I played this last night for the first time, with two other first time players. None of us had played the original Kemet before. I agree that the rule book just wasn't great. I finished reading it and had a lot of questions. Thankfully the creators and other experts are active on the BGG page and answered all of my questions. We had a ton of fun! Once we got going it was surprisingly straightforward. We all went for power tiles that had minis because they are just so darned cool, but one of the guys grabbed the snake which made our minis useless! Drat! It was tense and yep, the end game turned into just trying to keep the next player from winning. It only lasted until everyone ran out of "movement" abilities and so no more attacking could be done. It felt a little anticlimactic as we just wanted to keep fighting but I guess you gotta end it somehow! I am gonna try it with 2 players at some point this week. The thing that I found most interesting is how "anti-Risk" this game is. While both "Dudes on a map" games, Risk has long turns, promotes defense and holding what you get, massing big troops, huge swingy turns and loads of luck with dice rolls. Kemet's turns are short, promotes attacking, limits how many troops per area you can have, doesn't have room for one army to march across the board taking everyone out, and has almost no luck at all (unless you count the Divine Intervention cards). Finally, I want to try a "Dogs on a Map" game!
Totally - and I think that’s why I (Tallie) like this dudes on a map game despite this genre being typically my least favourite, because the game mechanisms are set up for promoting attacking so I feel like I can be aggressive without risking too much because it’s relatively simple to just recruit any lost troops again and the combat feels fair and strategic. My worst thing is when it takes you so long to build up an army then just have someone else stream roll you based on dice rolls - it just feels like too much work to go into attack mode and lose everything and start again. Glad you enjoyed your first game and thanks for watching!
Great review as always! Love it! :) Came here to drop a game tip, Brotherhood & Unity. A wargame based on the famous game Paths of Glory. It is a Wargame about the balkan war. Easy to teach. Its a 11-page rulebook (the rest is historical information about the cards). Its a 3-player wargame which is very unique, and plays in 2 hours (3 hours for your first learning game). Someone had actually said it reminded them of Kemet! Highly reccommend to look it up! :) Keep up the good work! :)
Thanks for the recommendation - always cool to have games we’re not familiar with recommended to us by our viewers - we’ll have to check that one out! Thanks for the comment and for watching, we’re glad you enjoyed this review!
So first and foremost, bonus points for dog usage. I am suuuper excited about this game as I am waiting for it to arrive. Thanks for the overview, and the caveats on the rules. Looking forward to teaching this to my friends...and then utterly destroying them!
Just going to mention that the 9 FP win condition only has to be met when you’re going to play an action token. You don’t have to play a whole round like in 1st edition.
Indeed! We never played the first edition so didn’t experience that - seems like it would be even more crabs in a bucket than Blood & Sand with players just taking it away from each other constantly?!
If you are looking for 1vs1 game I would suggest Undaunted: North Africa or if money is no issue Star Wars: Rebellion. But for 3-5 players Kemet is better. Usually wargames if not made specifically for two players aren't that good at that player count. Kemet has rules for two, but it feels scuffed because you remove parts of it and play with less then you would with more players.
I love both of your names. I've never met or even heard of a talli or Farrow (spelling). It's almost like you have stage names. However, the reason I wanted to write was to say. Farrow is getting jacked from lifting all those heavy games. Wish the game looked nicer though, and the components look a little cheap. Also I have heard that some stuff was lost in translation rules wise.
Haha thank you! Tallie is a very slight cheat as it’s actually a nickname - my full name is actually Natalie so really not too exciting - but my mum didn’t want my nickname throughout life to be Nat so she assigned me Tallie from a young age and that’s just want everyone knows me as! My pronunciation has also made Farrell’s name sound different it seems 😅 but indeed it’s a very unique name all the same! Yeah you’re right actually some of the components aren’t the best looking, particularly the soldiers I’d say but to be fair it’s not something we immediately noticed as we’ve been enjoying the game and we personally like the map art and think it looks quite vibrant, so it somewhat makes up for it!
Difficult to say without knowing where you are in the world! But we usually just use board game comparison sites to see where games are in stock in our region and where the best prices are 😊
There doesn’t seem to be any crux to it? Just so straightforward. You can move almost anywhere, perform almost all actions, not really losing anything in combat etc. Just shuffling dudes into combat, is that it? Where are the clever plays? I’m really curious! Never played Kemet, but the auctioning in Cyclades and drafting in Inis is excellent.
Big part of the game are power tiles. There is 48 of them in every game and almost all of them have different power. You need to think ahead a lot and choose good combinations. They shake up how you play every game. They can give you better defence or combat power, new battle cards and moster with unique special effects. You need to plan ahead and adapt all the time.
