Mythic Battles Review

 Mythic Battles is targeting an already pretty tight niche: its competitors will be games like Summoner Wars, the Commands and Colors series (BattleLore, Battles of Westeros), Heroscape, and games based on the Clix system (in particular, Mage Knight... no, that's another Mage Knight).

 The game bills itself as an estate of miniatures wargames, card games, and board games—apparently trying to appeal to several different tabletop groups at once. Why three categories at once?

 Wargames with miniatures: As far as I understand, the similarity is that here, too, players recruit armies from units with various abilities before battle. Like in Heroscape, for example.

 Card Games: Mythic Battles was clearly inspired by Summoner Wars. On a large table, you can even lay out squad cards, like in Summoner Wars, and not be limited to tiny round tokens... But the main similarity is in command cards, which add an element of hand management to the game a la Commands and Colors, only with less randomness.

 Board games: well... because it is played on a table.

 So, how is the gameplay and how good is it?

 The following will mainly cover the game in standard mode, not the scenario. Because even in the training campaign, the army recruitment mechanics and victory conditions are so different from the standard mode that the base game cannot be judged by the scenarios.

RECRUITMENT OF ARMIES

 Army recruiting is pretty simple and straightforward: you have 100 points, you need to spend a minimum of 95, you need to have at least 5 and a maximum of 10 units. Given that the game has big, badass monsters, this helps a bit to eliminate the problem common to some miniatures games where a player puts all their points into one or more super monsters, and then their opponent either can't do anything with that monster (besides gnawing on it HP slowly), or the monster will move away from one successful dice roll.

 Command cards also help balance the sides of a conflict. By the way, speaking of them, let's move on to...

GAME PROCESS

 The gameplay boils down to "draw cards, activate units you have cards for"? No, not really. Each maneuver card has three uses: the actual maneuver, a counterattack, or a discard for energy. Each Art of War card also has three uses: an extra move, an extra card, or a discard for energy.

 Considering that the first two options for using maneuver cards require the presence of the corresponding squads of cards, it can be concluded that this gives an advantage to the player who has fewer squads: the deck is smaller, the chances of drawing the right card are higher. Right?

 This is where one of the beautifully thought-out nuances of the rules comes into play that balances the game: discard decks are only shuffled after both players' decks have been exhausted. That is, if Mr. Hades spent all his points on 5 Stone Monsters, then after the fifth turn he will have to miss at least one more turn, waiting for hordes of Miss Athena's soldiers to walk around the field and poke his soldiers with sharp sticks.

 So you'll have to manage your deck smartly so that your advancing mobile troops don't get stuck in place, actively use the art of war cards and special abilities so that you have the right cards at hand when you're on the offensive. And also to discard unnecessary cards for energy, which can be used to strengthen squads.

 The strategy is dictated partly by the composition of the army, partly by the cards drawn and the terrain, but you still have enough freedom of action to make competent moves, while at the same time there is a chance to fail at the mercy of the cards that did not come.

 As for combat, when I first saw the exploding cubes, I thought combat would be a random swing back and forth with frequent oneshots, but thankfully the game has a cap on maximum damage per shot. Exploding cubes increase the chance to hit, but do no damage. And thank God.

 You get energy by discarding cards that you choose not to use this turn. For energy, you can activate interesting and cool abilities. It may seem that the balance is shifted in the direction of large armies - because you can discard more cards and turn your hordes into superhordes for energy... But only under the increased ability of the hordes of ordinary soldiers, they did not stand close to the impressive capabilities of large monsters. No amount of energy will save your slingers when the Infernal Judge comes upon their souls.

COMPONENTS

 The art is stunning, seeing the soldiers immediately brings to mind "This is Sparta!". However, the color scheme is quite pale, and in less than ideal lighting, the pens are difficult to distinguish. And although the round discs are cute, they are not as impressive as full-fledged miniatures. However, they are quite functional.

 What is really annoying is that the abilities of the units are not described directly on them - and they have to be memorized. And I don't really want to remember the difference between the aura of power, godless power and experience in close combat. However, all the descriptions would not fit even on the large and functional squad cards... Well, even though there is an official monument.

 By the way, when units receive losses, their parameters decrease, and abilities change.

 Everything is described in a surprisingly clear way in the campaign book. It's nice to be introduced to more and more rules throughout the campaign. True, the first battles are so primitive that even our 14-year-old son complained that he would like to play Heroscape and Summoner Wars. Getting really cool stuff like Cerberus eating three Spartans at once will take time and patience.

FACTIONS

 There are only two of them - Hades and Athena. Hades is a bad guy with all kinds of creatures, Athena is a nice woman with people.

 If you dig deeper, Hades emphasizes air units and cavalry (as well as large monster air cavalry and even larger monster artillery), while Athena emphasizes hordes of soldiers with sharp sticks that they poke and throw at you from over the hill ( after which Hades whines that it is not fair: you cannot respond to shooting with a counterattack). And Athena has, for example, Spartans, who not only counterattack in close combat, but can also fire from afar. Hades' soldiers can't do that, because their weapons are probably part of a limb or nailed to their hands, because it's Hades.

 In general, both factions have a very different approach to tactics and hand management. And it pleases.

CONCLUSIONS

 I really like Mythic Battles. Well-thought-out game design balances both the strength and the number of armies. The depth is decent, the games are not long, there is room for strategy and tactics, and at the same time there is enough randomness to be interesting for all but the most hardcore players.

 Thanks to the card engine, you can easily manage armies, and at the same time it is more realistic than in many games with much more complicated mechanics of unit control (the closest analog in terms of convenience is Warmachine; WH40K against its background looks like a dinosaur stuck in the 80s).

 Highly recommended for fans of Summoner Wars, BattleLore, Battles of Westeros, Heroscape, and even fans of miniatures wargames who are more interested in mechanics than minions.