Ankh: Gods of Egypt — Fun & Board Games w/ WEM
BoardGameGeek
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In this review of Ankh: Gods of Egypt, you will learn how to play, see how something simple becomes complex, and discover why bigger isn’t always better. I talk more about the game in this written overview: .
For even more on Ankh: Gods of Egypt, head to the BoardGameGeek game page:
24.01.2022
One of my favorite games of all time.
Hi @WEM, have you played Mezo? I would like to know your opinion if you have played it. I think is a little bit more numeric wise than Ankh, and still with BIG minis =)
Nice detailed reflections.
Agree that I wish the components were wooden cubes. Minis are very unnecessary here.
Nice job. Especially because it's out of you comfort zone.
Interesting takes. I was having much shorter games especially at 2. I love the game as a 2 player game. Thanks for the review.
The semi final battle that eliminates players addresses a fairly frequent issue with area control games and kingmaking where players that have NO chance of winning end up affecting who does win. For games like this, they can't really avoid giving points to someone or taking away points from someone to avoid this. If they do nothing on their turn, they potentially give advantage to others by being easy targets in combat for free points. Likewise, if they win battles, they could be taking them away from someone that had a chance at winning. Thus, this game clearly states "If you aren't a contender, you're out of the game". In the few games I've played, we've not had someone eliminated, but I do appreciate that it is there.
100% agree on the components and how they make the board state hard to see. The kickstarter version came with ALL plastic minis. The temples are huge and the owner tokens have a slot on the top to make it clear who does or does not own them. I'm sad to see the retail version has this weird mix of things. The figures are huge just for the sake of looking cool on a board.
That Satet character is brutal. I raced to get the Giant Scorpions as their power just seemed too good not to control. Little did I know these stupid scorpions would be a liability due to Satet moving (and rotating) them. Scorpion destroys the monuments regardless of who owns them. After that happened once, I would just end up parking the scorpion away as far as possible from myself….where it would eventually just rotate and face the water lol.
I did a doubletake when I saw "Ankh" and "WEM". I was certain this would be a game you would not enjoy it and review poorly as it seemed so different from any other review I've seen. Wonder if this leads you down a path of other "euro style area control" games, like Kemet or Scythe….both interesting for many of the same reasons as this. Either way, I enjoyed hearing a review on the game from someone that normally wouldn't play such games!
To repeat myself from your second video on “putting away games”: I would love a second take on this, where you explore the evolution of your thoughts on the game against the idea of “euros” and of mastering mechanisms vs opportunities.
"I'm not getting lost in the gameplay because I'm being distracted by all the minis."
CMON ethos, in a nutshell (though they have come a long way on gameplay design)
Great Review!
Love the 'musings' on ankh, Eric. I marvel at the design, but but found it too much to think over in the final turns i think to ever be overly competitive at. i also don't love that a long game is made longer by having two players needing to work out their strategies post merge. I have seen the merged players win a few times, so i could also see a strategy to perhaps be part of the merge, where initially i played to avoid the merge like the plague.