Small World Underground

Small World Underground

RRP: 52.99
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RRP €63.99
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From Philippe Kayaert comes a standalone game, which is part of the award-winning Small World series, Small World Underground. Set in the underground world where space is even less than on the surface, players must fight for survival and points in an area control game to be declared the winner with the most points at the end of the game. There are 15 new fantasy races along with 21 …
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Category Tag SKU ZBG-DOW7909 Availability 3+ in stock
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Awards

Rating

  • Artwork
  • Complexity
  • Replayability
  • Player Interaction
  • Component Quality

You Might Like

  • Beautiful artwork and quality components.
  • It has a wide appeal and is easy to learn.
  • Incredible variety and replay-ability.
  • Cross-compatible with Small World and expansions.
  • Quick, even five player games don't tend to breach the 90 minute mark.

Might Not Like

  • Conflict, conflict and more conflict. If you don't like direct confrontation this one might not be for you.
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Description

From Philippe Kayaert comes a standalone game, which is part of the award-winning Small World series, Small World Underground. Set in the underground world where space is even less than on the surface, players must fight for survival and points in an area control game to be declared the winner with the most points at the end of the game.

There are 15 new fantasy races along with 21 new unique special powers for each player to use to take over Small World Underground:

- Cultists
- Drow
- Flames
- Gnomes
- Mudmen
- Mummies
- Ogres
- Shadow Mimes
- Iron Dwarves
- Kraken
- Liches
- Lizardmen
- Shrooms
-Spiderines
- Will-o'-wisps

Each race can be combined with any of the new powers, such as adventurous where you collect an extra victory point for every 'popular place' you occupy. Or be immortal so when you are attacked you don't need to remove your race tokens from the game and can redeploy all of them or even vampire where you can replace active opponent's tokens with your own to conquer regions.

During their turn each player will play race tokens to control and combat over areas of the Underground. If they themselves are attacked they will lose the area of the world and must discard a race token and then can redeploy any others that were removed. Eventually, a player will not have enough race tokens to deploy on their turn and they must decline their race and next turn choose a new combination of race and powers! The race you start with in turn one is not almost certain not to be the one you end up with controlling the Underground.

Underground adds new tokens to the regular game of Small World including popular places, a volcano, righteous relics.

Will you take over the underground with Flocking Mudmen, Muddy Cultists or Quarreling Shrooms? Or maybe you can destroy all the other races with your mystic will-'o-wisps, Frightened Iron Dwarves or even the wise shadow Mimes.

Small World Underground awaits!

Player Count: 2-5
Time: 90 Minutes
Age: 8+

 

Much like its predecessor, Small World Underground is an area control game with the primary goal to expand your chosen race as far across the map as possible.

“Isn’t that just the same as Small World?” I hear you say. Whilst the core mechanics are inherited, Small World Underground manages to feel distinct by featuring: new races, new territories, new race abilities, new game concepts (like chasing down relics) and also…it’s underground.

Gameplay

Firstly, it is worth noting that whilst Small World: Underground is a stand-alone game, Days of Wonder do recommend that you are familiar with Small World prior to playing Underground. Whilst I can see the benefits of having existing knowledge of how to play Small World, I don’t feel that it is necessary. You can still enjoy and master the game without having experienced the original.

Underground features 15 new races and 21 new race powers. If you’re like me and love variety, then this is the game for you. Every time you play Underground, the races will feel and behave completely differently, and the combinations of races and abilities is one of the most entertaining aspects of the game. Who can’t resist a giggle at the thought of an Immortal Gnome?

Each turn of Underground consists of three simple stages: conquer, redeploy and score.

Conquer 

After you have acquired a race and ability, you will be allocated a number of race tokens. With these tokens, you will enter the world and claim new territories. The basic premise is that it costs two race tokens to claim an empty territory, plus an additional race token for every defensive unit in a territory. The more places you conquer, the more enemy units you displace and vice versa.

Other than being based in a subterranean world, Underground also features new territories like rivers, popular places and relics. These new features add brilliant fresh dynamics to the game, especially the relics.

To acquire relics, cool new monsters need to be defeated before they can be claimed. Having some monsters to defeat adds a nice change from the static ‘Lost tribes’ featured in the original Small World.

If you manage to acquire a territory containing a relic, you get a cool effect to use each turn. So now you not only get race bonuses and abilities, but also relic effects too.

Redeploy 

After your conquest, you can rearrange your troops to better defend certain territories which might be vulnerable to future attacks. Generally, you leave one troop in each territory to maintain your presence and redeploy the excess troops.

Credit – Days of Wonder

 

Score

Finally, you add together all the territories you have acquired and consider any bonuses you receive. The total of these territories and bonuses is your score for that turn. Like in the original game, if a race has reached its peak and cannot expand any further, you have the option to put it into decline. Putting a race into decline is a really clever mechanic which enables you to experience multiple races and abilities in the course of a single game.

The overall winner of the game is the player who has accumulated the most points after the final turn.

To summarise the gameplay, Small World Underground is quick and light-hearted without compromising player choices and strategy. It scales brilliantly with different player boards for two to five players; the more players the more territories to conquer.

Still a Small World?

I have spent most of this review comparing Underground to the original Small World and it is simply because the core mechanic of: conquer, redeploy and score, is the same in both. However, I hope that I have also highlighted that this IS a standalone game and a good one at that.

Every new addition to the game not only adds variety but also ups the player interaction and conflict; now certain territories are actually worth conquering (something I felt was sometimes amiss with the original). Underground has certainly succeeded in making the Small World universe a little bigger.

Final Thoughts on Small World Underground

Days of Wonder have a great reputation for producing exceptional games and they have succeeded yet again. The component artwork is beautiful and the components themselves are of a high-quality, thanks to linen-textured cardboard. The game not only looks great, but is also incredibly affordable.

If you’re like me and want to bolster your original Small World with new races and abilities, then adding this to your collection is a no-brainer. Underground has everything that I loved about the original game, plus all of the new stuff to add more depth.

I loved the original concept and I love everything that they have added to this stand-alone, therefore I actually prefer this one to the original. Is there space for both games in your collection? DEFINITELY.

Zatu Score

Rating

  • Artwork
  • Complexity
  • Replayability
  • Player Interaction
  • Component Quality

You might like

  • Beautiful artwork and quality components.
  • It has a wide appeal and is easy to learn.
  • Incredible variety and replay-ability.
  • Cross-compatible with Small World and expansions.
  • Quick, even five player games don't tend to breach the 90 minute mark.

Might not like

  • Conflict, conflict and more conflict. If you don't like direct confrontation this one might not be for you.