Game review - Scythe: the Rise of Fenris

Mechanics: engine building, worker placement, territory control

Game Difficulty: Difficult

Game Length: 8 campaign games, each about an hour long

Number of players: 2 - 7

Best number of players: 5

Description without prepositions!

The base game of Scythe gives us one sketchy landscape - post-war Europe, where several nations are fighting for power through mechs and the mysterious Factory.
Rise of Fenris complements this with a small art gallery where this landscape is just one of many on one of the walls. The thick rulebook opens with a story that explains everything that led up to the Great War and the wandering mechs… And gives us a chance to take part in the story of what happens after it ends.

Rise of Fenris is a very carefully crafted expansion that doubles the game's playability, making it more engaging for both more aggressive and more peaceful players, adding elements to make the game longer or shorter, and adding... another big box of interesting elements.

First, it's an 8-game campaign. The campaign can be played as a long story or enjoyed as eight games, of course with various surprises and unexpected twists. The mechanics of the game will be changed and diversified, and the intrigue of what happens on the next page and what to expect at the end (and, of course, who will win) remains until the very end.
Immediately evaluating the repeatability of the campaign itself, in my opinion, it is very high. At the start of each game, the rules give advice on what will be most important, but that in itself does not mean that all players will be able to focus on that particular thing. In addition to that, there is always the intrigue of what it would have been like to play with the Nords, as with the Russians, as with Polanyi, etc. in this party.

Second, once the campaign is complete, players are left with 11 modules that can be combined and added to the base game.

Some of them change the mechanics of the game, some do not touch the mechanics, but reveal new possibilities for the style of the game - unfortunately, without spoiling the intrigue, the finer details cannot be revealed.

I think the most important thing is that these mods definitely make the game adaptable to a wider range of players. In each company, someone wants to build their own economy in their unit, while someone else regrets that they only have three battles per turn. With the expansion, it is possible to shift the entire gameplay to one side or the other and introduce the game to people who previously thought it was either too aggressive or too peaceful.

Thirdly, the game is not a legacy game, so it is possible to play it multiple times. The classic problem - how interesting is it to those who have already played the campaign once? Very. Knowing the plot twists will inevitably help, but not so much that a talented player playing the campaign for the first time can't make up the difference.

If you like Scythe, this is the most important expansion to buy.

(No other expansions are required to play Rise of Fenris - they can be used with the game, but are not required.)

You can buy the game in Brain Games stores on the 1st floor of Rīga Plaza or K. Barona Street 55, or in the online store: Rise of Fenris

Board Game Geek rating: 8.9

Author: Karl Bergmanis

Pictures from personal archive and Board Game Geek