Power Rangers Heroes of the Grid: Rapid Review
Information:
Mechanics: Cooperative, Variable Player Powers, Tower Defence, Modular
Player Age: 14+ Player Count: 2 - 5 PlayersTime to Play: 45 - 60 Minutes
Game Designer: Jonathan Ying
Player Age: 14+
Game Designer: Jonathan Ying
Rundown:
Power Rangers Heroes of the Grid is a cooperative tower defence game where you are preventing all four locations from either being panicked by too many enemies on the locations, or from the Power Rangers dying too often and depleting all the energy at the HQ. If either of these events occur, the game is lost. Fight the foot soldiers, monsters and take down the dreaded boss for the rangers to reign victorious. Two phases occur every round and will continue until the game is over. First, there is the deployment phase where the enemies spawn and, secondly, the action phase where the players will deplete their actions.
Deployment Phase:
Every round, five deployment cards are revealed. Each card will have the foot soldier type and the amount that spawns. The top card remaining on the deck will determine which location they spawn in.
If a monster or boss appears, they will spawn with the foot soldiers and count as one deployment. If the location has enemies equal to the figure limit portrayed on that place then it becomes panicked. Any new spawns will redirect to the next un-panicked location in a clockwise fashion. When a monster or boss is spawned they will instantly panic the location. These locations will stay panicked until players defeat all enemies there.
Action Phase:
Players will have a certain amount of actions based on the player count. These actions can be used in any order to get the best use as a team. The actions include moving, battle and recover.
Move:
This action allows you to move to any location in the game. If you return to the command centre you can re-shuffle all your cards back into a deck and draw a new hand of five cards, plus one energy. Different command centres from expansions will have different abilities available.
Battle:
Battling will initiate combat with any Power Rangers in your location, the boss/monster (four cards unless stated otherwise), and up to four foot soldiers (one card for each foot soldier). This will be explained in further detail in combat.
Recover:
As cards are your life force in this game, the recover action allows you to shuffle cards that sum up to six shields from your discard pile (each card has a shield value at the bottom ranging from one to three). This action will also give you one energy if you don't already have one.
Enemies:
There are three enemy types; foot soldiers, monsters and bosses. The foot soldiers are your standard cannon fodder and each game will have two subtypes linked to two locations. Monsters have a unique deck and need the player to defeat four of their cards during combat to vanquish them. Each game includes two monsters.
Bosses are the hardest enemy to face. There is only one per game and they will need to be fought at least twice to defeat six of their cards to vanquish them. Beating the boss will win you the game.
Each enemy deck is unique, but three common terms will appear frequently; Fast, which moves the card to the start of the row and will let the enemy attack first, Guard, meaning that the guard card must be attacked first before adjacent cards, and Passive, where the ability stays active and ongoing for as long as the card is undefeated. As you defeat enemies you unlock zords that can exhaust once per round to aid you in the game. Every time a monster or boss is defeated a zord will be unlocked. The zords will either go to the matching player or, if it doesn't match a ranger, any player.
Combat:
Taking turns with rangers first. One ranger will attack (play a card) and then the next card in the enemy row will attack. Rangers will choose which player will have each turn and there is an energy cost on the top left of the card.
At the start of any combat, two energy is added into a shared ranger pool and rangers can draw cards up to their hand size. Rangers have three card types attack, maneuver, and reaction. Attacks are focused on damage to enemies, whereas maneuvers are focused on manipulating cards or gaining energy. Reactions cards have a certain circumstance they can be activated and often allow you to play the card out of the ranger's turn.
On the enemy's turn it will activate the ability on the current card in the row. These abilities will often damage the rangers. When a ranger is dealt damage they reveal the top card of their deck revealing the shield at the bottom of the deck. If there is more damage than revealed the card will be discarded and the next card will be revealed. If a card is revealed and there is less damage than the shields then instead of discarding the card will go to the bottom of the deck. If there are no cards to reveal then the ranger is defeated and removed from battle, removing one energy from the command centre and bringing the rangers closer to defeat. Some cards have an asterisk and a secondary ability that activates when the card is discarded as defence. The combat will continue until all enemy cards have had a turn, and then the ranger players will get one last turn.
Alteration:
In the base game you get five heroes, four monsters, one boss, and two foot soldier sub-types. Each of these characters comes with their respective decks of different strategies and abilities that match that particular miniature type. Admittedly, there isn't much variability out of the box but with the amount of content across television and comics, this game was always going to have a lot of expansion content for increased alteration opportunity. Renegade has taken an interesting approach to the expansion content. Players can choose where they want more alteration including hero packs, villain packs, zords, and recently a foot soldier pack (adding two new foot soldiers and new content for the existing putty soldiers from the base box). Several large expansions contain content for every facet of the game when players simply want more of everything. Since the game's release in 2019, there are now over 20 expansions covering different events and incarnations of the comics and TV shows, so completionists are warned that there is a lot of content to discover.
Production:
The production quality is great on this game. Each miniature has standout table presence as every character in the game is on a larger scale. This, combined with the unique art that keeps a consistent feel throughout the expansion content, helps to create a production quality that is always amazing to bring out. The state of the game is also always in continued production. Not only are the expansions releases constant, but new game modes (one vs many and pre-constructed deck building), enemy types (nemesis and elite foot soldiers) and consistent unique takes on Rangers/enemies are explored. Nemesis are monsters that will have a certain text that will have an affect in combat such as a passive ability or an ability that will activate upon the symbol being shown in the nemesis deck.
The elite foot soldiers are an evolution from the normal foot soldiers, adding a secondary foot soldier deck and a secondary foot soldier miniature, that when defeated counts as two foot soldiers on the zord track. in the case of the light and darkness expansion these elite foot soldiers have a unique card for every card in their deck.
Interaction:
This is a largely interactive game as it is one of those pure cooperative games where players have to plan and strategise together to get the best result and survive the encounters. The game lends itself to these strategies as players can use their actions during the action phase in any order to help time the battles to their convenience. This teamwork is further enhanced by the reaction cards that can save rangers from taking damage or lining up for more powerful attacks.
Determination:
- Fully cooperative game.
- Takes content from all forms of Power Ranger media, not just TV shows.
- Everything is variable.
- Large amount of expansion content.
- Large miniature presence.
Power Rangers Heroes of the Grid is a refined and truly cooperative game. This is the kind of game that players have to really plan together and battle efficiently to turn the tide in their favour. The variability of the game is off the charts with a wide array of content, expanding all facets of the game, so players that want specific elements can really have their gaming experience more focused. This is one of those games that has such a versatile system that they have since coined this as the guardian system, releasing a sibling game focused on the G.I.Joe property. Each enemy and ranger feels unique while sharing the same formula. Some enemies have a different range of health, while rangers have three different options of how the shields in their deck are made up. The true shake ups to the characters come in the abilities on the cards. Each enemy has a range of about 4 to 5 different cards that make up their deck, giving the enemy a focus that comes across during the game. Each ranger has 6 unique cards and a unique character card that sets them apart from the others. If you enjoy tower defence games with more replayability than you can handle, tense combat, and a shared cooperative experience then Power Rangers Heroes of the Grid is a game for you, like it is for me. That is why it is getting a Go-To Golden Game seal.
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