Ankh Review - Some Gods Deserve to be Forgotten...

[@BoardGameCo]

Ok, I've been on the internet, I know how this works....I'm supposed to say.... You played it wrong! Did you try it with 3 players? Is area control even a genre you like? But you can play without the merge, just ignore that! You're Canadian, stick to Crokinole! Did I miss anything in "your opinion is wrong" bingo?

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

Haha, I was bracing myself for all of these, maybe you could feel it in the review. I'd say that's a Bingo from me!

[@lotterwinner6474]

You missed one, he doesn't like 7th continent so his opinion is already marred.

[@oerthling]

The often used critique that a game allows for experienced players to beat noobs always astounds me. I *want* this from good game, because the alternative is a game that's either trivial or random. If a game has any depth and players have agency, then gaining a deeper understanding will be a clear advantage. That's a good thing. I rarely play Chess/Go. If I play against an experienced Chess or Go player, I fully expect to loose. Anything else would be weird. If I just started playing M:TG and go to a tournament with my copied-from-net modern deck, the top 16 players will quickly leave me in the dust and return to being in the top 16 - and rightly so. That's not at all a flaw of those games - quite to the contrary - that's part of what makes them interesting and challenging. So I don't quite understand why "more experienced players have an advantage" is presented as a critique in so many reviews.

[@sanderscools1246]

You could add a mechanism to level the playing field... Like you removing a rook in chess when playing

[@oerthling]

@@sanderscools1246 Sure. But all this does is to create an illusion. If I beat you on chess after you removed a figure, I could nominally put a check mark in a win column. But we both would know that I didn't actually win. And "leveling" the playing field? Apart from white moving first - the field is extremely level. Levelling player skills is more about psychological managing that some people suffer too much from losing a game. If you're playing better chess that I, I will lose. But I can still enjoy the game and profit from the learning experience and that I'm getting better game after game. In competitive games, it's important to "try" to win. But the actual winning is less important. And learning that is a valuable skill in itself already. If I lose, I think about why and what I could have done better. That's how you become the experienced player.

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

It's not so much that the experience gap is so significant, it's more for me that the way to win is unituitive for newer players. And so it requires a player to really emphasize the strategy in the teach or else have a significant blowout. For chess and go, the goals are more clear. Yes traps might be set up for the opponent (I had such a tasty rook trap against my friend last night that I'm still revelling in), but the core goal is easier to understand and pursue. I also think it's brought up frequently because it's important to note when purchasing. I also like the struggle and the challenge, but I also recognize this can easily frustrate a lot of players, so I think highlighting this aspect is important to note in a review because it's a good marker for those who like it to potentially pick it up and for those who won't, to not.

[@oerthling]

@@RoomandBoardReviews Even if scoring monuments is "unintuitive" - this is easily fixed by "... and while winning a battle or dominating a region will get you 1 devotion, scoring monuments will get you 1-3 - even if you lose the battle".

[@pete4922]

@@RoomandBoardReviews how do you feel about Blood Rage and new players? My group played that game once and “noped” out of it because it felt like you had to know all the cards to get a good strategy, and to know what your opponents might throw at you. That new-player issue seemed to be a bigger problem with Blood Rage than Ankh, but we only played each game once.

[@cfosburg]

I have to agree with you. It also seems increasingly difficult to stop a player from scoring the same way over and over again. It feels like this is built as a snowball win for whoever’s in the lead. There’s so much I like about this game, and so much I want to like about this game. I think the actions are great I think the track is clever, but it’s the combination of everything that is less than the sum of its parts and that is a tragedy.

[@moneybee517]

Thank you for the in-depth review. I definitely appreciate your honesty and the heartbreak of wanting to love a game and realizing it’s not for you.

[@ryandavison27]

This is one of my favorites! I love this game at 2 and 4 players, although not so much at 3. Definitely in my top 10.

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

Nice, I'm glad you love it. Even with unboxing it and looking at it for the review I could feel the pull of my good games bringing me back :)

[@oerthling]

@@RoomandBoardReviews I wonder what your local meta is, because it's so different from my experience. Most of the games I played were tight. And it was necessary for the leading player to have a solid lead at the time of the merge, because the merged god always quickly closes the gap and managing conflict order during 4th combat was crucial (either by camel event and/or moving into the right regions).

