Asymmetrical card duel

We heard a lot of good things about 🔍 Pagan: Fate of Roanoke. We also realized that we don’t have too many 2 player card games, even though we enjoy Radlands too - so Pagan is our most recent purchase. 😅 Pagan’s concept is really intriguing - you play two asymmetrical sides: one player as a witch, the other as a witch hunter. I was really hoping it all works well! Spoiler alert: it does! 😁

The game uses a worker placement mechanic with action markers. 🧐 Each turn you can do 3 actions which are mainly activating one of 9 villager cards or doing your role-specific actions. Markers stay out after your turn, so there is some blocking. The main basic actions are gaining influence (which is the currency of the game) or drawing/playing cards. The other important mechanic is the placement of tokens on the villagers as you interact with them - the two sides use different kinds of tokens with different rules.

When the game begins, the Witch player draws a card from the suspect deck that shows who is the true witch among the villagers - their goal is to put a certain amount of tokens on this person and perform a ritual 🕯️. This could be quite obviously seen by the Hunter though, so misdirection and bluffing is key.
The hunter has to either kill the true witch before the ritual is done or exonerate the other 8 villagers to win the game. 🏆

The game is very tense and tight. You always want to do a lot of actions but you can only do maximum 3. Even if your hand is full of good cards, you need influence and play card actions to get them in play. 🙀

The tenseness comes from not knowing what the other knows. It is really great as a hunter as you draw cards from the suspect deck and find out who isn't dangerous - maybe the witch is doing a big bluff by swarming a villager with tokens when you already know they are innocent. 😄 That makes the game tense for the witch as well. Do they have an idea who the true witch is? 🤔Are they buying your bluffs at all? It’s incredible.

A true highlight of the game is the art and illustrations 🥰 It looks absolutely stunning and everything feels really thematic.