Totally agree it’s the power tiles and combinations thereof that really elevate this game. Also whilst you can technically move anywhere - you only get maximum 2 move actions per round as there’s only 2 move spaces available on your player mat. You also have a maximum amount of spaces you can move in a single movement (default is 1 - which can be boosted by cards and power tiles) and can only teleport ‘anywhere’ with an obelisk if you’re in a space with a pyramid, so it is actually a bit of a puzzle as to what you do and when. If you invade someone else’s territory on foot - you have to start that movement in an adjacent territory so you have to be a bit clever with how you play it as if you move in next to someone, if they have the recruit action still available on their mat they’ll likely just bolster up there - so it’s best to try to go for them when you still have both your move actions available and they no longer have move or recruit. In summary - a lot of the puzzle comes from only having 5 actions per round and the fact that once you’ve used one up you place a marker on it and it can no longer be used again that round. Also I think what elevates the game is the fact that some VPs are permanent and some are temporary and can be taken away from you by other players. You have to be pretty strategic here with what type of points you’re accumulating and assessing how you can maintain those temporary ones. Hope this helps!
@BoardOfItReviews Hey everyone! We really appreciate you watching! If you found this helpful, please consider subscribing as it helps us grow our channel. More subscribers makes us more attractive to publishers, which allows us to collaborate with them and make more videos! It's costly and time consuming to make these videos, so we could really use the support! :)
We used to own the original Kemet, for the life of me I cannot remember why we let it go. We both enjoyed it even though we only played 2 players. I'm so tempted to pick up this new version..
Agree it’s still really fun at 2! We did hear some people who had played the first edition weren’t fans of the new art direction and quality of components in Blood & Sand but having never played the original it wasn’t an issue for us, in fact we quite like the art!
We did have some sound issues with this particular video - but since we got some mics we haven’t had anyone comment on sound quality since then - could you tell us what device you’re listening on so we can try to check it as from what we understand sound is fine since we got mics! Thank you!
I played this last night for the first time, with two other first time players. None of us had played the original Kemet before. I agree that the rule book just wasn't great. I finished reading it and had a lot of questions. Thankfully the creators and other experts are active on the BGG page and answered all of my questions. We had a ton of fun! Once we got going it was surprisingly straightforward. We all went for power tiles that had minis because they are just so darned cool, but one of the guys grabbed the snake which made our minis useless! Drat! It was tense and yep, the end game turned into just trying to keep the next player from winning. It only lasted until everyone ran out of "movement" abilities and so no more attacking could be done. It felt a little anticlimactic as we just wanted to keep fighting but I guess you gotta end it somehow! I am gonna try it with 2 players at some point this week. The thing that I found most interesting is how "anti-Risk" this game is. While both "Dudes on a map" games, Risk has long turns, promotes defense and holding what you get, massing big troops, huge swingy turns and loads of luck with dice rolls. Kemet's turns are short, promotes attacking, limits how many troops per area you can have, doesn't have room for one army to march across the board taking everyone out, and has almost no luck at all (unless you count the Divine Intervention cards). Finally, I want to try a "Dogs on a Map" game!
Totally - and I think that’s why I (Tallie) like this dudes on a map game despite this genre being typically my least favourite, because the game mechanisms are set up for promoting attacking so I feel like I can be aggressive without risking too much because it’s relatively simple to just recruit any lost troops again and the combat feels fair and strategic. My worst thing is when it takes you so long to build up an army then just have someone else stream roll you based on dice rolls - it just feels like too much work to go into attack mode and lose everything and start again. Glad you enjoyed your first game and thanks for watching!
Great review and overview! We're playing for our game night and podcast recording on Monday night. Looking forward to it!
Hope you enjoy it! It's a pretty fun game right from the start luckily. Thanks for the kind words :D
12:00 you can place sth at the unused part of the board :)
I'm getting my copy Thursday, I can't wait to get bloody with my friends!
Nice! Let us know how you get on with your first couple of games!
Love the Pokemon reference :D Great video guys!
Haha Farrell was very chuffed with himself for the Pokemon references so he’ll be happy you appreciated it 😉 thank you!
Great review as always! Love it! :)
Came here to drop a game tip, Brotherhood & Unity. A wargame based on the famous game Paths of Glory.
It is a Wargame about the balkan war. Easy to teach. Its a 11-page rulebook (the rest is historical information about the cards). Its a 3-player wargame which is very unique, and plays in 2 hours (3 hours for your first learning game). Someone had actually said it reminded them of Kemet! Highly reccommend to look it up! :)
Keep up the good work! :)
Thanks for the recommendation - always cool to have games we’re not familiar with recommended to us by our viewers - we’ll have to check that one out! Thanks for the comment and for watching, we’re glad you enjoyed this review!
So first and foremost, bonus points for dog usage. I am suuuper excited about this game as I am waiting for it to arrive. Thanks for the overview, and the caveats on the rules. Looking forward to teaching this to my friends...and then utterly destroying them!
We just can’t keep the dogs off the screen they love it 😅 hahaha love your enthusiasm for destroying your friends 😈 hope your copy arrives soon 🙏🏻
Just going to mention that the 9 FP win condition only has to be met when you’re going to play an action token. You don’t have to play a whole round like in 1st edition.
Indeed! We never played the first edition so didn’t experience that - seems like it would be even more crabs in a bucket than Blood & Sand with players just taking it away from each other constantly?!
Actually the 1st edition already introduced a different finale with ta-se-ti expansion.
From the meaty dudes on a map area control games for at least 2p, which one do you think scales better for a 1v1? Kemet? Blood Rage?
