Toy Battle: Rapid Review
Information:
Player Age: 8+
Player Count: 2 Players
BGG Weight: 1.45
Time to Play: 15 Minutes
Year Published: 2025
Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by Asmodee
Rundown:
Toy Battle is an abstract head to head game that is thematically wrapped in a battle between toys. The goal is simple, reach the other players HQ with a troop or gain a certain amount of victory points by fully surrounding regions. On a turn a player can either draw two troops or play a troop. A player can place their troop on either an empty location, one of their existing troops, the opponents HQ or an opponents troop with a lower value. The troop the player places has to have a connected path back to their HQ to be able to be played.
Each unit in Toy Battle has a special ability when played. With the stronger abilities being on the lower level units. These abilities can vary from drawing more units, playing another unit immediately or discarding an opponents unit from the field or their hand.
There are a couple of more complex units like Kwak that has no value instead this duck is wild, they can be played on any unit, likewise any unit can be played on them.
There is also Hook, this monkey can ignore the fact they have to be played connected to the HQ, as this is a relatively high number it can be used to sort of lock the opponent out of scoring certain regions.
Lastly is Roxy the dinosaur, this unit has no special ability as they are the highest value in the game, making it close to impossible to be placed over.
Alteration:
The main alteration from game to game comes in the form of maps. Most games would probably have two different maps. Toy Battle has eight different maps.
These contain different variations in how many points are needed to win, how they are dispersed through the regions and each map will contain special terrain.
Most of these terrains contain effects that occur when units are placed on them. This could include re-drawing discarded tiles, returning tiles from the board to the player's hand or locking a player out from using a certain tile in their hand for a turn. Some maps feature instead restrictions such as only specific troops can be placed on the location or the effects of the troop aren't activated when they are played at the location. These maps shake-up the gameplay and offer plenty of alteration.
Production:
This is a greatly produced game that will appeal to families with the fun vibrant art.
Keeping with the production there are also wooden card trays for each player that as a small reminder holds the maximum hand size of eight tiles.
Included as well is a summary page explaining each character's bonus action and explaining each map.
Interaction:
As this is a two player specific game there is plenty of interaction for the players as they vye for control of regions and path management. There are two other possibilities that players will keep at the forefront of their mind during the battle. Firstly each troop will have three occurrences of each colour. This is great for players to know as it allows them to account for what options the opponent might have as the game unfolds. Part of this knowledge remains unknown though, since at the start of every game four troops are removed from the game per player. Secondly hand management is very important, it is crucial to choose when to draw. Since it more options is obviously better for the player. But, draw too much and the board state will slowly unravel into the opponents favour, troops like skully and star that draw more troops are perfect to help with this management.
Determination:
- Fun theme
- Plenty of variability with the maps
- Great abstract head to head, with two methods of winning.
- Weaker actions the stronger the value tiles get.
Toy Battle is an abstract head to head game wrapped in a toy theme. Toy Battle has players vying for control of small regions that can award points if surrounded by one colour (certain amount of points and that player wins) or they can achieve the other overarching goal, to reach the opponents HQ. On a turn players will either draw two troops or play a troop to a connected path, each troop has a unique ability and value, the higher the value the more troops of the other players the troop can be played on top of. This is a fast and fun abstract with plenty of gameplay alteration in the form of unique maps, so if you are looking for a new abstract that plays in 10 minutes, Toy Battle is a perfect addition.
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