Kemet

The cover gives a good idea of what you are getting into.

Introduction

Kemet is the patron saint of /bgg/. It is a dudes on a map games that cuts away all the excess fat like tech trees, logistics and endless dicechucking combat without leaving out any of the good stuff. Each rule is hand-crafted to ensure you always are fighting with no turtling or sitting back.

Rules

Glossary:

Soldier: a single figure

Troop: a group of soldiers, a troop may contain 5 soldiers max

Prayer points (PP): the currency of the game

Victory point (VP): what you need to get to win (8 or 10, your choice)

Pyramid: come in 3 colors. You need to upgrade them to buy power tiles, each color has a different focus. Offense (red), defense (blue), economy (white)

Power tiles: technology that improves your game

Divine intervention cards (DI): small cards that can be played for a minor bonus.

Setup

Each player starts with 10 soldiers, 6 combat cards, 5 prayer points and his pyramids upgraded 1/1/1 or 2/1/0.

Gameplay

The game goes through two phases. First is the night phase. The night phase is where the results of the day are tallied up. Everyone gets two prayer points for free, bonus prayer points for power tiles and controlled temples, VP if two temples are held and if units are sacrificed at the shrine, and finally the turn order is established, the person with the least points may decide where everyone starts. During the day all the action happens. Each player has 5 actions. And must place one of them during their turn on their player board. The action is resolved as soon as it is taken. This repeats in turn order until all actions have been used. The actions are: recruitment, movement, upgrade pyramid, buy power tile (1 for each color), and pray (gain 2 PP). Recruitment may be as many soldiers as the player likes, at the cost of 1 PP per soldier. Movement can be amplified into a teleport, if the troop is at a pyramid. This costs 2 prayer points. The troop may move to any obelisk (each temple and a few desert tiles have a obelisk).

Combat ensues as soon as someone moves their troop onto an occupied space. Each player picks a combat card, and then discards one of their other combat cards. The cards are revealed at the same time and the winner is decided. The winner of the fight is the one who has the soldiers+bonus attack from their combat card. At a tie the defender wins. But the combat cards also have a secondary effect, either killing troops, or protecting troops against getting killed.