Haven't played Blood Rage so can't comment on that, but Kemet scales fairly well. So does Inis, one of the other games in the Matagot trilogy.
If you are looking for 1vs1 game I would suggest Undaunted: North Africa or if money is no issue Star Wars: Rebellion. But for 3-5 players Kemet is better. Usually wargames if not made specifically for two players aren't that good at that player count. Kemet has rules for two, but it feels scuffed because you remove parts of it and play with less then you would with more players.
I'm gonna watch this just to learn what a "Dudes on a map" game is :p
Hope it's helpful!
This is a game I think I might like :)
I passed on the first edition ... perhaps it is time. :)
Dudes on a map !
Indeed! Please let us know how you get on if and when you decide to make the purchase of Kemet Blood & Sand!
@@BoardOfItReviews
Sounds good... and let me know if you’d like more Roll and Write suggestions :)
I love both of your names. I've never met or even heard of a talli or Farrow (spelling). It's almost like you have stage names.
However, the reason I wanted to write was to say. Farrow is getting jacked from lifting all those heavy games.
Wish the game looked nicer though, and the components look a little cheap. Also I have heard that some stuff was lost in translation rules wise.
Haha thank you! Tallie is a very slight cheat as it’s actually a nickname - my full name is actually Natalie so really not too exciting - but my mum didn’t want my nickname throughout life to be Nat so she assigned me Tallie from a young age and that’s just want everyone knows me as!
My pronunciation has also made Farrell’s name sound different it seems 😅 but indeed it’s a very unique name all the same!
Yeah you’re right actually some of the components aren’t the best looking, particularly the soldiers I’d say but to be fair it’s not something we immediately noticed as we’ve been enjoying the game and we personally like the map art and think it looks quite vibrant, so it somewhat makes up for it!
Where can i buy the game?
Difficult to say without knowing where you are in the world! But we usually just use board game comparison sites to see where games are in stock in our region and where the best prices are 😊
I now want to play a ducks on a map game haha
🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻😂😂😂
There doesn’t seem to be any crux to it? Just so straightforward. You can move almost anywhere, perform almost all actions, not really losing anything in combat etc. Just shuffling dudes into combat, is that it? Where are the clever plays? I’m really curious! Never played Kemet, but the auctioning in Cyclades and drafting in Inis is excellent.
Big part of the game are power tiles. There is 48 of them in every game and almost all of them have different power. You need to think ahead a lot and choose good combinations. They shake up how you play every game. They can give you better defence or combat power, new battle cards and moster with unique special effects. You need to plan ahead and adapt all the time.
Totally agree it’s the power tiles and combinations thereof that really elevate this game. Also whilst you can technically move anywhere - you only get maximum 2 move actions per round as there’s only 2 move spaces available on your player mat. You also have a maximum amount of spaces you can move in a single movement (default is 1 - which can be boosted by cards and power tiles) and can only teleport ‘anywhere’ with an obelisk if you’re in a space with a pyramid, so it is actually a bit of a puzzle as to what you do and when. If you invade someone else’s territory on foot - you have to start that movement in an adjacent territory so you have to be a bit clever with how you play it as if you move in next to someone, if they have the recruit action still available on their mat they’ll likely just bolster up there - so it’s best to try to go for them when you still have both your move actions available and they no longer have move or recruit.
In summary - a lot of the puzzle comes from only having 5 actions per round and the fact that once you’ve used one up you place a marker on it and it can no longer be used again that round.
Also I think what elevates the game is the fact that some VPs are permanent and some are temporary and can be taken away from you by other players. You have to be pretty strategic here with what type of points you’re accumulating and assessing how you can maintain those temporary ones.
Hope this helps!
Came for the Board Game stayed for the dogs.
That's our goal
@BoardOfItReviews
Hey everyone! We really appreciate you watching! If you found this helpful, please consider subscribing as it helps us grow our channel. More subscribers makes us more attractive to publishers, which allows us to collaborate with them and make more videos! It's costly and time consuming to make these videos, so we could really use the support! :)
We used to own the original Kemet, for the life of me I cannot remember why we let it go. We both enjoyed it even though we only played 2 players. I'm so tempted to pick up this new version..
Agree it’s still really fun at 2! We did hear some people who had played the first edition weren’t fans of the new art direction and quality of components in Blood & Sand but having never played the original it wasn’t an issue for us, in fact we quite like the art!
This looks like a step backwards from Kemet.
We have never played the original, so can’t comment on it, but we for sure enjoyed Blood & Sand a lot!
How?
Love you guys, but you probably sit in huge open room, so sound quality is not so great.
We did have some sound issues with this particular video - but since we got some mics we haven’t had anyone comment on sound quality since then - could you tell us what device you’re listening on so we can try to check it as from what we understand sound is fine since we got mics! Thank you!
The rule book is the worst i have experienced so far. not a lot of great youtube set up and gameplay tutorials either.
We didn't mind it that much as it's fairly short - our least favourite was Coffee Traders
Why is the game so damn ugly... Would have been an instant purchase.
Beige is the mightiest of all the colors