Scythe

Scythe is the one game on my shelf I have the weirdest relationship with. I rarely feel like pulling it out, it’s a lot of table, a lot of components, a real commitment on a weeknight, but every single time I do play it I end up glad I did. That’s a specific kind of game, one that doesn’t call to you but rewards you when you answer anyway.

The player boards are the thing everyone talks about first and they deserve it. Every faction plays by broadly the same structural rules but the boards implement those rules so differently that learning a new faction feels like learning a slightly different game. I’ve got four factions in now and I still find myself double checking my own board’s icons out of habit from a different one.

Where I land on the fence a little is the theme. The box art and the setting suggest a heavy area-control war game, mechs and territory and blood in the snow, but what’s actually happening on the table is closer to an efficiency and resource engine with combat as an occasional spice rather than the main course. That’s not a flaw exactly, the engine building is genuinely good, but there’s a real dissonance between what the cover promises and what you’re actually doing turn to turn, and it took me a couple plays to stop expecting a war game and start appreciating the game that’s actually there.

Setup eats real time, sorting resources onto the board, dealing faction and player mats, and teardown isn’t much faster. I wouldn’t reach for this on a night where I’ve only got ninety minutes free. Give it the full evening it wants and it delivers. Two players is fine but I think this one wants at least three to really show off the area control tension, watching other factions expand and deciding when it’s worth contesting them versus just building your own engine in peace.