Black Angel

My first opponent was not another player but the rulebook. It beat me quite thoroughly, and I needed someone else’s patient persistence before we got the game to the table. As a rulebook it gets a narrow pass; the game deserves better than its first explanation.

At heart, Black Angel is an engine builder that asks you to build with the long view in mind. It is not enough to find a useful move now; you need to judge whether your little machine will still be working when the endgame tightens and the scoring turns unforgiving.

Three players make a material difference. With fewer resets, plans have time to breathe, longer strategies can actually develop, and big point hauls feel earned rather than interrupted before you discover what you were building. At four, the rug came away far more often.

On my first encounter, I thought it was a good game, but probably only at three. Returning to it did not remove that qualification; it explained why the game had finally worked for me.

Updated session

The later three-player game plainly changed my impression after the earlier four-player ones. I spent the first half playing like a headless chicken, yet even then Black Angel showed how fairly it rewards a strategy that gets the chance to grow. At three, it is a demanding, honest game I want to get back to straight away.