Bitewing Games, who brought us the mythology-themed strategy games Iliad and Ichor are at it again, with a Kickstarter for the next two games in the Mythos collection, Azure and Moytura.
Like Iliad and Ichor, these are abstract, two-player games with simple actions, but hiding a lot of tactical thinking.
At first glance, Azure is reminiscent of Go, but placing dark and light circular stones on a grid is about as far as it goes.
The board comprises four 3×3 double-sided tiles of different colours randomly arranged in a square (making a 6×6 surface); one space in each sub-grid contains a ‘mountain’ on top of which sits one of the ‘auspicious beasts.’ All the other spaces contain one or more symbols representing the ‘boons’ you will receive by placing one of the pleasantly tactile stones on the space (which could be picking up ‘qi’ cards of a certain colour, or advancing along the ‘wisdom’ track), at the cost of discarding the corresponding number of qi cards of that sub-grid’s colour. The cost is reduced by the number of your stones in the same row or column, as long as the line of sight isn’t interrupted by a mountain. In addition, particular arrangements of stone will provide a ‘guard’ for each of the beasts, and they will grant ‘favours’ to their chosen player (extra wisdom points); e.g., to win control of the ‘white tiger,’ you need at least two stones in the same row or column as its mountain, or gain control of the ‘vermillion bird’ by having at least two stones on the vermillion board. However, be aware that your opponent can trump your arrangement of stones and steal the beast (and points) from you.
The game is over when the first person reaches 25 wisdom points or is unable to place a stone.
The components are pleasantly chunky and tactile, and there are a couple of expansions offering ‘gifted’ stones which provide additional once-only abilities, and an expanded board along with a fifth beast.
Since I’m quite fond of Irish mythology, Moytura was the game which first caught my eye, an area dominance game in which you and your opponent and an autonomous common enemy strive to become the High Ruler of Ireland.
One (of the many) interesting things about this game is that neither player can battle each other, just the common enemy. You can never place your ‘followers’ in a space occupied by your opponent, but if you place followers in a space containing enemy tokens, it’s fisticuffs time, and both you and the enemy lose tokens until one or neither is left with a presence in that space on the board.
You play by invoking the ‘deities,’ which means paying ‘worship tokens’ and receiving benefits specific to the deity—as with many worldly religions, you can pay more to receive bigger benefits (more worshipping means more followers to place). Next, you expand outwards from your domain of control, by placing followers into spaces adjacent to ones already containing your followers, which might bring you into conflict with the enemy or which can gain you further benefits, such as extra worship tokens. After both human players have had a turn, the enemy advances by selecting enemy clan card at random, then expanding the largest contiguous group of that clan.
The game runs for two ‘eras’ each of five rounds, and scoring happens at the end of each era. Each board space is part of a larger region, and scoring depends on who has the majority of followers in each region—and the enemy counts too, so the human players can’t simply ignore enemy advances lest they lose a region. There’s a cooperative play mode too, in which enemies are a little stronger, and a solo mode, where you more or less play as both human clans.
There’s also an expansion, providing new enemies and a further deity.
Final Words
Both games are as pleasantly puzzly as Bitewing’s other games, and play fairly quickly (a 20 minute estimate for Azure and 45 for Moytura). The components look well made, and you can switch the cardboard tokens in Moytura for chunky poker chips in the deluxe version; Azure’s deluxe option is resin beasts, but I actually prefer the look of the standard wooden ones.
You can find out more at the project’s Kickstarter page, still open at time of writing.
Note: this was based on preview material—the final games may differ in some details.
About the Author:
When not playing boardgames or blogging about them, L.N. Hunter keeps himself occupied writing fiction: a comic fantasy novel, The Feather and the Lamp, sits alongside close to short stories in various magazines and anthologies, and on websites and podcasts (see https://linktr.ee/L.N.Hunter for a full list). L.N. occasionally masquerades as a software developer or can be found unwinding in a disorganised home in Carlisle, UK, along with two cats and a soulmate.
