of this, because you have a limited number of turns each round, you have to carefully plan in order to make the most of each turn and the selection of actions on your ancestry board. All this combined makes The Fall of the Mountain King a surprisingly deep and enjoyable collection of puzzles to solve.
There are a lot of moving parts to this game and it is not an easy teach. It is not a game that I would recommend for new players. Even though the rule book is well put together, there seems to be a lot to remember and think about. However, as soon as you start playing, it begins to fall into place and the different mechanisms fell like they work well together. You will need that first play to learn the intricacies of the game, but after that, you will feel confident in knowing how all the different elements work.
Player interaction
Despite being area control, there is no fighting between players. This is more in keeping with the euro mechanisms within the game. There are still plenty of opportunities for player interaction as you compete for control, influence over the champions and votes on the clan board. This game is far from the multiplayer solitaire experience of a lot of euro style games as your opponents’ actions can drastically affect your choices. The quest for honour means that you are in direct competition with your opponents for area control, influence over the champions and sacrificing of your troops. This creates the potential for ‘take that’ style gameplay. There is the potential to deliberately upset the plans of other players but this can be at the cost of what is most beneficial to you. Somehow, this makes it seem less mean than it first appears.
Replayability
There are no asymmetrical characters and everyone starts with the same ancestry card. However, the drafting mechanism of additional ancestry cards means that each player will have a different selection of actions available to them. This variety means that each time you play, you have to consider how to make the most of your ancestry board. There are general strategies that are always worth pursuing such as moving up the tracks on the clan board or having dominance in different areas at the end of each round. However, what specific strategies you focus on will often change both between and within games. This means that games often feel significantly different and there is a certain amount of freedom to try different ways to earn honour. All this makes the Fall of the Mountain King a game you want to keep coming back to.
Final thoughts
This is a game that is dripping with theme. Each mechanism has been applied effectively to help tell the narrative of the fall of the kingdom. Very quickly, the cavern becomes infested with gnomes and gives you the sense that all you are doing is fighting for as much honour as possible before the inevitable collapse of your home.
There is a lot to this game and it can feel overwhelming. It feels like there are parts that could be streamlined. For example, the gnome wheel mechanism feels like an unnecessary addition and just another thing to think about. This is not a game for new or more casual gamers. The movement rules for the troll and the gnomes can be a little confusing at first and keeping track of all the different ways to earn points can be challenging.
Despite this, the Fall of the Mountain King is an enjoyable and compelling experience. The gameplay and the high production value makes it easy to recommend. It feels unlike other games. The euro style mechanisms combined with the area control theme creates a game that requires thought and planning whilst maintaining a high level of player interaction . It is a game that you will be thinking about long after the end of play as you contemplate, ‘I wonder if it would it have been better if…’ or ‘next time I will try…’ Always a sign of a good game.
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