For Glory

I did not have particularly high expectations for For Glory, but it won me over precisely because it does not try too hard. I take my stable of gladiators, chase glory, and when the Crupellarius is cracking skulls, it is practically mandatory to shout, “are you not entertained?” I think it makes me a better person.

At its core, it is an honest deck-builder: each player builds up a stable and tries to earn glory. The nice twist arrives once the arenas fill up, because the game briefly steps away from deck construction and moves into a small gladiatorial-combat game.

The gladiators slaughter one another through a system that reminded me of Conquest LCG, and I mean that as a compliment: that system was good for exactly this kind of confrontation. The rules are easy to learn, while the interaction is not merely theoretical; the arenas fill up, and then somebody has to get hit.

The base box only plays with two, and that version is a little more thinky. With the expansion, multiplayer becomes a free-for-all: everything goes to hell, accompanied by the appropriate whining and noise. It is very good for its genre; if Ascension Tactics had not come out, this would be my favourite deck-builder with karate.