Black Angel

Our first start was timid, mostly because the rulebook had personally defeated me. Thankfully, thanks to the influencer's persistence — and patience — we managed to get it onto the table. My first impression was positive, with one very specific reservation: it probably needs three players to show its best self.

At its core, Black Angel is a brainy engine builder. You try to build a strategy that pays off, while the game makes you think not only about immediate gain but also about where you will be near the end. It is not one of those games that lets you drift about: the scoring is harsh, and points have to be earned honestly.

The flow of the game is strongly affected by resets and, therefore, by player count. With fewer players there are fewer resets, so I can develop a strategy more deeply and collect meaningful hauls of points. The interaction did not stay with me as noisy take-that, but as the shared pressure of the pace: how much room and time the game gives your engine before forcing you to adapt.

Final verdict: it is a good game, but not necessarily an easy one to approach through the rulebook, and, for me, not equally good at every player count. At three it makes sense as a demanding, fair strategy game with risk near the finish. At four, by contrast, my earlier encounters with it were not the best.

Updated session

The later three-player game clearly changed my opinion for the better; it was not simply that I remembered it more fondly. Where it had failed to convince me at four, at three the value of its long-term choices and harsh scoring became much clearer. I was playing like a headless chicken during the first half, admittedly, so I would have liked another game immediately to push my strategy a little further.