Today we are looking at game that involves dice, movement and some abstract strategy on the board. You are a Loa and your trying to take over for Baron Samedi as the controller of the souls as the new god of death. Let’s jump in and see how this one plays out!
Baron Voodoo is published by Lucky Duck Games and designed by Yann Dentil. Illustrated by Christine Alcouffe. It plays 2-4 players in 45 mins.
Overview
In Baron Voodoo, players move their dice to capture other dice and then perform motile actions including a special player power to gain the dice “souls” and trade them in for victory points. The game ends at a set point total and then players determine who has the majority of each soul type and scores more points to determine the winner!
Gameplay
Each player picks a Loa and their board with three Offering tokens, a protection token and a score token. The dice are all rolled and placed on their matching color on the board. Play begins with the oldest player.
Players take their turns in a clockwise order, attempting to capture dice and create combos to ear victory points. Turns are done in the following steps.
First you use your special player Loa power or spend 1 offering token to use any other player’s power. You may choose to do that at the beginning or end of your turn.
Second, players will move to capture a die on the game board. This is done by moving a die of your color in a way that it jumps over one other die of any color including your own. Once captured you add it to your board. You can capture lone dice by themselves in a space or ones that are on the top of a stack. Dice may be stacked up to 3 high on the board.
Once you capture a die, you can do all or any of this following actions in order:
1-Take an Offering token if you captured one of your own dice
2-Spend an Offering token to change a die face
3- Apply the face-up effect of the die
4-Spend two Offering tokens to play another turn
5-Earn Victory points by placing dice in the Spirit world
When you control the most white dice/souls you may use the Baron Samedi token to use any player’s Loa power for free. This will allow you to use anyones including Lots that are not currently in the game at lower player count games.
Each die has a special face-up effect that you will use as well, the will give you more Offering tokens, Victory points, allow you to steal and swap dice or protect yourself from other players attacks. Once you capture matching colored souls or different colored souls of matching types you can start to move those down into the Spirit world and score points. Once the total set amount of points for the player count is met, the game resolves and players score points for having the most of each type of colored souls. The player with the most victory points wins the game!
Overall
Baron Voodoo offers some very unique challenges as you attempt to line up and capture the right dice at the right time. The asymmetrical player powers are super important in this game and allow you to set up your movements in the right places at the right time. Each player has good ones but being able to get the Baron token and using any of them is really nice as well.
The game is a simple abstract game, not one that is like any other abstract games I have played in the past. My son compared it to “checkers with some cool powers”, but I am not sure that is the best comparison 🙂 Baron Voodoo is an area movement game, where you are trying to position yourself in the right place at the right time to grab what you need. Early on you also realize that capturing other players dice will keep their choices limited as they try to find that right spot. Taking your own dice can be a bit problematic also as it limits your choices.
This is a game I would recommend for players who enjoy the voodoo theme that shines in the thematics of this one-the art and design of it is really fun. The dice aren’t the star of this game, they randomize it at the beginning but don’t do a lot of in-game change. So I wouldn’t recommend it for people looking for it as a dice game. if you are a fan of abstract games, this is one you will probably enjoy getting to the table. It plays at a relatively quick pace and doesn’t overstay its welcome. The game is accessible to a casual player and likely to give a challenge to a more seasoned player as well. Definitely check this one out if you are looking for a new abstract game to grace your table!
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