Harrow County: Review
Information:
Mechanics: Head to Head, Assymetrical, Deduction, Resource Management, Bag Builder, Engine Building
Player Age: 12+
Player Count: 1 - 4 Players
Time to Play: 45 - 90 Minutes
Game Designer: Jay Cormier, Shad
Game Artist: Tyler Crook
Publisher: Off the Page Games
Year Published: 2024
BGG Weight: 3.77
Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.
Player Age: 12+
Player Count: 1 - 4 Players
Time to Play: 45 - 90 Minutes
Game Designer: Jay Cormier, Shad
Game Artist: Tyler Crook
Publisher: Off the Page Games
Year Published: 2024
BGG Weight: 3.77
Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.
Introduction:
Harrow County is a beloved comic created by Dark Horse Comics. It has 32 issues focusing on Emmy, a reincarnated witch, re-exploring an eerie gothic world.
In terms of the board game, Harrow County is big to dive into. There are five factions (including the fairy folk expansion) that have completely asymmetrical rules and play styles, although some are also only used during higher player counts. Since this game is so vast in its complexity, this review is going to focus on the full game, but only for the protectors and family factions. There will be future posts focusing further on the other factions.
Game Anatomy:
Mason Jars:
Mason jars are linked to player actions. Each round, both players will use a total of three mason jars from the four available. When a mason jar is selected, that action will be resolved, and the jar will be flipped over until the new round begins.
Ability Mason Jar:
This will activate the actions of spawning pieces onto the map, strengthen the fighter cubes, or advance in movement. These actions will differ between factions in the way they are executed and is explained further in the faction Anatomy.
Wild Mason Jar:
The active player will gain a permanent wild token and then perform actions equal to the number of wild tokens they have. At the value of 1 per wild token, the player can choose to advance in movement, strengthen their fighter cubes, and/or spawn pieces onto the map.
Legend Mason Jar:
In the order of the players' choice, this mason jar will allow the player to activate their legend's unique power (seen on the character card), as well as activate the legend's ability below the card. This ability will grow in power when scrolls are collected from the map. The family creates a new storm with this ability, then either pulls/pushes elements of the game towards/away from the storm centre. The protectors will create path tokens (explained in faction anatomy) or assist the Townsfolk in moving towards the home tile.
Attack Mason Jar:
This allow the player to spawn, strengthen, or advance one action before/after attacking. Once this jar is used, any other unused mason jar can be used as an attack rather than their own corresponding action, however, there are no additional actions alongside this attack.
Units:
There are two types of units; the legend, which is the players' unique character that cannot be destroyed, and the Haint that acts as the main target for players. Each hex of the map can only have four units (pieces), and each hex can only hold one faction.
Players can choose a unique legend at the start of each game, each with their own special ability.
Cube Tower:
The game box itself will work as a cube tower throughout the game. This is a key component of how attacks will work.
Ability Tokens:
Ability tokens will start scattered around the map and will not respawn after being collected. If a player ends their turn with any units on the same space as an ability token, they will gain this token.
Each faction has a different way of how these tokens are used, however, they are each tied to a basic action explained below
Advance:
Allows you move any single/group of the player's units onto an adjacent tile containing no enemy units.
Strengthen:
The player will place attack cubes below the cube tower equal to the action. At the end of a turn, there cannot be an excess of six cubes per player waiting in the area.
Spawn:
Place one unit onto the map for the value of action. These can be placed either on the hex containing the player's legend, or on the starting (home) hex. If there are enemies on the home hex or four units on one of these hexes, the unit cannot be spawned.
Bonus Tiles:
Four bonus tiles will be placed each round between the two players' mason jars. The first player to activate their mason jar corresponding to the bonus tile will gain that ability this turn and flip over the tile.
Townsfolk and Buildings:
The townsfolk and buildings are a key elements to a player's victory. The Protectors are trying to physically move the townsfolk across the map to their home tile, while The Family is trying to connect their cyclone from their home tile to the building. Whenever either player achieves this, they gain two points. The opposition will place these townsfolk and buildings, so it is crucial to be flexible in a strategy to reach them.
How To Play:
Each game lasts until one player earns seven points. Points can be earned from completing each faction's specific task (two points for townsfolk and buildings). One point can also be gained by ending the round in the brambles (middle hex of the board), and one point can be earned by defeating a haint. Each time a point is gained from the haint's defeat, they will need one unit number higher to be defeated next time to gain a point. This track will max at three haints. These haint defeats can be spread over multiple turns, and the defeated unit can sit on the point tracker to represent how many have been felled until a point is gained.
A round will consist of three phases; placing townsfolk/buildings, performing the turns, and lastly, scoring and round reset.
Phase One - Townsfolk/Buildings:
Starting with the first player, everyone will place one of the opponents' townsfolk/buildings onto the map. The two rules are that it has to match the hex colour that component came from, and it has to be on a hex with no units or other townsfolk/buildings on it.
Phase Two - Turns:
This phase will consist of players taking turns until everyone has used three out of the four mason jars. The actions linked to these mason jars have been previously explained, however, the one element that needs further explanation is how to attack.
