Leder GamesArcs: Conflict & Collapse in The Reach - 2 to 4 Players, Ages 14+

A masterpiece. Absolutely brilliant design. Love the art, love the mechanic, love everything about it. It's a knife fight in a phonebooth.

The game is amazing and I love it, nothing negative in that regard. That said, the retailer (Amazon?) sent me the most broken box they had in store. It’s a shame, because now I must be really careful whenever I take it to a friend's place or basically anywhere else. I’m even a bit afraid of just moving it within my home. That’s how broken the game's box came.I’d like to add that this was clearly a decision made by someone before shipping, since the Amazon box in which the game came was in sound conditions. It was not during handling and shipping that the game’s box broke, but rather a deliberate choice.

Before I mention anything else, be aware that an Amazon seller is selling these are a markup. This is a $60 base game, and a phenomenal value at that price, which is how I am reviewing it, since I did not pay an extra $20-plus purchasing through Amazon. Don't support markups, buy through a better seller! If Price settles down to regular retail, then disregard.On to my review: Arcs is an unusual, but fantastic, board game with some very compelling mechanics. There are plenty of reviews out there which go into the minutiae of the trick-taking, dice rolling, and other mechanics, as well as how this game builds off previous games (like Root) by the same designer. I'm not going to rehash these; if you want to learn more, you're a simple web-search away. Instead, I want to give my impressions of the experience playing this game.To begin with, this is not the easiest game to learn. There are plenty of mechanics which can come into play, some with rare prerequisites to trigger them, so you may find yourself half a dozen games in and still needing to research something mid-game. I want to make it clear that that's not a bad thing. When you grasp how game events affect other events and so forth, it's a very intricate and cohesive whole that feels like it has its own sense of realism. I actually have a bone to pick with the way the manual is written. You need it, you must study it, but it could be written in much clearer, more user-friendly language. Instead, it chooses to use jargon that only makes sense within the game and which takes some playthroughs to fully understand. I wish Leder Games had done a better job writing the manual and making it easy to navigate and pick out specific topics. It's written to resemble the flow of the game through the chapters instead of for true user-friendliness. Major misstep.There's a way around the confusion in the modern age, however, and that's watching how to play videos. If that sounds like way too much work to learn a board game, I used to think so as well. I was shepherded through the complicated rules for Axis & Allies Global 1940 by watching videos like these, however, and now I'm a believer. Sometimes, a little homework is worth opening you up to a world of enjoyable strategy and game mechanics. I don't think Arcs is that tough to learn, it just has unique mechanics which take a little while to fully explore. Because it has plenty of innovative ideas, you can't immediately understand it based off other games in similar genres to the ones this game touches. We had several playthroughs where we were missing some aspect of the game, but each session built on the previous one until it all came together.How's the actual experience of playing? It's a game in which you're presented with a ton of potential actions, but limited ways to act on them and score points. One of the most important features is the declaring of ambitions, which could be known as goals instead, and would make more sense that way. If you don't either declare a goal yourself, or piggyback on someone else's goal and beat them (or come in second place), you'll score nothing, no matter how hard you work towards beating other players during a chapter. The other really important mechanic is who has initiative, which is what allows you to lead the card-playing which gives you your per-turn actions (type and amount) as well as gives you the opportunity to declare ambitions (direct the goals which can earn points that chapter). These as well as other things will ebb and flow, giving you fleeting control for a little while. Also, the map is rather cramped (even with only 2 players) and you will never be able to take your time, "turtle" and build up for a late-game push the way you can in a game like Risk. It's a game you leap into headfirst, and fight your way to the top.Arcs is a game which relentlessly punishes you for making the wrong decisions. Yet it also guides you towards making the right ones. It rewards being on your toes, seizing the opportunity which presents itself, being flexible. It punishes sticking doggedly to a plan once it stops working. In a way, it's like chess: your pieces are never out of harm's way, one move can change the whole dynamic, and mistakes are naturally punished. There's a unique sense, however, of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, and going all-in on a last-ditch effort and coming up from behind to win the game is a singular elation which few other games provide.There are many features which I'm just not going to describe in detail: the court deck, full of cards which affect gameplay, the optional Leaders & Lore, which add asymmetry and a bit more world-building (with or without the optional add-in pack of additional Leaders & Lore cards), the surprisingly strategic decision-making around what dice to roll when attacking, or even the massive Blighted Reach expansion, which transforms the game into something much more (I haven't played that yet). Part of the reason I'm not writing more about those is that I think the base game, without Leaders & Lore or Blighted Reach, is just so challenging and satisfying to play.Final note: the game is a surprisingly small box holding a ton of stuff. The one negative of the small box is the game board, which folds a lot. I have to bend the folds slightly backwards every time to get it to lay flat on the table, which I know will shorten the life of the board. It's a trade-off; there's no other way to stay so compact. The components are great, with most of the player pieces of painted wood, though I wish the resource tokens could have been wood as well instead of punched cardboard. The art is fantastic. It's unique, it's quirky, and the color scheme throughout is pure eye candy.This is an intricate and complex game which expands in many dimensions out of a small box, physically and conceptually. It's hard to grasp starting out, but easy to love once you've grasped it.

I had purchased both parts of this game.I paid over 200 for one and about 189.00 for the other. When received it seemed ok.When I opened it and saw the quality of the pieces (with out opening the boxed items….Insent it back. Now I see it for 60.00?Absolutely so glad I sent it back.