Azul Duel: Review
Information:
Player Age: 10+
Player Count: 2 Players
BGG Weight: 2.35
Time to Play: 30 - 45 Minutes
Year Published: 2025
Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the VR Distribution.
Introduction:
Many popular games are getting duel re-interpretations that are reworked and optimised for two players, the latest of these games being Azul Duel. The base game of Azul is a popular abstract mechanism with clever tile placement and drafting, but the question is whether the two-player edition holds up to the original classic or might it even outdo it?
Game Anatomy:
Tiles:
There are five tile colours; red, yellow, black, dark blue and light blue.
Factories:
There are four small factories and one large factory. Each of these have a day and night section. The day section is where all the tiles go as a constituent of the round setup. The night section is where they will move to following the first draft. For the large factory, tiles will move into the night section as individual pieces, however, for the small factories they will create a single pile. The first drafting players for that factory will choose the order in which they stack and the bottom of the pile will have a bonus chip. When taking from the stack later on, only the top tiles may be selected per factory (excluding the large which allows for all of the same colour to be taken).
Player Board:
Each player board has a moon (night) coloured area for the bonus chips, with a section for negative points. Plus a sun area for the tile rows ranging from 1-6 spaces long, and the domes which will be filled with nine dome plates as the game progresses.
Bonus Chips:
If there is an incomplete line of at least one tile you can use two bonus chips of that colour to equal one tile. In its place, three of any colour can also be used as any one tile. Every round, each player has to draft exactly two of these bonus chips.
Dome Plate:
Dome plates are the tiles you will gain and place onto your player board throughout the game. For the first four rounds, each player will place two until each board is full. To do this, a player will place their token on the board that holds three face-up dome plates and the face-down pile. Each plate will have three tile colours represented and the fourth icon will either be a joker (wild) or a special.
The joker can have any tile colour placed on it. The special doesn't have a tile placed in a normal way, instead, this space will be filled when the other three coloured spaces have been filled. When this special tile space is filled the player will gain the points shown on the right most space of each row.
Scoring Tablets:
There are eight scoring tablets, where each game will use three randomly. These will give bonus points at the end of the game for such things as having filled rows, columns, wilds and corner dome plates filled.
Setup:
Game Setup:
- Place the five factories between players.
- Place the starting player tile on the large factory.
- Fill the factories with tiles from the bag. The large factory has five where all others have four.
- Place a bonus chip facedown on the nightside of each small factory.
- Shuffle the dome plates to create a stack and draw three to place face-up on the board.
- Shuffle and draw three scoring tablets.
Player Setup:
- Place the black cubes on the zero and five of the score board for each player.
- Each player gains two player tokens.
- Determine the starting player.
- As the second player, first pick one of the dome plates to place on your board and refresh the dome plate row. The first player will follow this after.
How to Play:
Azul Duel will play over five rounds, each consisting of three phases.
Phase One (Acquisition):
The starting player will take the first turn. They will either draft a dome plate, all same coloured tiles from the sun side of a single factory, all same coloured tiles from the top of the stack on the moon side of all factories, or a bonus chip. Each player will take turns doing one of these actions until no more actions are available to them, then they will pass. Once both players have passed, the round concludes.
Dome Plate:
Within each round two dome plates will be drafted by each player, although, there will be no dome drafting in round five as each player's board will be full. When drafting domes you can either take one of the face-up domes (the domes aren't refreshed until next round), or one from the stack. To take from the face-down stack, the player can immediately spend one point per dome drawn and choose one to add to their board. Each dome will reveal whether it is a special or joker tile but having a symbol displayed on the back of the plate.
Sun Side of Factory:
On any factory that hasn't been drafted from the active player can draft all of one colour from the sun side. Any leftover tiles will be placed on the moon side and stacked in the order of the active player’s choice.
Moon Side of Factory:
When taking a tile from the moon side, you will gain all tiles of the same type from the top of each factory’s moon section stack. The exception being the large factory which isn’t stacked and the player will take all of the same colour from the moon side.
Bonus Chip:
Each player will draft two bonus chips (one at a time) during each round. These chips only become available once everything else in the factory moon stack above it is drafted. When scoring these bonus chips will be combined with past tokens as explained in game anatomy to fill the last/ last several tile(s) in a given row.
Placing Tiles:
When placing tiles after gaining they must all be placed in the same row. If the row is full the excess tiles will be moved to the night side of the players board, creating negative points. All tiles picked on a turn must go in the same row.
Phase Two (Dome-tiling and Scoring):
Each round during this phase the tiles will be scored from top row to bottom row. Now a player may choose to use their bonus chips to fill in any pre-started row. Any row that isn't full will not score this round but the tiles will stay on that row for the next round.
When scoring a row, move one tile from that row onto any matching tile section of that colour, keeping to a direct line with this row. Players will then score the group of connected tiles horizontally and vertically (the red in the below image will score three points for the connected tiles in the row). Any of the leftover tiles from that row will be placed back into the bag after the one was placed onto a dome plate.
Any special tokens placed via completed dome plates will also score based on the row they are on. Players will then loose points for any excess tiles or by having the first player token (a loss of two points).
Phase three (Preparation):
This phase is the upkeep between rounds, which will not be needed after the fifth round. All steps below will be followed:
- Refill the dome plates back to three.
- Refill the factories (remember the large has five).
- The starting player token is returned to the large factory.
- Place facedown bonus chips on the night side of each small factory.
After the fifth round the scoring tablets will also score and the player with the most points is the victor.
Final Thoughts:
- Clever twist on the Azul drafting.
- Create your board as you play.
- Good variety in end-game scoring.
I am not a die-hard fan of Azul with not too many plays of the series under my belt, so what I say here should be taken with a grain of salt. This version, Azul Duel, has been my favourite iteration that I have played to date. There are a couple of factors that go into this; firstly, I find this edition less mean overall, you are of course directly drafting the tiles the other players want, but I never found myself flooded with tiles I couldn't use. Secondly, I find this day-and-night method of drafting much more interesting as you having to plan the right time to draft tiles to gain the most out of the moon tiles.,as four of the five locations will have the tiles in a stack of the sun drafter’s choice. This creates a level of push your luck that had you waiting for the right time to draft in order to gain the right amount of tiles as you collect the same coloured tiles from several night locations. Lastly, I enjoy building my scoring section as the game goes on, this allows me to pivot and change my focus based on the tiles that come out each round. Other Elements such as the end game scoring and bonus tiles further raise my enjoyment of the game. This is a game I can easily recommend to anyone who likes playing games at two players, whether you are an avid Azul fan, semi-interested in Azul like me, or just enjoy a good abstract. I'm giving Azul Duel a Silver Seal of Approval and it will be staying in collection for many plays to come.
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