Attacking:
When a player is attacking they can target a hex of units that is up to two spaces away (three if the attacker is on a mountain). When a player attacks, they will take all the cubes in the waiting area and place them into the cube tower. If the attacking player has more units on their hex on the map, they will add one more cube to the tower. The cubes that exit the tower will be random and the action will be successful if the attacker has equal or more cubes than the defender. If this is the case, the attacker can spend two cubes (one cube if the defender is on the brambles) to defeat a unit. Haints will be defeated first if on the same target hex as the legend. If the legend is targeted alone, they will instead be pushed into an adjacent hex, and any one of their haints on the board will be defeated.
If there are units left defending and the attacker has an equal amount or more cubes than the opponent leftover, they can attack again by returning all of the cubes to the cube tower. If attacker inst successful in an attack. A "haint clash" occurs, and each player can spend two cubes (one for enemy in brambles) that exited the tower to defeat a haint from the other player.
End of Turn:
At the end of the turn, the active player cannot have more than six cubes waiting for an attack. They will also collect any ability tokens from the map that shares a hex with their unit. These tokens will be placed on the players' board to improve their engine. If they are scrolls, they will be placed on the legend card instead, improving the ability. If the player can complete a goal of rescuing a townsfolk or destroying a building it will now occur and they will gain two points.
Phase three - Scoring and Round Reset:
After three mason jars are played socring commences. Firstly, if the brambles contain any unit, the owner will gain one point. After this, if someone has reached or exceeded seven points, the game ends and whoever has the most points is the winner. The first player marker will rotate, the mason jars will be refreshed, and new bonus tiles will be revealed.
Faction Anatomy:
Protector:
Goal:
The protector's main focus is to rescue the townsfolk. At the end of every turn, if there is a townsfolk sharing a space with the protector's units or path token, and there is an adjacent location with another protector unit or path token, they will move across until there is no more to the trail or until they reach home base. Once a townsfolk reaches the protector home tile, that player will score two points. The main method used to do this is by using the path legend action. This allows the legend to lay path tokens equal to the number of scrolls they have collected. Each of these tokens can be created up to two hexes away (three if on a mountain).
A path token allows any unit, enemies included, to move onto the hex for one less movement. This could result in zero advance (free movement) into a hex. If the advance costs zero, this can be achieved at any time on the player's turn even if the player does not have any advance action.
Ability Mason Jar:
When the protector flips their ability mason jar they will choose to activate one type of action. The number of activations for the chosen action will depend on the value shown on the right-most filled section on the player board (For example six advance actions).
Wheever a protector gains an ability token from the map, it will be added to their player board to upgrade the strength of that action type. During the upgrade of this board, a card icon may be covered which will draw a tactic card.
Cards:
Tactics are used to turn the tide of the battle in the protector's favour. Before or after an action the protectors can use one tactic card per turn, there is no cost to the card.
The Family:
Goal:
The goal of the family is to build a chain of storms going from the family's home tile to the buildings. Storm tokens cost one extra movement for the protectors to enter and at the end of each turn, if the legend is in a location with no storm, a storm token will be placed here.
Ability Mason Jar:
The family's mechanism is bag building. Using the ability mason jar the family player will draw a certain number of ability tiles from the bag and discard a certain number back into the bag. These tokens encompasses the player's actions for the turn (each with a strength of 1). The interesting element is the tiles that were used in the turn and the new ones gained from the map will either permanently leave the bag and go on the player board improving the corresponding action, or be placed into the bag.
Cards:
When the card icon is covered on this player board, the family player will gain one upgrade card. The upgrade card can only be played on the ability mason jar turn, by returning the tile shown on the top left back to the game box the player may change that tile into the upgrade tile for the rest of the game. This creates either a stronger tile or adds new abilities to strengthen their potential.
Final Thoughts:
- Interesting bag building for the family, as there is no discard pile and tokens can be removed from the bag very easily to fine tune the engine.
- Mason jars, combined with the bonus tiles, make for a very interesting round sequence and choice in turn activation.
- The game does have combat but the main source of points is an interesting area control/path creation mechanism.
- Wonderfully produced with an awesome cube tower attached to the box.
- Lots of variet packed into not only the game but into each faction, with different legends and drastically two-sided scroll abilities per faction.
- The rulebook has been changed drastically for easier learning. Please look up the new rulebook with the basic and full game instead of the chapters.
I have always been someone who enjoys asymmetry in games. What I particularly like is asymmetry without largely increased ruleset/complexity added to the game. Harrow County does an amazing job of having widely different playstyles and mechanisms for each faction without creating a high barrier of complexity. The game has a lot to learn but the factions aren't too complicated. Ultimately Harrow County is a route-building game with a large amount of area control (for these two factions). Players are firstly racing for the ability tiles placed on the map, then trying to spread their units to create paths to the townsfolk/buildings. This is a game I am looking forward to exploring further and, even if a smaller number of factions were available, there is so much replayability in understanding the board state. This, along with a varied roster of legends for the Family and the Protectors. If you enjoy head-to-head area control games with a good dose of asymmetry then I can easily recommend Harrow County and it receiving a Go To Golden Seal. If you want to further understand the background story to this game then the comic is also a great read.
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