- Alright, men listen up, said the general while climbing on the debriefing podium. Here is the plan: Skully will lead the charge out of our headquarter and around the lifeline of the swimming pool. As soon as we are knee deep in water mid pool, we will deploy Hook to capture the life buoy next to the enemy HQ. And then… Yes Cap’n I see you have your hand up.
- But sir, what about Roxy, the enemie’s T-rex?
- Alright, men listen up, said the general while climbing on the debriefing podium. Here is the plan: Skully will lead the charge out of our headquarter and around the lifeline of the swimming pool. As soon as we are knee deep in water mid pool, we will deploy Hook to capture the life buoy next to the enemy HQ. And then… Yes Cap’n I see you have your hand up.
- But sir, what about Roxy, the enemie’s T-rex?
- Well captain that is where I step in, I will cover her or my name isn’t Kwak McDuck. Are you with me men?
- YES SIR!!!!!
- Then to battle…. to Toy Battle that is!
This is how a mission debriefing looks like in the new Paolo Mori and Alessandro Zucchini game, Toy Battle. The 1 vs 1 tactical game where you will deploy your troops, capture the enemy’s pieces and in where, if you lead your troops just right, you might be able to capture the opponents HQ and win the game.
Game setup and Flow
Toy Battle is a light game with an even lighter setup. You begin by selecting a map to play on, and giving to each player a set of units. Randomly and without looking at the pieces, each player removes 4 of their units out of the game. Set the remaining 20 units (pieces) face down next to you. Decide the first player, they will draw 3 random pieces. The second player draws 4 units. Est voila you are ready for battle!
During your turn you will be able to do 1 of 2 things. Either draw 2 units and add them to your rack or place one unit on the board and trigger its effect. There are 8 distinct units in each army and each has its unique ability such as drawing a new unit or removing one enemy unit from the map or from their rack. The tactical decision comes around the placement of units. When summoning toys to battle each player focuses on one of 2 things either they try to create an uninterrupted line towards the enemy’s HQ with the objective to capture it, or they are trying to surround particular areas of the map to capture the medals attached to those areas. You win the game by either capturing the enemy’s HQ or being the first to collect a particular number of medals (indicated on the map you selected). In the case of a stalemate, the game ends when one player can not place or draw new units. In this unlikely scenario each player will count the medals they have acquired so far and the player with the most medals wins. If each general was equally savvy and they have the same number of medals, the one that triggered the end game will lose.
A mix bag of …toys
Normally I would start a review with the “Good” followed by the “Bad” of the game, however this time around I have a small problem with the format. You see dear reader, while I was getting ready to write the review and I was thinking of a positive thing about the game, a was struck instantaneously by other games that do the same thing a bit better. Let me elaborate. I enjoy the strategic placement of pieces and the unique abilities of each of them, yet Hive does the same thing better, in roughly the same amount of time. I enjoy the head-to-head fighting and in “your face” spirit of the game, yet Unmatched does the whole fighting part a lot better and more engaging. I like the quirky theme of the game but again if I want a 1 vs 1 with a theme that I enjoy, I will play The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth. I even tried to view it as a pull and tug game, but even in that case, if I have some more time to dedicate, I would rather play 1989: Dawn of Freedom.
While I was rummaging for unique traits of the game It dawned to me that I played Toy Battle in the past, only it was called Jungle. Jungle is an abstract Chinese game where just like in Toy Battle you are leading 8 different type of animals (units) each with its own ability. The sole objective of the game is to infiltrate your animal in the opponent’s lair (or HQ). And exactly like Toy Battle, in Jungle each animal is incrementally more powerful than the other, the mouse is the weakest followed by the cat fallowed by the dog, all the way to the elephant who just like Roxy the T-Rex towers above all. In Jungle the Elephant has a mortal enemy, the mouse who can for some reason enter the elephant ear and kill it. Again, another similarity in both games there is a unit that can be taken out by any other unit (Kwak duck/mouse) however both these units can remove the most powerful unit of the respective game (T-Rex respectively the Elephant). Ok, ok, … I am not saying the 2 games are identical, there are differences mind you. For example Toy Battle has an alternative win condition, the medal route, more then one map and a random feel to the game via drawing the units, but the Jungle influences are there and are noticeable.
Conclusion
This usually is the part where I tell you who is this game for. Unfortunately, what we have her is a game whose positive features are exceeded by other games and who is remarkable similar to an older abstract game. I was lucky enough to borrow my copy from a good friend of mine and I am confident that Toy Battle will remain in his collection (as he loves the game) and will not join my collection as I have to many alternatives to it. That being said if you don’t own any of the already mentioned games and you want a quick funny themed and light strategy 1 vs 1 game, Toy Battle might be the game for you.