[@zsoltnagy3991]

Ankh is a very brutal game and the skill disparity between players will be heavily shown by it, due to not having any randomness or luck factor in the game whatsoever (the Pharaoh expansion changes this somewhat), just like in chess. I had about 12 games of Ankh so far and 50% of the time the merged gods actually won. So in my experience there is a crawlback mechanic and there are ways to catch up with a leader. But again, that needs players with roughly on the same skill, otherwise they will not able to pull this. I agree that monuments potentially giving more devotion than winning a battle is something new players should be informed about. But there are combat cards and Ankh powers which change this. E.g. 'Drought' gives you extra devotion for each of your figures in a desert hex in the region if you win the battle. So it is not a so clear cut situation. As for the merge: it is clear that it is a balance decision from the designer to have the merged players keeping the figures and monuments of only one player, also to grant them together the same number of action as other players are getting on their own. Everything else would make it way imbalanced. And yes, it can be a tough cookie to swallow for the last player that the game takes away everything he built so far. But the thing is: what he built so far was not really good. Exactly because it ended him up being in the last place. It won't suddenly magically generate him enough devotion to catch up with the others, and then same to win. Making him keeping it would not help him at all, but it could make him a good prey for the leading player to further cement his first place by taking away monument from him or winning battles against him.

[@shocknawe]

I’m begging for help whereever I go. I’ve had a few Blood Rage Games. I feel like I sorta get it. I’ve had 1 Rising sun game and I feel I already get it and am excited to play more. I’ve had a few more Ankh games and still, things don’t click. I don’t understand the game. Everything feels unintuitive. I really need help understanding this game. Tips, mindset framing, anything. 2 player is sorta starting to make some sense, I think, but 4 to 5....nope. And those are the ones I wanna do. I don’t know what cards to use, what momunents , when to build and where to build. What cards to play when. What actions to take when.

[@refreshdaemon]

After all the negative reviews, I was quite hesitant to play Ankh, but the one game I played was so close and a lot of fun. Despite getting absorbed, we managed to claw back out of last place and stole the win near the very end for a pretty exciting game. It was only a single play though, so I'm hoping to get some more plays in to see if the game continues to play that well for me.

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

Nice, I hope it continues to do so :)

[@Touyakun2]

woah! I was recently looking for your review of ankh because I wanted to see a review from someone who loves rising sun and see if it might be for me. I appreciate how many plays you have under your belt to have a more reflective review after learning the game well. Sounds like I'll be plenty happy with rising sun and bloodrage ^^

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

Yeah, that's exactly why I felt I needed to get it out there. I'll be plenty happy with Rising Sun and Blood Rage too.

[@joshuajellybean384]

Bro you should still get ankh, it’s so worth it, in my opinion it’s an amazing game! I love the yugioh/ magic the gathering style battle card system! It’s so refreshing and unique for a board game

[@MerrillWhiteKalEl]

I have loved all my plays, and they have all been SUPER close games. They have also all had 4-5 players with the merge. I also really love the Pharaoh expansion and to me it takes the game to the next level. I like this more that Rising Sun, but I am still keeping Rising Sun along with Blood Rage which I like the best.

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

Nice, yeah I really enjoyed the Pharoah expansion as well, although I laughed at the one pharoah card that lets you take the same action twice in a row, basically eliminating the merge bonus 😂 I'm thrilled you're loving it. When the games are close, it is so so good.

[@DoomCaliberQ8]

man me and my group absolutely LOVE Ankh

[@garok5996]

Hey Chris, I was wondering your opinion on this game now after a year(although you mention you played it many times). Has it change or grown on you? Did you end up getting rid of it?

