La Famiglia: The Great Mafia War

La Famiglia had been high on my list from its earliest appearances, largely because 2v2 euro-style games are uncommon, and games willing to wear their complexity without apology are rarer still. After Defence of Procyon III, it confirmed that this particular kind of confrontation still has room for serious, carefully engineered designs.

At heart, it is straightforward area control: two teams contest the map with forces that are asymmetric to a degree. Its useful distinction from Procyon is that everyone operates under the same fundamental rules, so the state of the board is easier to read even as the number of available options begins to expand.

Hidden orders provide the agreeable uncertainty familiar to anyone fond of FFG’s Game of Thrones, while the action-selection system has sufficient peculiarities of its own to avoid feeling like a standard selection track. The card-driven combat looks odd at first, then makes sense within the whole; the interesting decision is when to commit to your position on the map, and when to leave room for the opponent’s more violent, less predictable move.

The mafia theme serves the action well enough, but it does not fully display the strength of a system that could support other thematic settings. Production is at the ceiling, though the rules could be clearer; for groups wanting hidden orders, honest complexity and a substantial 2v2 contest, La Famiglia is a must-buy.