Review
Terracotta Army
Terracotta Army is a carefully made medium-weight euro, combining worker placement with a light rondel rhythm and little wasted motion. It is not essential collection material, but it is a thoroughly respectable recommendation.
- Published
- 2022
- Designer
- Przemysław Fornal, Adam Kwapiński
- Publisher
- Board&Dice, Board Bound, Board Game Rookie
- Players
- 1–4
- Playing time
- 120 min
Terracotta Army is the first Essen release in a while to leave me with genuinely good impressions. Board & Dice’s production standards are present and correct, but more importantly, beneath the Terracotta Army theme sits a medium-weight euro that understands its own brief and declines to pretend it has invented a new one.
We are artists hired to build the army: recruiting masters, paying to place statues in the palace, and collecting the associated rewards. The central structure is worker placement, with a small rondel-like constraint governing the flow of available choices; not a revolution, certainly, but a sensible refinement that keeps decisions moving.
Set bonuses, tracks, and actions are proportioned well and lock together cleanly, so the pleasant burn comes from stretching a plan across the board rather than wrestling with a rule that has taken against you.
TheTrainSpotter
Interaction comes through contested spaces, racing, and neatly denying someone the option they wanted, rather than through wearying take-that. Set bonuses, tracks, and actions are proportioned well and lock together cleanly, so the pleasant burn comes from stretching a plan across the board rather than wrestling with a rule that has taken against you.
This is not a game whose absence should induce FOMO. It is, however, a polished and considered euro, and there are considerably worse new additions one might make to a collection.
It is, however, a polished and considered euro, and there are considerably worse new additions one might make to a collection.
TheTrainSpotter
Source: BoardGameGeek
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