Now that H.P. Lovecraft week is over, I figured I would start my "first" article with a picture of my current favorite boardgame. Neuroshima Hex is a tile laying board game of post-apocalyptic battle for two to four players. The Hex, as I will refer to it from now on, was originally published by Portal Publishing in Poland. In fact, it won Polish Designer Game of the Year for 2006.



The game is set in the Neuroshima Hex RPG world described on Portal's website as:

"...a post-apocalyptic future. Action takes place in the USA, 30 years after a devastating war between people and machines. Northern sections of the USA are under Moloch occupation, where no human being is able to live; a place where dreadful machines are building their own new world. Neuroshima RPG is a great game for all people who like Fallout, who like Mad Max, who like Joe Dever’s Freeway Warrior books."

Unfortunately, the RPG is only available in Polish. Fortunately, the Hex is translated into English and available thanks to Z-Man Games. In fact, the Z-Man games version is superior in a couple ways. First, Z-Man provides a solid cardboard reference sheet for each army along with a tactics section on the reverse side. Second, the quality of the tiles is higher than the Portal tiles. Finally, the overall aesthetics of the game appear to be of higher quality than the Portal version.

Each player controls a base tile with 20 hit points tracked along the border of the board. Before drawing tiles from their stack, each player places his base on the board. Each base provides a bonus to adjacent friendly tiles. The four bonuses are extra range damage, extra melee damage, extra actions after a unit's initiative round(s) and increased initiative. The armies are composed of units, modules and action tiles. Units are the forces that battle opposing units and bases, modules provide a benefit to friendly adjacent units and action tiles initiate some sort of action from battles to movement.

The game takes place over a number of turns where players place units and modules or use action tokens. On each player's turn, they draw tiles so that their "hand" size equals three. Next the player discards one of the three tiles and can play up to two of the remaining tiles. Any tiles not played is kept in hand. The object of the game is to have the most hit points left on your base than your opponent(s) at the end of the game. Every time the board is filled with units or a battle tile is played, all units resolve their attacks based on initiative order starting with 3 and ending with bases acting on 0.

When one player draws their last tile, each reaming player takes a last turn. A final battle occurs after the final player's last turn. The more players, the more battles will take place as the board fills up faster.

The Hex is so much fun because you can see how your enemies plan on attacking your base/units or defending their own base/units. The only luck factor is the random drawing of tiles which is somewhat negated by the requirement to discard one of the three tiles in your hand. Each faction has its own unique feel. Players need to be aware of a units initiative, damage type and direction, special abilities and module positioning. For example, do I place that melee damage unit next to an opponent's base knowing that it will likely deal damage on initiative 2, but die on initiative 0 when the base gets to attack?

]Moloch(red) has a wide variety of units and focuses on ranged attacks more than other factions. Outpost(green) focuses on its ability to act on multiple initiative turns in a row. Borgo(blue) increases its initiative so that its units attack before other units, possibly eliminating them before they can act. Hegemony(yellow) increases its melee damage.

The factions feel balanced except for Hegemony. After dozens of plays, Hegemony feels to be lacking something compared to the other factions. The units are not quite as versatile and the base enhancement to melee damage is less useful than the other bases. Despite these drawbacks, it is often fun to play Hegemony in multiplayer games as the other players tend to underestimate you, allowing a good chance at victory.

Player elimination, even in multiplayer games with more battles, is fairly rare. Victory will often come down to the late game as players can see how much damage each base has sustained. The "feel" of the game is one of constant sci-fi/post apocalyptic battle enhanced by the art of the tiles. The underlying mechanics are simple and elegant with a very short rulebook of 12 pages including cover and three pages of play examples.

I have yet to find a player that does not enjoy this game. This includes players who prefer chess to players who prefer a dungeon crawl.

Overall, I give Neuroshima Hex a five out of a possible five Nuclear Mutants.

Check back next time for a review of the first expansion to the Hex, Babylon 13, as well as a look at some fan-made armies.

---

---