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It's fair to say I like a lot of game mechanics. Recently I have been on a dice drafting high. Dice drafting tends to involve a number of dice being rolled then players taking turns to choose a dice and use it for a certain action or actions. Grand Austria Hotel does this brilliantly, as does recent favourite of mine Santa Maria. Huns is new on the scene and promises to offer a lighter take on dice drafting and has received favourable reviews so far, but will it scratch my itch?
Huns
In Huns there are five colours of cards, cubes and dice. The cards are sorted according to colour and player count, and laid on the board. Blue cards are equipment cards which offer permanent upgrades, red raid cards are one use powers, green are mercenaries that give permanent powers once the required amount of valuables have been added, black are curse cards that are played on other players, and yellow are treasure, end game scoring cards.
Under each set of cards you add the cubes of the same colour which represent valuables. Lastly there are wagon cards which are like orders which you fill with the valuables, or at least attempt to. At the start of a round the active player will roll the five dice and place a die underneath the cards and valuables of the same colour. The dice go from 1-3 and each player takes a dice and then chooses either to take that many cards of the same colour and choose one to add to their tableau, or that amount of valuables of the same colour.
These valuables can be used to place on one mercenary or curse card, or across any number of your wagon cards (usually two). As well as various powers, the cards and wagons offer various end game scoring points. When a stack of cards or valuables is depleted the game ends and points are counted.
Hunny Buns
Huns is like a nice walk in pleasant weather on a route you have travelled plenty before. There's nothing wrong with it and it's good exercise, but there are not many surprises, and it all feels a bit familiar. Of course, if you are lacking a solid dice drafting game with great looks then there you can do far far worse than Huns, but if you are a drafting lover and have tasted some of the depth of aforementioned titles, then you might find Huns a bit... pedestrian.
Huns is at a great price point but my biggest concern for the game is a lack of variety over repeated plays. The decks only have 12 cards each and shrink to 10 for two-player games, considering you will often be drawing three cards from these decks at a time you are going to see the same cards again and again, even in your first game. This feels like my only 'proper' criticism as the rest of my observations are more personal. Different players may take the cards you want but you will still have a good idea of what is left. On the plus side the powers feel fairly balanced.
Of course, sometimes we need a game we can teach with minimal fuss, that will play in less than an hour. It's certainly a gateway game in terms of accessibility, and teaches a range of mechanics that would help newcomers grasp other games, but I'm not sure it would "wow" them the way King of Tokyo did me many moons ago.
This all sounds a bit negative doesn't it? The truth is that Huns is affordable, fun and playable. The art and components are spot on. I would definitely sit down and play it again and enjoy it. I think a few years ago I would have thought it was the best thing ever, but my tastes have moved on to slightly heavier fare as I've played more games.
So objectively I think Huns is a good game, subjectively I don't think it's a great one. Where does that leave you? Well, um, let's just, WAIT WHAT'S THAT OVER THERE?