[@ryan_here_we_go]

I own and enjoy Ankh so I was skeptical of your negative review, however the more I listened, the more you identified issues I've also spotted in the game: the runaway leader with no way to counter, the virtually automatic points from worshipful, the underused follower tokens, the snowballing effect of monument control, and the issues with merge. The merge only happened in one of my games - a 3p - and 3rd place dragged 2nd place from 1 point behind the leader to 7 points behind, basically pulling him out of contention. I could see merge working better in a 4p or 5p game, or in 3p if all players are within 3 points. This game has so much good going on that I do wonder if a few house rules could correct its issues. Some ideas off the top of my head: all followers disperse after each battle phase, build monument card gives you the option to takeover an opponent's monument instead of building your own by paying them 3 followers, worshipful requires 3 (or 4) followers to be sacrificed. For the merge, it allows you to choose which 6 Ankh powers to keep between the two players, allows you to choose which monuments to keep up to a total of however many the merging player with the most monuments had, and instead of dropping down to the lowest score, you split the difference between the 2 players' scores. Thoughts?

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

I absolutely love all those house rule ideas. The only one I'm not sure of is the dispersing of followers after the battle, I worry it'll feel not as great in the beginning especially if you are going to ankh power at the beginning of the next round, but it's also really intriguing in terms of slowing the game down and making followers more scarce which I think would be a benefit.

[@ryan_here_we_go]

@@RoomandBoardReviews Thanks! I only manage to get the game to the table every now and then so it'll be tough to test these but maybe I'll share these on the bgg forums and let the community have at em!

[@vitorhauser8476]

​@@ryan_here_we_gohow was it?

[@chwshen]

Such a great review! this is exactly how I feel after 20+ games. the game did feel great when the result is close, but after couple plays and all players are familiar with the lv3 Ankh power, there'll always be a runaway leader. And finally someone mentioned the problem of overflowed followers! I haven't tried Pharaoh expansion yet, but i really do hope the expansion fixes the game.

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

I really enjoyed the Pharaoh expansion, the added cards are fun, but there's also the one card (two copies of it) that gives a player the exact same ability as the merged god, being able to pick the same action twice in a turn, which if you get early on and have the followers, just means someone can get to that level 3 area sooner. It's still worthwhile trying out, and I like the new element to it and the new board to juggle, but I'm not sure if it fixes that problem. Getting unique cards and powers feels very fun though.

[@chwshen]

@@RoomandBoardReviews sounds interesting, definitely will give expansion a try!

[@strategywizard]

So far, I've only played one 2 player game. And typically, I don't have more than 3 players at a time. My initial impressions are very positive (my first game was EXTREMELY close). I'm curious to see if I experience the issues you've seen in future playthroughs. But for now, I am stoked to play more!

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

Nice, yeah my favourite plays I think were at the 2 player level because it feels easier to control. Hope it continues to hit for you :)

[@garmit420]

Would love to hear your thoughts on the pharaoh expansion

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

Yeah I'll get another video out next week about all the expansions, I feel like that will be valuable. I quite liked the Pharoah expansion though, but I think it should be used when everyone is pretty familiar with the base

[@garmit420]

@@RoomandBoardReviews looking forward to it

[@johnpanagos5835]

Petsuchos is a catchup mechanic. Also the pharaoh expansion made the game so much better for us.

[@scottchladek1770]

Thank you for the Great in depth review! I wonder how Dragon Bond will do in comparison since it has a similar merge mechanism.

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

I'm hoping that because the merge must be agreed upon by both players in Dragon Bond, and also that they keep their powers but their win condition becomes harder to compensate it'll balance everything out. Feels like there will be more choice and more ownership

[@OrdemDoGraveto]

We play with one house rule that I belive makes the game way more fun: We include ALL 8 guardians for each level, without copies. We shuffle the cards, and when someone gets a guardian, he draws the top 4 cards and chooses one, putting the other 3 back on the top of the pile. This way everybody can get a guardian of each level, nobody gets the same guardians, and all guardians are present in the game as posible choices hehe

[@toddcontino7271]

I found ankh on sale for $60. You think that’s a fair price to give it a shot?? Thanks for all your videos!

[@shaunpentecost]

Ive only played this one 2 or 3 times and its been fun, hoping to table again soon with the Pharaoh expansion. Most of the issues you point out seem like easy house rules. Like don't use that 3rd level Ankh power since it's "broken" or like you said don't use the merge mechanic (we just decided not to use it and everyone has still enjoyed the game). Some people just don't like to house rule games (I'm usually one of those as I like to play as they were designed) so just curious!

