Not over here!

Last night I introduced Liz, Dave and Justin to Kemet.

Why would I introduce to newish gamers a game like Kemet? Liz loves Scythe, her enjoyment of Dead of Winter was some what lacking, and apparently she did not enjoy Eldritch Horror. There was a theme developing here. Co-op games, and potentially games that use dice were not ones Liz enjoyed. So this is why I went with Kemet.

Like Scythe each player has a board that they select their actions from. Unlike Scythe the player boards are identical, where in Scythe you do have the same actions but they are combined differently. For example your produce action may have enlist paired with it, while another player may have build paired with their produce action. You do have a little resource management as you manage your prayer points, which is kind of similar to managing your bolster popularity in Scythe. There is some hand management with the divine intervention cards and battle cards. Although the combat system has more in common with A Game of Thrones.

Naturally Kemet is much much more aggressive to play than Scythe. Combat plays a much bigger role in the game. As does politics! When some-one is about to win the game with their 8th victory point, as I was, then the others ganged up to deny me by taking back some of the temporary victory points I had. First up in the gang of three to do this was Justin who reclaimed his level 4 pyramid, but forgot to leave a soldier behind on the temple he had taken his forces from. So my response was to move into the temple that was just vacated and get the point back. Next up Dave. He teleported in to the temple and won the ensuing battle. With the permanent victory point and the temporary one, that put Dave on to 8 points and able to claim the win at the end of the round. That put Liz into a difficult position. I was sitting on 7 points, her plan had been to move into my city and take my level 4 red pyramid. But if she didn’t stop Dave he would win. Liz wasn’t sure she could beat Dave in battle if she teleported into the temple. I gave her some advice with the divine intervention cards she had, plus the right battle card, she didn’t need to win, just kill all of his troops. With the cards in hand there was no way Dave could stop Liz killing them all. So that is what Liz did. She jumped into the temple, lost the battle, and killed all of Dave’s forces. Dave lost the temporary victory point.

Here’s the cunning part of this plan. While Liz used her last movement action to stop Dave it meant she couldn’t move in and take my pyramid. This also meant that no one was now able to attack me because all movement actions had been taken by everyone. So for my last action of the game I upgraded my blue pyramid from level 3 to level 4. Bang the last victory point that I needed to get to 8 and no one could stop me. I had won! That distraction of “look over there, if you don’t do something they will win” and “what me? nothing to see here, I’m I can’t win I’m on 7 points” worked a charm.

Liz liked the game, as did the others. Next Tuesday it’s A Game of Thrones!!