Age of War is a dice rolling, set collection game.

Title: Age of War

Year Published: 2014

Designer: Reiner Knizia

Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games

Players: 2-6

Game Time: ~20 Mins

Set-up Time: >1 Mins

Ages: 14+

Theme: Feudal Japan

Mechanic: Dice Rolling, Set Collection

How to win: Score the most points.

Game Description

Can you unite the clans amidst the tumult of war?

Set-Up

Put the cards face up in the middle of the table and give the dice to a random first player…

Done!

Age of War Game Play

On your turn roll the dice…

Then you can pick a Castle to start conquering by adding the dice needed across a battle-line.

You must fill ALL of a battle-line of the chosen Castle or re-roll your dice.

Each time you re-roll you must sacrifice a die.

If you conquer all the battle-lines of a Castle you place it in front of you.

You can conquer a Castle an opponent has already taken by filling in all the battle lines PLUS the red Daimyo symbol in the top left.

If you have all of the Castles of one Clan you flip them face down protecting them from being stolen and showing how many points that clan is worth at the end of the game.

Game End

When the last castle in the centre of the table is conquered, the game ends.

You score points printed on your Clans and each face-up Castle you have. Most points wins.

Whoever has the most conquered Castles wins in the case of a tiebreaker with the player with the most conquered. Clans winning the second tiebreaker.

Age of War Round-Up

So luck… yeah you need it but you can make rational choices to mitigate it.  Your first roll will rule out over half of the Castles you could have gone for so you have to go for those you will be able to get.

As Castles in the middle start to go, you need to start taking them off other people, especially if you don’t want the game to end. But can you take them off the person who is currently leading? They will try to end the game as quickly as they can while they’re winning.

It has the same designer as Picomino and it’s very similar but with that, you just get things more by chance than by good judgement. With Age of War, you have to roll, set your sites on a target and go for it!

Rating

A nice light dice game that has a lot of laughs around the table.

I give it 6/10.