[@johnpanagos5835]

You dont even have to houserule there are scenarios without merge

[@seansmith2650]

We have only played twice and have already identified how much of a problem ankh power rushing is. Not really sure how to fix it. It's especially a problem in a 2 player game when there are only one of each guardian

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

Someone in the comments either here or the other Ankh video had some really good ideas for house rules.

[@Paulovlyra]

Damn, I really felt your excitement for those close games!

[@whatboardgame]

Great review. I really enjoyed watching and listening. It’s excellently articulated and some great points. I’ve had lots of great finishes myself. And close games. So I do feel different. But I can see what you say for sure. Guess it just depends on how even the players are? How good the teach is for new players? Or how quickly all players can upgrade their powers. I only find people fall behind when they forget to upgrade. I feel sometimes people give up upgrading if they miss out on the cool extra mins. So I always mention this in the teach. The extra fighters are ace. But the powers are crucial. And yeah. The merge. But there are generally only a few turns after this. It’s not a long part of the game. But yeah, it can be weird!

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

I agree, focusing on the upgrades in the teach is huge for the enjoyment standard being set. I just never like when a game presents you with some options and then requires players to take certain options or they've got no chance.

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

But glad you've had a lot of those great finishes, man I wish that for myself!!! It would have been so good!

[@whatboardgame]

@@RoomandBoardReviewstrue. It is annoying that is so important. And the first player has the advantage there.

[@Cryptandos]

I agree with you completely yet I still love it 🤷🏻‍♂️ I guess I'm one of the stubborn ones. I think it's very sensitive to players being unbalanced in experience but if you could find people on your exact level it's a strategic masterpiece.

[@oerthling]

I always use Petsuchos. It's a handicap for experienced players and a fun big presence for the less experienced who always get him.

[@Cryptandos]

@@oerthling we use him too but usually it's not enough of a catch up mechanism

[@oerthling]

@@Cryptandos Right. It is a fun figure and gives a noob a bit of a boost and creates more challenge for the more experienced player. It's not supposed to make noobs beat experts. And the main catch-up mechanic is the merge. I just referenced this review on BGG in a thread that claims that the merge is way too strong. And this has been going back and forth in various threads and YT reviews for a year. Which leads me to the conclusion that the merge is right in the middle between too weak and too strong - where it belongs. :-)

[@dylannorthrup5439]

Appreciate the review. I skipped this one, and have recently been considering getting a retail copy with expansions… I agree with you - calling it a trilogy makes it even more enticing to have them all (those massive god minis from Studio McVey look so good). Technically Ankh is the 4th game in Eric Lang’s mythology series; the first being Chaos in the Old World, which I definitely grabbed before it went out of print, and yet haven’t actually played yet, lol. Though it looks good!

[@ms98816]

Chaos in the Old World is fantastic!! One of my absolute favorites

[@lotterwinner6474]

Okay but how do you feel about 7th continent?

[@EfrainRiveraJunior]

"Some games are too expensive to settle for them being mediocre or inconsistent." - Chris George (The man without a catchphrase)

[@EfrainRiveraJunior]

I feel the same way about Agricola.

[@Tharukan]

I would've suspected your review came down to you just hating camels, but somehow you convinced me otherwise. Well played.

[@ScytheNoire]

I think this is why most have said this is just a two-player game. The merge could've been done in a better way that makes the weakest players far stronger, not losing everything, and gaining more actions, making it feel unfair. The design overall probably has too many issues, and I think this will go the way of Rising Sun where it will be forgotten over time. Only Blood Rage has survived the test of time.

