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Huns
You could earn
3380 Victory Points
with this purchase
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Description
Winter 453: The Huns reign supreme over half of the known world. The great Khan, king of the Huns, is suffering, and there are many who dream of taking his place. The Khan must appoint his successor. He will choose the bravest and most glorious of his generals, and you intend for that to be you! But you are not the only contender, and you will have to prove your worth.Each turn in Huns you must choose between raiding for resources or picking a card that will grant you a special ability. In more detail, the game includes five decks of cards in five colors that feature equipment, raids, mercenaries, curses, and treasure, as well as goods cubes in the same five colors. Each player starts the game with two wagons that require specific colored goods to fill them.At the start of a round, the active player rolls five d3 dice in the five colors, then chooses one of the dice and takes either cubes or cards in this color. If you take cards, they draw 1-3 cards (based on the die roll), keep one of them, then place the others face down under this deck. Equipment gives you an in-game bonus, raids have a one-time effect, treasure earns you points at game's end if you meet the condition listed, mercenaries give you a reusable effect once you give them goods, and curses are played on opponents, who must apply goods to them to dispel their effect. If you take cubes, you can place them on a single mercenary card, a single curse card, or any number of your wagons in the appropriate spaces. If you fill a wagon, you draw a new one from those on display. Each player takes one die in turn, choosing cards or goods, until all the dice have been chosen. The first player marker then moves clockwise, and the new active player rolls all five dice again.When one of the cube colors or one of the decks is empty at the end of a round, the game ends. Players score points for raids undertaken, treasure achieved, mercenaries paid off, and wagons delivered, and whoever has the most points wins! Card combos, drafting strategies, and resource management is what Huns is about, set in the universe of the mighty warriors of Huns.
It’s fair to say I like a lot of game mechanics. Recently I have been on a dice drafting high. Dice drafting tends to involve a number of dice being rolled then players taking turns to choose a dice and use it for a certain action or actions. Grand Austria Hotel does this brilliantly, as does recent favourite of mine Santa Maria. Huns is new on the scene and promises to offer a lighter take on dice drafting and has received favourable reviews so far, but will it scratch my itch?
Huns
In Huns there are five colours of cards, cubes and dice. The cards are sorted according to colour and player count, and laid on the board. Blue cards are equipment cards which offer permanent upgrades, red raid cards are one use powers, green are mercenaries that give permanent powers once the required amount of valuables have been added, black are curse cards that are played on other players, and yellow are treasure, end game scoring cards.
Under each set of cards you add the cubes of the same colour which represent valuables. Lastly there are wagon cards which are like orders which you fill with the valuables, or at least attempt to. At the start of a round the active player will roll the five dice and place a die underneath the cards and valuables of the same colour. The dice go from 1-3 and each player takes a dice and then chooses either to take that many cards of the same colour and choose one to add to their tableau, or that amount of valuables of the same colour.
These valuables can be used to place on one mercenary or curse card, or across any number of your wagon cards (usually two). As well as various powers, the cards and wagons offer various end game scoring points. When a stack of cards or valuables is depleted the game ends and points are counted.
Hunny Buns
Huns is like a nice walk in pleasant weather on a route you have travelled plenty before. There’s nothing wrong with it and it’s good exercise, but there are not many surprises, and it all feels a bit familiar. Of course, if you are lacking a solid dice drafting game with great looks then there you can do far far worse than Huns, but if you are a drafting lover and have tasted some of the depth of aforementioned titles, then you might find Huns a bit… pedestrian.
Huns is at a great price point but my biggest concern for the game is a lack of variety over repeated plays. The decks only have 12 cards each and shrink to 10 for two-player games, considering you will often be drawing three cards from these decks at a time you are going to see the same cards again and again, even in your first game. This feels like my only ‘proper’ criticism as the rest of my observations are more personal. Different players may take the cards you want but you will still have a good idea of what is left. On the plus side the powers feel fairly balanced.
Of course, sometimes we need a game we can teach with minimal fuss, that will play in less than an hour. It’s certainly a gateway game in terms of accessibility, and teaches a range of mechanics that would help newcomers grasp other games, but I’m not sure it would “wow” them the way King of Tokyo did me many moons ago.
This all sounds a bit negative doesn’t it? The truth is that Huns is affordable, fun and playable. The art and components are spot on. I would definitely sit down and play it again and enjoy it. I think a few years ago I would have thought it was the best thing ever, but my tastes have moved on to slightly heavier fare as I’ve played more games.
So objectively I think Huns is a good game, subjectively I don’t think it’s a great one. Where does that leave you? Well, um, let’s just, WAIT WHAT’S THAT OVER THERE?
Zatu Score
You might like
- Great looking components.
- Affordable.
- Simple and easy to play.
Might not like
- This game if you already have deeper drafting games.
- A lack of variety.
- Not a 'wow factor' gateway game.