Successors is a downright fantastic game. And that’s it, you just read the review on that first phrase. From now on I will just tell you why.

1. The setting:

Some games have a good theme; some games have its mechanisms well integrated with the theme, but it is rare to see a game outside of the RPG crowd that actually tells a story.
I know a lot of wargames recreates battles with a lot of detail, but I’m not a wargamer and I couldn’t give you an example even if my life depended on it.

In any case, Successors doesn’t just recreate a battle – while playing the game, you really have the sensation that you are rewriting the history of the succession of Alexander (the Great, or so I’ve heard).

Alexander is dead and eight generals are split in four factions. Each faction claims that they are the righteous successor to the throne (I don’t know if Alexander had a throne, but work with me here). To prove their point of view they are willing to give Alexander a proper burial, protect his sons, marry his allies and only enter combat if a threat to the unification of the Empire appears. Or…

…You can choose the Dark Side and bury the dead guy in the first hole you see, kill children and women and stomp with Elephants everyone that looks you the wrong way. Or…

…A mix of all those things. Ii is like playing the RPG Knights of The Old Republic in a board game. All of this stuff has been woven into the game system, and more often than not, their implementation are elegant, makes sense and adds to the gameplay.

2. The system:

You will find a little bit of everything here and it can be a little confusing if you are an eurogamer that is used to 5-pages rulebooks. To be fair, even seasoned ameritrashers will probably overlook a rule or two in their first plays (I did). Veteran wargamers will probably play this with their eyes closed and their hands in the back (they would have to spit the dice, though).

I won’t go into details, but I’ll give you the highlights:

2.1 – Asymmetrical forces: the 2 generals that you start with are randomly dealt. You can start the game drowning in Victory Points, sandwiched between enemies or babysitting what’s left of Alexander’s legacy (including his body).

2.2 – Multiple Victory conditions: if you go for conquest, you will amass VP (Victory Condition 1); If you try to bury Alexander in the appropriate place and be a really nice guy all around, you will gain Legitimacy (Victory Condition 2); Or you can strike a deal with an Alexander heir and declare yourself regent, adding both your VP and Legitimacy points to form a grand total of Awesomeness Points (Victory condition 3). Those conditions are triggered in different ways that I won’t say because it feels like telling you the end of the movie.

2.3 – The Usurper: the player with the most VP is labeled as a threat and can be attacked freely and without penalty (loss of Legitimacy, which you might need to win). In other words: you are officially free to gang up on the leader! That’s just one of the most fun rules ever.

2.4 – The combat system: blood everywhere! If you win, you lose one unit. If you lost, you might lose more units and what’s left of your army goes crying to the dispersed box. The soldiers that are not killed are humiliated – fun, fun, fun and fun. I’ll make a hat with the words “I lost and ran for my life without direction and screaming like a little girl” to give to whomever is defeated in a battle. Add to that crazy elephants (you don’t know if they are going to be useful) and a brilliant loyalty system (if your army carries men loyal to Alexander, they will not fight against a general with more Legitimacy than you) and you have a tense and interesting dice rolling affair.

2.5 – Fate cards (Tyche Cards, actually): You could play the game without the card phase because there’s a separated movement phase in which you can do the works: move, fight, siege, etc. The card phase is an opportunity to make a bonus play and to add events and special powers to the mix. The cards add chaos, but also variety and options to the game, and the chaos is not enough to hurt the strategic part of the game. Of course, a player with an incredible good hand can make a lot of stuff happen, but I can live with that. More often than not, if someone is going too well, he is just putting a target in his chest.

2.6 – Production Values: if you are a wargamer (or a GMT fan) you will probably cry when you see the mounted board. It is very, very nice. The cardboard components are almost OK, but the idea to print different Units on the backside of the chit is bad. You save space, but for clumsy apes like me and my friends that are constantly bumping in the army piles, the chits are sometimes flipped and it is not easy to remember which side it was in the first place. Also, one of the bases for the Generals is of the wrong color. Nothing major, but when a game is this good, every little thing annoys you, because you know that the dam thing could be even better!

3- The exceptions and special rules:

Some games, in order to be realistic, add a bunch of exceptions that are usually distracting, hard to remember and potentially hurting to the gameplay. “General Weird had a bad leg, so he only moves one space”, “Private Nelson was schizophrenic so you have to roll on table number 43 to see if he is really going to be able to shoot and if he is going to target an enemy or an ally”. To me Blackbeard is a fine example of this kind of game. I find that a lot of rules in that game just brings the whole package down, realistic as they may be. In successors I think that the exceptions work, they add to the gameplay and make it more fun. I think that’s quite an achievement and I think that, because of this, it is a wargame accessible to a bigger crowd. I’ve already tried it with people with different gaming backgrounds (and tastes) and we all found that the game was great. Just don’t bring the kids and casual gamers – it is definitely geared towards people that already have some gaming scars and tattoos.

The bad news?

1. It is quite long (but not as much after some plays), You are looking at something between 3 and 5 hours.

2. I can’t see it working with less than four players. I know some people will dig it anyway, but I think the appeal of the game is incredibly reduced with less than the optimum number of four players.

3. Uneven levels of experience with the game may lead to some frustration, as some new player might forget one of the special rules and throw himself out of the game with a bad move.

4. Moving around the board may not be as swift as it could be, as other players sit in choke points. Sometimes you may feel that the game badly needs an expansion that adds motorized transport and airplanes. But it is obviously a design choice and I'm just nitpicking now.

Final word (or should it be initial?)

Blood, elephants, marriage with cardboard women, funerals and the good old dice rolling. The whole package can really be resumed in the first phrase: Successors is a downright fantastic game.