[@oerthling]

The merge is mostly just misunderstood. The "lower" player loses nothing. Yes, the particular combination of Ankh powers and a set of tokens and warriors get removed. But the merged god is better than what came before. The "lower" god still has monuments and warriors and ankh powers, just in different places. And the former combination was a losing one. If this were a video game it would be more obvious because graphics of the merged god, warriors and tokens would change and make it obvious that it's a combination. But in a board game we can't have new sets of figures and colors for every possible merge combination and thus the "higher" gods figures are used. But it's important to understand that the "higher" and "lower" only refer to devotion position for a moment of resolving the merge. After that the distinction becomes meaningless - they are then a merged faction. Neither player is more or less the merged god faction than the other (with the single exception of a tie break if they can't agree on a battle strategy - which they should). The former "lower" god didn't lose a thing, s/he *gained* a better board position. "Only Blood Rage has survived the test of time" - that's funny because there's a thread on BGG I read a few days ago where people argued the opposite. ;-) These opinions vary a lot by local gaming groups and metas. BR and RS are both top 100 on BGG (out of > 100k). Ankh has been moving in that direction all the time. You are projecting your own preferences on the rest of the world.

[@scifigeezer5271]

As much as I like Rising Sun, I have to agree. Blood Rage has stood the test of time because the game just...works better. It is a more elegant design and all the better for it.

[@oerthling]

@@scifigeezer5271 Obviously very much a matter of taste. I like BR, it's a good game and well designed. But Inis, which is also based on drafting is, IMHO, the better drafting area control game. I own BR anyway, because it has enough of its own charme to deserve a place in my collection. And I rate Rising Sun higher than BR - it's the overall more interesting game. All of them are worthwhile well designed good games.

[@Richard-sy1ej]

I don't understand this point of view. I detest Blood Rage. The drafting is so awful that I don't enjoy it at all. There are simply only a couple of interesting choices when picking cards each round as you have to hate draft certain cards simply to deny them to your opponents because they're so good, and others that are more or less useless. Rising Sun is a 10/10 game, Ankh is 8/10, and Blood Rage is a 6/10 at best. I will never understand why such a mediocre game is so loved.

[@David-ym2vk]

I was first introduced to Eric Lang as a designer with Chaos in the Old World. It was a surprisingly interesting albeit chaotic game and was just a good time. Was hyped about Blood Rage and was just disappointed with how meh it felt after the first play. I played it another 5 or 6 times and it always ran long and overstayed its welcome, the drafting took way too long with AP players, the combos in the game while cool can be happened upon through sheer luck of the draw which makes hate drafting irrelevant in some games which furthermore can create some situations with a runaway leader that is so far ahead by the third act that there's no point in even continuing but there's no rules to end the game early. It had some good ideas, but poor execution that held it back from being a great game. Everyone else in my game group felt the same way. Fast forward to Rising Sun. I gave that a chance hoping my feelings about Blood Rage were just a fluke considering how popular it was and still is. Unfortunately I had the same experience repeated. Played it a handful of times and it always just felt mediocre. The huge awesome looking Oni were cool looking, but died way to easily. The battle never seemed very enjoyable especially considering you could work to position yourself and then get hosed by someone who purposely lost in another battle and then had a surplus of coins to screw you over in another area you weren't expecting. Only one person in my game group liked it. After hearing so many great reviews about Ankh, I got extremely close to being lured back into to giving Eric Lang another shot. This review affirms all of my misgivings about the game after watching some playthroughs and watching a ton of reviews and I just can't bring myself to buy it now. Unpopular opinion: Eric Lang is a one hit wonder in the form of Chaos in the Old World which went on to inspire Cthulhu Wars which I've played around 8 times now at many different player counts and is also a great game. After playing games like these two, I've come to the conclusion, that there's soo many games out there, so why settle for something mediocre, overproduced, or just not great. Fun is the goal. If you're not having it, move on.

[@Nozdormu1982]

I think you should build a tomb for it, deep in the desert and have it discovered by an alien race one day and have them figure out why a tomb was build to hold one of the greatest games that might have been, but just wasn't meant to be.

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

Brb calling my excavator

[@teemuu9]

I just painted this game last month. Can't wait to finally play it.

[@sidneyleejohnson]

So do you still think Ankh is better than Lords of Ragnorak? Meaning continue to skip LofR?

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

I think Lords of Ragnarok will be better/at least I'll like it more. But I have Lords of Hellas so don't see the need to own both

[@qtherage7536]

Just played ankh for the first time and it was an absolute 10/10 it was tight and in the last battle I managed to steal victory from the other player who was leading all game with a 7 devotion swing. As soon as the game finished we both were blown away with how fun it was. I’m curious to see if I’ll feel like you after getting more plays in. I really hope that excellent tense game wasn’t just a one off because it was incredible.

