Mortal Gods Review

I've had the rules for a week now and played two solo games. I would have played more, but things have been a bit too busy for that, although the school holidays have now arrived and I might be able to get back to the table a couple more times.

The promotional shot from Footsore Miniatures' website showing examples of all the paraphenalia that you get - there is actually more dice, pebbles and cards than this in the box!

So I obviously like it because I want to play it more. For those that need more for a review, here goes:

Mechanics: Each character/unit generates a pebble - white or black depending on whether it is for a hero or a companion - which is placed in a container (I use my plastic Darth Vader mug that I got last Easter). Alongside these are placed three red omen pebbles. When the 3rd omen pebble is drawn the turn ends. The other two activate a draw from the omen deck, which can affect units both positively and negatively. This gives some nice unpredictability to the game. Players take it in turn to draw pebbles, using them to activate their forces. An activation allows movement, firing, charging, and for leaders, the giving of orders. The latter aspect is one I didn't really use in my first game, but used a lot in the second - and boy does it make a difference!

Hit dice placed next to figures. If you prefer an uncluttered table they can sit on your unit cards instead.

Combat uses specialist dice, with swords allowing hits, shields defence, and pegasi are the wild card bonus for certain troop types. There is a roll to hit by the attacker, the defender can lose their action to make a defence roll, or if they have already used their action this turn, they use their armour rating. This is not good for skirmishers, who have no armour. Once the defensive roll has tried to block any hits, the remaining dice are rolled to adjudicate how many hits the opponent takes. Hoplites can handle 3 hits before losing a figure, heroes can lose 4 or 5, skirmishers only 2.

Terrain affects game play in a very intuitive way that doesn't require constant recourse to the rulebook.

Morale uses the same dice, rolling an equal number to the courage value of the figure or unit and trying to get a sword. Any hits taken by single figures are subtracted from their courage tests.

The Spartan Lochagos (commander) is killed and the game ends in Turn 3. But that doesn't mean that there wasn't plenty of action in between times.

Don't worry about trying to remember what everyone can do - that's what the cards are for, and they are beautiful!

A good choice of different set ups and different scenarios are given. I haven't played a scenario with objectives yet, just because I want to model some cool objective markers, but I would imagine that they would change the way that you went about the game quite dramatically to the 'kill everyone' scenarios I played.

In the first game (same terrain), the deployment saw the two sides clash very quickly.

Historical feel: The question is, 'does the game make me feel like I'm I playing a skirmish game set in Ancient Greece?' Certainly the omen cards, the nomenclature and the ability to form phalanx give a Greek aspect to what is a really cool skirmish system. Detailed descriptions of skirmishes don't really populate Thucydides, although they certainly happened on a regular basis throughout the Peloponnesian War, and I can imagine them being very similar in style to the way this game plays. I would like to have a go at putting together a skirmisher heavy Athenian army to fight the Spartans and see if the result would be similar to Sphacteria. Overall, it feels like the designers wanted a skirmish game set in Ancient Greece and then took a basic system and built around that with as much chrome as possible.

The right terrain always helps with historicity. This Spartan promachos is heavily outnumbered near an old temple.

Games feel: This is a really simple, intuitive game that gives the player plenty of decisions to make while putting enough friction into the system to upset the best laid plans. The variety in army selection and upgrades to units give the ability to build a customised force that may be quite different to that of your opponent. The production values make the game a joy to play, the cards in particular streamlining the amount of brain cells needed, which is always important to me - I want to play a game, not spend hours flicking through rulebooks.
Getting the hang of how to use your heroes to best effect (do I charge? - they are beasts in combat - but also incredibly important for supporting and ordering companions) and placement of different types of units will take some time. Even then, different deployments and scenarios can wreck your preferred strategy

Spartans started this scenario in the middle of the table. The toxotai (archers) decided to stay in the cover. The Athenian promachos has been forced to climb the walls (not as obstacle - the temple counts as area terrain) in order to attack.

Overall, I'd recommend Mortal Gods. 50 pounds will get you all the cards you need, all the dice and pebbles, and enough figures for 2 starter lochoi (warbands). This can be expanded with the Athenian and Spartan boxes which have cards unique to those armies, and more figures which include shields crafted especially for them. I haven't got the expansions, although it is a matter of when, not if, I acquire them.

As I already had a pile of Warlord Games Greeks, I built my lochoi before the rules were released. The basing sets are available from Sarissa Precision here for those in a similar position. While you are there, check out the terrain they have which works for this game, some of which I plan to acquire as time goes by.

And if you already have a pile of Greek figures, what to do with the starter sprues in the box? Well, time for conversions. I've built 2 tropaions, converted a mantis, and am in the process of using shields, spears and swords for objective markers.