Welcome to Feudal Japan in the Sengoku Era, right in the heart of the Civil War! A time where daimyos ruled and sent their armies out to take the castles of their enemies. You are one of the generals, putting your troops into Japan, letting you fight battles to become the true ruler. This is a game I’ve been waiting for the reprint to come out. So much so, I ended up importing it from Japan before it released over here. Let’s get into a Rumble Nation.
How to Play
Set the map into the middle of the board, and shuffle up the Large Castle Tokens, placing them facedown on each circular space. Then flip them over, creating the separate regions.
Shuffle the Tactics Cards and place one more than the number of players face up beside the board. Place the Small Castle Tokens, Sword Tokens and white Reinforcement Meeples next to the board, removing the Sword Tokens showing more swords than the number of players.
Each player takes their respective Army Meeples and Dice, and a first player is chosen, either randomly, or by the player who most recently visited a castle.
The game is divided into 2 phases. In the Deployment Phase, you are taking turns in clockwise order, deploying your Armies to prepare for the war that determines the winner in the second phase, the War Phase.
Deployment Phase
Starting with the first player, each player makes a choice to either Deploy Armies, or Use a Tactic Card.
Deploy Armies
The player rolls their three dice, with the option to reroll all three dice again. Once you’ve rolled, you split the dice into a pair and a single die. You will deploy your soldiers to the region equal to the sum of your pair of dice. The number on the single die decides how many Armies (meeples) you place out. It’s printed on the board, but for right now, if it’s a 1 or a 2, you place one Army. 3 or 4 on the die gets you two Armies, and a 5 or 6 is three Armies. You must place all, unless you do not have enough to play. You can place your Armies regardless of the number of Armies of yours or any other players already there.
Use a Tactic Card
You can use a Tactic Card only once per game. When using a Tactic Card, choose any card from the Display and place it in front of you. Immediately take the action written on the card. If you cannot execute the action, you may not choose that card. As soon as a player has placed all of their Armies on the Map Board, Tactic Cards can no longer be used by anyone. All remaining players must then Deploy Armies on their remaining turns.
After all your Armies have been placed, you take the Sword Token with the most swords showing and your turn will be skipped for the rest of this phase. Once all Sword Tokens have been taken, we move onto the War Phase.
War Phase
War begins, and you resolve war in all areas containing Armies in ascending order, following these steps.
1. Determine the Winner.
Count the armies in each player colour, including any Reinforcements (which will come up later.) The total becomes your power. The player with the highest total power is the winner, and second place player is the runner up. In the case of a tie, the player with the higher Sword Token wins.
2. Claim the Castle Token.
The winner takes the Large Castle Token of the Area at war and places it in front of them. In a 3- or 4-player game, the runner-up takes a Small Castle Token worth half the amount (rounded down) of the Large Castle Token of that Area. In a 2-player game, nobody takes a Small Castle Token.
If only one player has Armies in that Area, that player takes the Large Castle Token and nobody takes a Small Castle Token. If there is an Area without Armies, put its Large Castle Token aside. Nobody takes the Large or a Small Castle Token from this Area.
3. Send out Reinforcements.
If you took the Large Castle Token, take and place Reinforcements. If nobody took the Large Castle Token, skip this step and resolve the next Area. The winner of the Area at war places reinforcements on adjacent Areas with their own Armies that still have Large Castle Tokens on them. Place 2 Reinforcements in a 3-/4-player game and 1 Reinforcement in a 2-player game in each of these areas. Place Reinforcements next to the Armies of your colour to avoid mixing them up with those of other players. If the Reinforcements run out, use Reinforcements from Areas where war has already been resolved.
After all areas have been resolved, we head to the end of the game. Add up the numbers on your Castle Tokens. The player with the highest total is the winner of the game. In case of a tie, the tied player with the higher Sword Token wins.
Final thoughts
I first played the original Rumble Nation back in 2022 when I had the chance to play it at AireCon, and it soared to the top of my wishlist. I liked playing Risk back in the day, and I love how fast Rumble Nation plays, and how simple it is to teach. I taught my sister and cousin how to play, with neither being particularly big gamers, and they enjoyed it so much, we played it back to back.
I do think the game is a perfect filler game. Quick, easy to set up and play, a good level of tactics to luck, and the option to include Daimyo cards, which gives each player a special power. There are only six though, which is a shame, but it’s better than nothing! Plus there are 12 tactic cards, of which you’ll see a maximum of five per game, meaning there is some variety game to game. If you have the chance to play this game, I would highly recommend it!
Scores
- Artwork: 4/5
- Complexity: 2/5
- Replayability: 3/5
- Component Quality: 4/5
- Player Interaction: 5/5
Total: 90/100
You can find more of Luke’s ramblings about board games on his YouTube channel, The Game Imporium and as the host of the Bucket List Board Gamers Podcast.