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

I hope it continues to be incredible for you as well!

[@dcrbdh]

I'd still love to hear your take on the pharaoh expansion

[@patriziopastore9895]

Thanks man I can understand your point of view, I have only the core game and is not my copy :)

[@svachalek]

This is a game I was really disappointed I missed when it was first coming out. The theme and the ideas are just so cool. But I started hearing too many negative reviews and I’ve held back. I think I may have finally lost all interest! Ah well. Thanks for all your thoughts!

[@malcolmdouglasmichaluk8263]

retail version is very good and the KS exclusives arent that gamechanging.

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

Retail version is definitely enough for sure for anyone who wants to check it out. Plus I think the pantheon and the Pharoah expansion have much more significant gameplay implications than the Kickstarter extras. The 3d monuments are nice but not necessary, and you could always get a knockoff pair from Etsy too.

[@oerthling]

@@RoomandBoardReviews I mostly agree. The KS exclusive are optional nice to have stuff, but not needed (as it should be). But Petsuchos is a fairly good handicap for more experienced players to provide a boost for noobs.

[@oerthling]

Get a few friends together on TTS and see for yourself.

[@Nozdormu1982]

Can you hold a tournament with all the games you enjoy the most and the winner is the one game you take with you in case of a fire? :D

[@garylangford6755]

Another CMON game which needed more polish from the publisher. The result is people need to houserule to fix it's flaws.

[@Zilong09]

I hear a lot of comparisons between this and DragonBond (which I fully backed). Glad to hear I don't need to also invest in this too.

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

I backed Dragonbond as well, but I feel like the merge is better in that one because it's optional and requires you to get more points because you're going to be more powerful

[@Zilong09]

@@RoomandBoardReviews this sounds like a good balance but I really need to see it in play. The combination of points needs to also not give leverage to those winning also

[@DuGStp]

just picked up a copy for 50 bucks. Gonna play it a few times and see what I think.

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

That's a great price for it definitely

[@thecuriousboardgamer]

There's something about your critical reviews that I like a lot more than most other critical reviews. I actually don't watch many reviews, because I prefer to watch tutorials and playthroughs to see if I might like something. But, you're just so conversational! Typical actor...

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

Haha, thanks so much :) I'm glad they're enjoyable.

[@paranoiarisinggames]

I think you know that I agree with your opinion on this 😂 Back to Rising Sun for me!

[@riddlesphinxx]

Do you feel like your schedule is more flexible now that there haven’t been any $1M campaigns for a while? :)

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

Haha, lets me get to a few things I've wanted to write and film for a while haha

[@OleksandrMilkovskyi]

I like Ankh. Even more than Blood Rage. Despite the merge and the ending. But Rising Sun is so much better for me than both of these games.

[@jordanmcgrory2171]

I've never disagreed more passionately with a review. Followers have never been useless in any game of this I've ever played. So many of the gods use followers for their powers. If anything, obelisk specialism is the weakest in an experienced game. The moment you get it - people just block your obelisks. There's usually maximum 3 spaces around them. Temples is the strongest because it's hardest to block and remains powerful even once you have lots of summons unlike pyramids which starts to lose value the more monuments you have. The catch up mechanic is super powerful and I've seen the merged team take over and win many times. Although the merge team no longer literally has 4 actions, you can essentially still do twice as much because you get 2 actions which (a) can be a duplicate, meaning there are no low value actions (b) can be a quadruple action if opponents are dumb enough to let the merged team get two end of track actions. Two god powers can be fun in all kinds of combinations. Playing as a team is also really powerful because two heads are better than one when you get to the end and every single decision matters. We've also literally never had a situation where the team disagreed on what to do in battle - so it wasn't like the second last player was the "lead player". It's all usually very amicable with both adding value. The idea that the last player gets washed away isn't usually that psychologically significant because if you're last, you don't usually have much of an empire to speak of anyway. This is disheartening in the early rounds when you are alone. If anything getting to feel shared ownership of another empire gives them more board presence. I've also never seen anyone just straight eliminated from the game. The elimination point is so late that everyone is almost automatically in the blue.

