Cartographers Heroes First Impressions

Cartographers Heroes is a fantasy-themed roll & write game.

Can you both build a big forest AND contain the zombie horde?

The expedition to the Western Lands is the kind of honour that comes once in a lifetime for a royal cartographer. But these are dangerous times. War ravages the land, and you are sure to encounter Dragul forces determined to thwart Queen Gimnax’s plans for western expansion.

Fortunately, brave heroes have risen to the defence of Nalos. Chart their deeds alongside the queen’s edicts and secure your place in history.

Cartographers Heroes Game Play

It’s a roll and write game so everyone gets a blank sheet.

There are 4 scoring cards (called Edict cards) that are laid out. There is also a deck of Explore cards for each season stacked in order with Spring on top.

The game is played over 3 phases, Explore, Draw and Check.

Explore Phase – Reveal the top card of the explore deck. There is a time value at the top of each card so these cards need to be overlaid so you can add up this time value as you go.

Drawing

Draw Phase – Each player chooses one of the terrain types on the explore card and draws it on their map. It’s not just the shape, but also the type of terrain. On the above Hillside Terrace card, you’re drawing a 2×2 square with either land or water in it.

This shape can be flipped and rotated. If you surround a mountain by filling the adjacent spaces, you gain a coin by crossing it off of your sheet. Some shapes have a coin next to them on the card, if you pick that you gain a coin too.

But not all cards are Terrain cards.

Ambushes – Each player draws the Monster shape on their neighbour’s map.

Heroes – Each player draws a 1×1 square to depict the Hero then draws their attack pattern as shown on the hero card. Monsters in the Heroes attack area, either now or later, are destroyed.

Check Phase – Check the total time of cards for the current season. Spring has a time threshold of eight so if the total of all Spring cards played so far is 8 or more the season ends.

At the end of each season, the players score. You’ll score a combination of the Edict cards at the end of each season. For example, after spring you score A and B. These score in various ways, for example, in those in the image below, you score for:

D – Complete rows and columns containing a mountain.
C – Water next to 2 or more farm spaces.
B – Blocks of 4 village spaces.
A – Long strips of Forest.

After Winter the game ends, and the player with the most points wins.

Theme

I like Fantasy games so it worked for me.

Setup

Sorting out cards and shuffling. I think you have to put monsters and heroes in different decks before shuffling? I wasn’t paying attention.

Components & Artwork

Very standard. The graphic design makes it very clear what you need to draw or how you will score.

Ease of Teaching

It is easy to teach with no hidden information.

Cartographers Heroes Summary

I think Welcome To… is my favourite Roll & Write still, maybe Qwixx? I mentioned I liked everything about Rolling Realms too, except for the narcissistic theme.

This is OK, it’s fun trying to fit the different terrain shapes and types into your grid and steer them towards the Edict cards so they score.

At the same time, you have those ambush cars that are a pain. For example, the zombies start small, but each round you add another, then another so you need to encase them in terrains/heroes to contain the outbreak.

That is a lot of fun.

So overall it’s a decent roll & write game, but with so many out there it’s hard to break into the top few and this one JUST misses out for me.

Jesta ThaRogue