Siege of Valeria: SOLO Review
Information:
Mechanics: Engine Builder, Dice Rolling, Hand Management
Player Age: 8+Player Count: 1 PlayerTime to Play: 30 - 45 Minutes
Game Designer: Glenn FlahertyGame Artist: Mihajlo DimitrievskiPublisher: Daily Magic GamesYear Published: 2022BGG Weight: 1.88
Player Age: 8+
Game Designer: Glenn Flaherty
Spiel:
Siege of Valeria is a strictly solo tower defence game where the goal is to destroy 13 siege engines before either one of the turrets is destroyed, the enemy deck runs out, or a siege engine passes through your defence. To do this players will use the abilities of their fallen enemies, as well as the strength and magic from their dice to defeat the opposition, particularly the sieges.
Other Elements:
Champions:
Each siege will attack numerous times before they reach your vanguard (front row of the enemies). This creates challenges that also brings a very large benefit, whenever a siege is defeated they will allow you to gain a champion. Champions will go into one of the five turret locations on your board and will either have an ability to be activated every round by flipping it, or a one-time ability that requires it to be discarded.
Each champion has a secondary ability of healing one damage for the turret they reside on but they must be discarded to activate this ability. This ability should be strategically used to have any chance of surviving the onslaught.
Layout of a Turn:
Each day consists of seven phases; roll dice, resolve the siege engines, resolve an event, perform your actions, activate the vanguard, advanced the battlefield, and reinforce the battlefield.
Roll dice:
Roll the magic and strength dice in front of you. Magic like most Valeria games can add to the value of a strength dice assigned but they cannot lead the attack on their own. Some enemies will also require a certain value of magic seperate from the strength to defeat them.
Resolve the siege engines:
Each siege engine has a display on the left hand side of black and yellow banners relating to which row of the battlefield they are in. Whenever they are in a yellow section they will activate their yellow banner at the bottom of their card. In black banner the siege will not attack and can not be attacked.
Resolve an event:
During this phase one event card will be revealed from the event deck and then immediately resolved. These events will vary between good and bad effects and can even increase the amount of strength/magic required to defeat enemies.
Perform your actions:
During this phase you will assign one or more dice to enemies to defeat them. The enemy you target has to be the first undefeated enemy in that column or a siege that is on one of their yellow banner rows. The other actions you can perform are flipping or discarding champions to perform their abilities, and play defeated enemies from your hand to perform their abilities. This is usually a form of manipulating the battlefield or your dice.
Activate the Vanguard:
Any of the enemies that aren't defeated that are in the vanguard at thus phase will deal one damage to the turret they are in front of then discarded. If any turrent recieves three damage the champion on that spot will be discarded and this space will remain blocked. Once a turret reaches four damage the player loses. If any of these cards are an undefeated siege, the player will instantly lose the game.
Advance the battlefield:
Each card in the battlefield will advance to the bottom-most empty spot.
Reinforce the battlefield:
To begin this phase, if the enemy deck is empty, players will lose the game. Then each column without a siege engine will gain one on the top row. This is followed by four cards from the enemy deck being placed onto the battlefield starting from the bottom left-most empty spot and working up.
Overrall:
- Players have to consider sieges and enemies in how they attack as both can wipe you out if you’re not prepared.
- Champions are a great help.
- Quick to play with a feel of constant pressure.
- Solo-only game but I wish there was an official way to play this cooperatively.
Sieges of Valeria is a tower defence game that will constantly have you making tough decisions to survive. Part of this is due to the combination of enemy onslaught as well as the effect of the sieges. The real challenge I faced was the decision of which enemies to defeat, and in which order, as each defeated enemy is added to your hand and gives abilities that can turn the tide of battle. If you are a fan of the Valeria franchise this game has all the tough decisions that make their larger games great but in a quick and compact package. The only downside I personally find is that it is purely a solo experience.
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