The Roman Emperor Hadrian Augustus in the year 122 AD visited an area of his kingdom that had been ravaged by the Picts of that region. Upon seeing the destruction they had brought he ordered that a wall would be built to protect England from the Picts. It stretches across 80 miles from coast to coast protecting the entire England country from the savage Picts. Today we will look at a game that puts you in the role of a Roman General charged to help build your portion. Will you be able to defend from the Picts while also building up your section of the fort, wall and prove that you are the best?
Today we are looking at the game Hadrian’s Wall published by Renegade Game Studios and Garphill Games. It plays 1-6 players for approximately 60 minutes. It is designed by Bobby Hill.
Overview
In Hadrian’s Wall you will compete against other Roman Generals to build up you milecastle and wall. You will construct a fort and its wall along with building up civilian life through services and entertainment. You must do all this while defending against the Picts and show that you can collect the most Renown, Piety, Valour and Discipline to win the game. Score the most in these areas while avoiding Disdain and you will come out on top!
Gameplay
Hadrian’s Wall is a flip and write, meaning that the game is played out in front of each player and the moves are individually tracked on your player board and resources that come to start the game are based off of a flip of some cards. Players start the game in a similar spot but as the game unfolds different decisions will affect them and how their game changes.
The game starts with each player taking their 12 cards, the two piece player board and a pen. Shuffle the fate cards and place them in the middle with the resources.
The game is played over 6 years, or rounds. Each beginning of the year players take their resource as per the top Fate card and with any resource or worker production bonuses that they may have reached. Each year players will also take two of their player cards and select one for their Path and one for their Prospect. The Path cards provide new ways to score VP and the Prospect will give additional resources and affect other areas of the main player board.
Actions
The player boards are made up of a number of different actions that all require some type of worker or resources or both to be able to fill in the box on the sheet. Most of the areas are tracks, meaning that you must fill them from left to right as you progress.
Let’s discuss some of the areas and what are on the tracks:
Cohorts allow you to progress the defense for the wall, each in either the left, right or center defense. These areas will defend against the Pects. Mining and Foresting will give you more resource production for each year. The Wall Guard is where more defense is trained and put to work on the wall with the other Cohorts.
The Cippi, Wall and Fort act as a three level defense to keep the citizens safe. you must build up your Fort before you can build the Wall and Cippi.
Resource Production, Training Grounds, Hotel, Workshop and Road all function to give you more of something in the following years. This could be more bricks, training, workers or an Attribute on one of the tracks.
The Forum lets players switch any two workers for one different one, and the Landmarks will score extra Attributes based on where you land on the individual tracks. The Attribute Tracks are where players are going to score most of their points in the game. Each filled in box is worth 1 VP at the end of the game.
On the opposite side of the board there are a number of tracks as well, these are Citizen Tracks and they represent the five distinct areas of Roman society. These included the Traders, Performers, Priests, Apparitores and Patricians. Each of the Citizen Tracks can be built up to unlock new places for each area. These can give you more victory points, chances to build up other areas and gain resources and even provide a way out from gaining Disdain. Each of these require you to be so far down the individual district’s tracks and then you pay to unlock that specific building.
Game End
The game ends when all players have played out all the actions they can take and return all extra resources and workers not used to the general supply. Then it is time to defend from the Picts which are revealed one card at a time from the Fate deck to show which section of the wall would be taking the hits. Each player check their Cohorts to see if they have defended against the Picts. You either gain Valour for defending the attacks or possibly lose and gain Disdain which is negative points at the end of the game if you do not get rid of them.
After the Picts attack in the 6th year final scoring takes place by looking at all of the Attribute tracks and adding the points, subtracting points for Disdain and scoring points for your Attributes. The player with the most points is the winner!
Impressions
Hadrian’s Wall is the most in-depth roll/flip and write I have ever played. This game is not a light-weight game at all like a lot of other roll and write/flips can be. Don’t let the style of game fool you here. It is a challenge in many different ways.
First off it is a challenge to learn. There are quite a few different rules and they all come together to give the player a unique experience but it is not an easy learn. You really need to be focused into the explanation of this one because of all the details and how they play off of each other. It is not for someone who scoffs at rules or explanations-you will definitely need to be paying attention for this one.
It is also a challenge to play. The game has a lot of levers to pull and buttons to push and your first few games will not be easy as you try out various things to see what works. After a few plays of this you start to get the hang of it but don’t get discouraged if you have a hard time focusing on it at first.
Finally this game is a challenge to teach. I’m still trying to get a handle on the rhythm of how to best teach this one to new players as there is a lot of information on the board and you need to go through all the steps. For the most part the symbology is solid but it takes some time to really make sure players understand how and why it works like it does. Players need to focus on properly filling out the rows and moving along to the next thing it fires so they can see how it chains together. This keeps them attuned to the details and not get lost on where they are and what resources they might still have available.
Hadrian’s Wall is bound to end up on a lot of “Game of the Year” lists at the end of this year and I would imagine it could be in the running for mine as well. It is a super fun experience in the roll and flip world and one I could see myself and our friend group enjoying for a long time to come. Make sure to check this one out yourself and see what kind of crazy combos you can pull off!
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