Review
The latest game from Alderac lets you play as the god of your choice. We'd all love the power of divine influence and now there's Myth: Pantheons, the board game that lets you battle other Gods in a popularity contest for the favour of mortals.
All Star Cast... of Gods!
In the starting line-up we have (in alphabetical order):
- Amaterasu (Japanese goddess of sun)
- Anansi (African trickster deity)
- Anubis (Egyptian god of the underworld)
- Athena (Greek Goddess of War)
- Ganesh (Hindu elephant-headed lord)
- Guan Yin (Chinese goddess of compassion)
- Jupiter (King of the Roman gods)
- Morrigan (Kinky Celtic goddess of death)
- Quetzalcoatl (Say it three times as fast you can - Mesoamerican god of the morning star)
- Thor (Norse god with a whopping great hammer, also a comic book hero)
- Tiamat (Babylonian dragon-like goddess who personifies ever-changing nature)
- and finally White Buffalo Woman (has the most unimaginative name of all of the deities but she is still a powerful Lakota ancestral spirit of peace and fertility)
I know what you're thinking - "What, no Jesus? No Buddha...?"
Mortal Followers
The aim of the game is to sway the hearts of mere mortal men, so that they wear a funny shaped hat / dance naked / etc in your honour - and not for some other wannabee, passing trend, demigod (i.e. your opponents). That's right these fickle humans and perhaps their very souls are up for grabs - ancient Clash of the Titans style! Whoever has the most by the end of the game wins and the people will remember you for eons to come, eventually making a board game about the tales of your victory...
Divine Influence
You do this by completing challenges in order to claim control of an ancient city (drawn at random), when the city is yours you get a set amount of happy little followers (as specified by the card) who chant your name and sacrifice yaks in your honour so that you spare them of your omnipotent wrath. How do you win a challenge? By using your cards of War, Heaven, Death, Harvest and Weather of course! You can also use your unique deity cards (5 per deity) to really out do your celestial opponents. All of these cards have their own special abilities and can only be used once per game - so use them wisely! You will also build up a collection of tokens that can be spent on fortifying your won cities, invading your opponents cities and much more...
Gaming Commandments
The board game rules state Myth: Pantheon should be played with 3 - 6 people. Like all good commandments, these rules can be bended, as the game actually plays fine with only two players (in all honesty though 3 or 4 is the ideal number of players). Another rule that can be tweaked is the game length, the game is supposed to end after the third 'Epoch' - but if you're running low on time for whatever reason you can choose to end add up your followers after one or two Epochs to determine the winner.
Favourite Deity
My personal favourite of the game is Tiamat! Tiamat has cool deity cards that can cause a good deal of random havoc to each game, which I like very much... That's how gods are supposed to act, right?
Typo
The game comes with quick play cards, but don't rely on them! On the Domain Abilities side you can see under 'Protective Storm' it says "attach one or more harvest tokens..." when it should say "weather tokens". It's quite an obvious mistake but a big one nonetheless. The main rulebook is fine however.
Judgement Day
So how does it fair on a scale of 1 - 10? I'd give this a solid 8, we found it to be good fun without a doubt. It's not going to become the next big must-buy board game I don't think but it will appeal to a wide variety of gamers and new comers alike. It's easy to play and fairly easy to grasp the first time around but after a few plays the game will reveal a lot more depth with various tactics that you can use. Bottom line, if playing as a God appeals to you then it's definitely worth buying! I'm off to sacrifice a chicken in its honour...
by David 21/04/2010
