Small World

Small World, as many will know, is a reinvention of the game Vinci. I've never played Vinci, so I cannot make any comparisons. All I can say, is that I've come away very impressed after my first few plays of Small World.

The first thing you will notice is the quality of the components. Days of Wonder have done a great job. Even though it's all cardboard (apart from the dice), the quality of the artwork and the care which they've put into even how all the tokens etc. are stored is fantastic. Other game publishers should take note.

Gameplay itself is easy to pick up, although the strategies to winning will take a while to learn. Basically, it's a game of area domination, with you deploying fantasy troops with a variety of different powers in order to gain ground and knock your enemies off the map. One of the key strategies to learn is when it is a good idea to abandon your current race and put it 'into decline'. You can then start your next turn by selecting a new race in order to change or adapt your strategic approach.

The variety in the races and powers is impressive and will provide a lot of re-playability. Everything is summarised on a handy rules card which can be handed out to each player, making the game pretty easy to pick up for newbies.

Overall, I recommend giving Small World a go. It feels different to a lot of other games out there, plays fast and will definitely reward repeated plays. Enjoy!

This is a highly entertaining game with a relatively straight forward game mechanics. The variety of race/power combinations means the game never plays the same twice. The unlikely pairings which crop up is great too. I have played with 3, 4 and 5 players and I definately prefer it with the full quota. There are 4 different boards included, depending on the number of players present, which is a great touch. The game has a very good pace to it, so all players are engaged, even when it is not their turn - a massive plus. Small World is a beautifully produced, fast paced, light strategy game which is great fun. It plays ok with 3 (I have not yet tried 2) but if you regularly have 4 or 5 players i highly recommend.

Smallworld is a fun light-hearted game that all the family can enjoy playing (even my six year old daughter).

All of the tokens used to play SmallWorld are card so you have a big job of pressing them all out before you start, that said the playing pieces are of a decent quality, colourful and cheerful, when I played Smallworld with my Monday night gaming group there was some hilarity over the artwork on the pieces.

But I digress... onto the review.

SmallWorld is simply a game of territory take over and hold... Each player takes it in turns to take over their land on the map then bolster up the defenses in an attempt to hold that piece of territory throughout the round.

What makes SmallWorld different is the ability to place your current race into "decline" (a game term which means stop playing that particular race), the player is then free to choose a new race (at a cost) and dish out some revenge on the other players.

The end game winner is simply the person with the most coin (which you get for taking territories).

All in all SmallWorld is a fun romp that all the family can play and enjoy.

If you like playing Risk but always feel it goes on for a bit too long then you might want to take a look at SmallWorld.

Definately worth a purchase in my opinion.

5 random races and abilities are dealt out in a list. Each player starting with first decides which race (and joined ability) he wants. First race in list is free. If he wants a race futher down he pays 1 gold piece to every race above the one he wants (ie 3rd race costs 2, 1 for 1st, 1 for 2nd). Eventually over the game the race at the top becomes so tempting that a player will take it just for the money!

The combination of race and ability will determine the size of the invading race. You come on from a board edge and invade surrounding regions. To invade you need 2 tokens of your race + 1 token for each card token in the region (such as mountains, troll lairs, enemy race tokens etc). If you have the amount you win, all but 1 enemy tokens are returned to enemy with 1 being destroyed (some races have abilities to affect this)

You invade with everything in your hand each turn until you run out. For the last invasion you can roll the reinforcement dice (D6 with 3 blank faces, other 3 have 1,2,3) the reinforcement roll adds that many reinforcements to your hand for the invasion.

Gold is collected for each region you control at the end of your turn.

After a few rounds your army/race will have been beaten down. You can decide to go into decline and draw another race the next turn. A declining race is removed from the board bar 1 token on each region held. You still generate gold while you hold it but lose your ability. If you want to put a second race into decline your first race is completely removed.

At the end of the game whoever has the most gold wins. We played 3 player game (board size determined by number of players) in little over 30 minutes with 2 players never having played before.

The only dice rolls of the game are for reinforcements and the only other random factor is the race - ability cards but you can see what each race and ability gives you and decide to spend to get a better one.

We had flying skeletons, merchant ghouls, diplomatic ratmen, wealthy elves and my favourite - berzerker halflings.

A beautiful looking game, from the base board to the race cards, power cards and all the tokens. The box it comes in has a well designed platter for storing all the tokens seperately, no chucking everything together and then sorting before each game.

The game itself is great fun. The goal is to pick a race and then attack territories, the more you hold at the end of your turn the more you score. And when you've done all you can with your race or you're hard pressed by opponents, you just make them go extinct (decline) and come on to the board with a new one.

Replayability is great as you get 14 races, 20 different powers and you mix them, so that's 280 (often hilarious) variations.

The game is 2 to 5 players. It actually works really well with only 2 people as the game becomes very fast and fluid. With 5 people you get more things happening.

Small World takes 'Vinci', simplifies it, streamlines it and adds a theme.

Whilst Vinci saw some of our group struggling to remember to add and subtract all the 1s and 2s, a few tweaks have reduced the memory baggage and newcomers picked up Small World with no problems at all.

By hiding the scores and setting a turn limit on the game, everything feels faster with relatively little ganging up.

The fantasy theme adds visual flavour sorely lacking from the characterless tiles and pieces of the original.

All round, Small World has turned a game I enjoyed (but would be wary of introducing to others) into a game that I'd freely introduce to any gamer.

With mechanics that keep conflict high, allowing new armies to steamroller the old, this is as close to a 'party war game' as you could get.