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Lords of Hellas immerses one to four players in the vivid and exciting world of ancient Greece, but with a twist – the artwork and graphics for the game are re-imagined, giving them a sci-fi tone. The game is exciting and engaging, with tons of replay-ability and player interaction.
How to Play & Means of Winning
One of the main selling points of Lords of Hellas, published by Awaken Realms, is that the game as a whole is a deep and rewarding experience to play, and it has many, many, layers! The working parts of the game all gel together well.
There is a lot going on at first glance, with the cogs and intricacies of the game all working together at different levels. Every action is interconnected – and although players at first may feel overwhelmed with the amount of choices on offer – you will soon find yourself getting into the swing of things.
The four ways to win the game are as follows:
- Control five temples on the board.
- Defeat three monsters in combat.
- Control a fully-built monument, and keep it secure for three turns.
- Control two whole-coloured regions of the map.
At its heart, Lords of Hellas is a classic ‘dudes on a map’ style game, featuring armies that move about on a pre-set board, battling and taking control of regions – and wresting those regions from opponents. In this sense it draws a lot from its predecessors, such as Kemet and Cyclades, and draws its origins right back to the classic, Risk. The four unique ways of winning mean that players are kept on their toes at all times, and have to monitor their opponent's actions – always looking to see how close to victory they are.
The game takes place in a clockwise fashion, each player taking their turn. The turn is divided up into regular actions and special actions. Firstly, a player takes any number of the regular actions in succession, then moves on to take one special action. Special actions can only be taken once, and after they are carried out, a small cross marker is placed on them, signifying that you can no longer take that action until someone presses the ‘reset’ button. The ‘reset’ button is a special action which anyone can take called ‘Build Monument’, and this removes all the cross markers from every players board, allowing them to be taken again.
Heroes
Armies on the map are not your sole means of winning – each player controls a powerful hero, of which there are four to pick from in the base game – each of which have their own unique starting ability and attributes. Talking of attributes, each hero has 'Leadership', 'Strength' and 'Speed', which are tracked on their board. Leadership allows more armies to be moved for free on the game map, strength allows more combat cards to be drawn when facing a monster, and speed simply increases the distance your hero can move on the main board.
Heroes can take part in Quests, some of which are seeded on the board when the game is set-up and others which are introduced as the game progresses. Quests require certain attributes to be at a certain level, and once a Quest is completed you gain a powerful bonus.
Heroes can also take out the powerful monsters which roam the board. Monsters can affect your troops in a region and hamper your chances of success, but when your hero engages them in a combat, you play a small ‘mini-game’, matching combat cards to slots, to try and destroy them. Combat cards have a dual purpose – they are used both to combat monsters, and boost your normal hoplite troops in battle, so use them wisely! Knowing when to play a carefully timed combat card can turn the tide of an important battle.
Priests and Religion
The other forces you have at your disposal are the priest miniatures. You recruit these priests by building temples at pre-set locations on the board, each of which gives you one priest. Priests can then be sent off to pray at one of the three monuments which are on the board (Hermes, Zeus and Athena are included in the base game), which not only boosts the attributes of your hero, but can also unlock a unique power, based on the current monument level.
Building temples also gives the chance of a ‘blessing draft’. When certain temples are unlocked, a ‘draft’ occurs, where each of the players gets to pick from a powerful, permanent bonus, which they put face up in front of them for the rest of the game.
Components
The miniatures in Lords of Hellas are of a very high standard, well sculpted and all fitting together with the theme of the game. The monuments to the Gods are of particular interest – when you take the ‘Build Monument’ special action, you slowly build the monument, upwards. It’s a fun and unique selling point to the game – it is beautiful to watch the slowly forming statues of Zeus, Hermes and Athena growing as the game progresses!
The board is functional and visually appealing. All the cards and counters are of a high standard.
Gameplay Thoughts
Lords of Hellas proves to be an intricate and nuanced game in which there are myriad ways of winning. Knowing how and when to use a particular special action is at the heart of the game, as they can only be used once, until the reset button is pressed.
Certain winning routes are more obvious for certain heroes. If you play as Heracles, for instance, he starts off with one more strength than the other heroes, so is ideal for facing down monsters, and going down this route is advantageous. But you want to leave your options open – perhaps going down the middle and hedging your bets is the best option – leaving all the four victory conditions open to your play style.
Randomness is not too much of an issue with the game, as battles are fought using battle cards, not with dice – so there is some mitigation of luck there. There is one die included with the game that randomises how the monsters react (they can roam the board, attack or do nothing).
Lords of Hellas Conclusion
Lords of Hellas, in all respects, is a superb game. There are so many interconnecting pieces of the game which lock and work together. It bring enough new and unique selling points to the table to make it fun and interesting, in particular the ‘mini-game’ of fighting the monsters is a joy, as is the building of the monuments, which slowly grow in stature and strength.
This will be one of my go to games for a very long time.
