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Sky’s The Limit
I absolutely love it when a game is cute and clever, and My Little Scythe has both in spades. Having only just started our journey into its big brother, Scythe, I expected the obviously adorable offspring to be good. It is Stonemaier after all! But I didn’t know just how good.
Truthfully, My Little Scythe is great. It has taken the big mechanics and almost endless paths to victory in the engine upon engine upon engine cranking OG and distilled it into a smooth, fast playing game with an accessible decision space and a lovely selection of ways to make yourself feel smart! The artwork, the components, and the theme are all top tier. There’s a solo mode, achievements to work on, and of course minis to paint! There’s even a minis painting guide to help budding artists on their way. I therefore expected to hit my praise ceiling when my son immediately asked to play again after finishing our first game. But I should have known there would be something to prove me wrong!
Pie On My Face
Pie in the Sky is an expansion to My Little Scythe, and whilst you don’t need it, you’re going to want it. It is set on the eve of the 3000th Harvest Tournament, and a long-lost airship carrying two missing Kingdom representatives has returned. The Fox and the Owl are back in town! But the return of these cute creatures isn’t the only cause for celebration. The airship is powerful and, having been built by all the animal species (Bear, Boar, Eagle, Fox, Monkey, Owl, Oxen, Tiger, and Wolf!) working together, can still be controlled by everyone! As such, the Harvest Tournament is about to level up in terms of trophy taking time!
Wolfing It Down
So what’s new for Pie in the Sky? Well, aside from Jojo and Becca (Foxland) and Firean and Aubrey (from the True W.P Grey Academy of Magic – I love the little character bios in this game!), there’s the Airship Kai, some player board expansions to accommodate a 5th Trophy token, some new Power-Up tiles, Quest cards, and Seek cards (which allow you to control the Airship and give air support!), as well as Airship gadget tokens (as some factions have special Airship abilities) and a custom Airship die. Essentially, all the new tiles and cards incorporate the movement and power potential of the Airship into the base game. Oh and you get access to a Cargo Hold for storing gems and apples in reserve for deliveries, Make actions, and Quests. And your stash can’t be meddled with…..unless a player has a particular Quest card, of course!
Final Thoughts
We love the base game (did I mention that?! Haha) and the extras added by My Little Scythe feel like the cherry on top of this colourful cake. The new rules aren’t complex and the additions don’t change the gameplay to something unrecognisable. They bring potential new strategies within the same familiar frame which is comforting and exciting.
Seeking with the airship and having the movement range potentially dictated by how many trophies you have is a neat additional consideration. The Cargo Hold is a nice feature too. Sometimes I must confess that going for the delivery trophy can seem like one of the hardest in terms of effort v reward when I play. My spatial processing is (what the kids are calling) neuro-spicy, so if I have found myself in a place on the board far from the Castle, it can take a while to co-ordinate my collections and delivery. But the Cargo Hold giving access to resources at any time smooths that little bump out for me. Having the extra trophy to trigger a victory hasn’t lengthened our game plays either, and balances the advantages and efficiencies that the Airship can now bring. Although to be honest, My Little Scythe is one of those games I wish took longer so that I could keep on playing, that's why Pie in the Sky is so good! Haha
