Dueling Shamans

Ynaros Fallin’ is a dueling game. You play as shamans, trying to become the wisest, conquering magical lands to harness their power, and also battling your opponent’s followers. There is a lot going on in this game, so it’s a bit difficult to unpack it all. I recommend checking out the live Kickstarter now to check out additional details! 🙃

There are a lot of mechanics used in Ynaros Fallin’, and you can find both euro and ameri features. The game is split into different levels of play - both for ease of learning and to choose the complexity level you enjoy the most. The first level already has quite a bit of stuff. 😄

You control your own shaman and follower figures - each turn you can do 2 actions out of 4 possible ones. There is some hand-management with cards you can use in multiple ways, resource management of magic crystals, plus grid movement on the board. The board itself holds magical land tiles that you can take, that are a primary source for points and also lend you useful abilities. If you go all the way to the opponent’s hearth you can even summon new followers to join the fight. 🙋

You can engage in combat by entering the hex of an opponent. ⚔️ You basically start a separate mini-game which plays like a tug-of-war. In turn you can either play some cards or a crystal to move yourself or the opponent on the battle track. It’s a pretty clever way of handling combat!

Jumping to level 2 you get additional tokens that switch up the gameplay, and it also introduces a tile-laying mechanic. With this you get to change the layout of the board, blocking certain spaces for your opponent and making movement for yourself easier.

Then level 3 introduces even more stuff, including an area control mechanic. And if it’s still not enough, you could get the expansion that gives you level 4 and 5. Now that is a true amalgamation of game mechanics! 🙀

I think the graphical design is great. I love the purplish-pink color palette, and the quality of the prototype copy gives me hope for a very cool final product. 🙂