Playing – Conan the Board Game (Monolith Games)

What is best in board gaming?

To roll you dice, count the damage, and hear the lamentations of bad luck!

It’s been a while since I had played Conan the board game from Monolith games, so I was up for it when it got brought out at the table.

The pitch – you get to play Conan and Companions through tactical scenarios.

It is very pieces intensive. Most pieces are pretty distinct but I know folks will want to paint them. I do like the ‘sleeves’ for the bases so that the figs can be identified as different in challenge than others. Lots of additional material was made available in the original Kickstarter and apparently many folks have home brewed their own scenarios. The playstyle is reminiscent of games like Descent (one player = scenario runner = GM = Overlord in this case) and the others run the characters. I like to think of games like these as RPG Lite, with quick dice mechanics and jumping straight into the action and not having to think about long term campaign goals and filling out a background. Also see Gloomhaven, the D&D Board Game collection, even Mansions of Madness (now with an app to play the Keeper).

The action economy is the most interesting thing about the game. Stamina (blue gems) is spent to perform actions (the more spent, the more dice rolled, up to the character max), so Conan could attack 5 times with 1 die + weapon die, or once at 5 die + weapon die, or some number in between, with movement (up to 2, or more if he spends stamina). However, unless you rest, that Stamina trickles back at 2 per turn (more if other characters have been eliminated).

Meanwhile, the Overlord turn (person running the scenario, seen on the left side) has a board with the different groups (color coded for ease) that cost Stamina to activate (furthest left cost 1 pt, then 2 and so forth) and then push it to the end (so would cost 8 to activate next turn). The overlord can also spend additional stamina on these foes like a character can.

Each character has different special abilities (the cards on the right with different colored squares) and roll different dice. The dice (marked by color and small shapes) have different numbers of available success based on the color. For example, the yellow has 1 side @ 2 successes, 2 sides @ 1 success, and the rest are blank but the red die has up to 3 success on a side, multiple @ 2 successes but still at least one at 0 successes.

Box says 90 minutes to play, but closer to 2 hrs + including setting up the many pieces and quickly learning the rules (some good intro videos exist and helped us out). Once we got going, it wasn’t very hard to learn, and the ticking of the turn tracker means that there is a deadline for a game ending condition.

I’d play it again!