The Breach

The Breach is a huge Ludus Magnus production, a cyberpunk/Tron-inspired box that spreads across the table and knows exactly how to catch the eye. As an FOMO victim who went all-in, I ended up with a genuinely inexhaustible pile of extra material. Better still, the excellent miniatures, with their use of transparent plastic, put me in the mood without requiring a brush or any paint to look right on the table.

At its core, it is a tableau builder in which we are trying to hack a central database. The basic mechanisms are not frighteningly complicated, but the game dresses that simple foundation in plenty of additional material, thematic fluff, and procedure. As the intrusion progresses, countermeasures appear that want to fry us, so it is not enough for me simply to build my tableau: I have to adapt to whatever the database throws at me.

Interaction mainly comes through that shared pressure from the countermeasures and through the tactical choices opened up by the different setups. The base game can provide a first impression, but the all-in loads the experience with extra Breachers, Avatars, rooms, enemies, cooperative scenarios, and a campaign. There is so much material that I can hardly imagine anyone truly exhausting it, let alone readily sitting down for the entire five-game campaign.

Yes, there is some overengineered clutter sitting on top of a fairly clean core, and yes, it is not an entirely simple game—place it roughly at the level of complexity one expects from a big CMON-style box. But here, the volume did not feel empty to me. For fans of this sort of game and of Ludus Magnus, it is an honest and very substantial package. If you can stomach the expense, I consider it one of the good ones in its genre.

Updated session

With different scenarios, some seasoning from the countless all-in expansions, and a campaign playthrough, my initial positive impression not only held up but improved. The more I play, the more I want to see new combinations and try other tactics. There are some issues with rules, errata, and assorted small imperfections, but I consider them minor slips. By contrast, the base game on its own, compared with what the rest of the material opens up, now feels a little meh to me. I recommend it to people who want to spend more time with one game, rather than simply log two or three plays and move on.