[@que-tangclan]

Ah that sucks to hear. I just ordered the base game and it’s arrived and I can’t wait to play it. I hope the merge works well with my kids when they want to hang up on me if I am leading. Since you are getting rid of it tho ….

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

I know lots of people like it a lot, and don't have the issues that I have, so hey maybe you won't as well. There were those games I absolutely loved, so hopefully you will too :)

[@que-tangclan]

@@RoomandBoardReviews well our first game went really well. The merge made my son real frustrated initially. But my daughter was excited she got to co op with her brother. Which ultimately ended up with the boy enjoying mentoring his sister and actually winning the game in the end. For now the merge is cool. But I am concerned for the run away race you mentioned.

[@dannyteoharov8298]

Wanna be good at games together? 😉 Oddities aside, thanks for the review! I was looking forward to it.

[@leandrodimaria178]

I saw this one youtuber who said Ankh is a masterpiece, and Rising Sun is very bad, and here it's the opossite xd I suppose I should play them and see

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

One of these KZbinrs is a hack!! I believe you'll make the correct choice ;)

[@scottchladek1770]

Best to sell your copy before it loses in one of your brackets and has to be burned....

[@Nozdormu1982]

Also. Merge mechanic sounds like marriage :D.

[@wiblick]

Oh thank god.... I bought this game, I did not play this game... I want to get rid of it and now I can. [other channels have it on their shelves so I thought maybe I should keep it]

[@chrisarney8265]

Blood Rage + RIsing Sun are both top 5 games for me. I think Ankh is... ok. Your opinion of it is the closest I've heard to my own. There are aspects of it that I like, but it never clicks with me. I always end up setting others up for the good spots on the track, and then when I move it forward, it's on those damn camels that I never know what to do with.... Anyway, you're spot on that whoever gets the lead early ends up running away with it. Ah well.

[@Andy-td4sj]

Hey Chris thanks for the time and effort. Agree with you that you should recoup the losses from Ankh rather than let it torment you and your group :P Having said that, just a couple of my 2c: + RE punishing for new players: I find this a very strange critique. There are tons of games out there that are hard to master. Any newbie coming into Blood Rage, Rising Sun are expected to be losing as well. Ankh dials it up a notch more because there is no randomness/chaos. It's very chess like. + RE merge: first I applaud you to "try" to make it work. However, just based on the way you describing the merge mechanics, my guess is that you did not try hard enough :) you were focusing too much on the "negative" and not the "positive". The strongest aspect of the merge is the ability to trigger events with back to back actions on THE SAME TRACK. I don't think you mentioned that at all in the video, no wonder why you think the merge mechanics is "weak". When I teach the merge, I always mention that it is something people have to plan for at the beginning, not just when it happens because then you just gonna be subjected to all the negativity. I'm also surprised that with all those sessions you spend playing the game, you never once deliberately attempted to be part of the merge to confirm/understand your bias. :) So in conclusion, I'm one of the stubborn ones who would still think that you haven't fully understood the game despite the numerous plays. I don't know why that it, could be your groupthink, could be your dislike for the theme, I'm not sure. But it's clear that the game does not belong to YOUR collections.

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

One of the main reasons I find the double move underwhelming is because in the Pharoah expansion, there's a card that gives a single player the exact same power. And the fact that even such a card exists makes the merge feel even less powerful than it already does, at least to me. That a situation can occur when the other players can have your exact same power is so funny to me. I have grasped on to telling the players exactly this, like a piece of driftwood in the storm, the only thing I can use to possibly swing their opinions, haha, but it has never been enough to make up for the energy/enthusiasm they lost when the merge happened to them to begin with. At least for everyone I've tried it with.

[@ulf-nicklassdegenhardt-mei3121]

If your chances to catch the leading player are low, this can ruin a game . Some games have the option that the other players combine forces to catch up as only option, but I don't like it. I think it is much better, when the concept of the game itself provides something for it. Even worse when the game forces you to go for the weaker players...

[@foxsparrow8973]

like most cmon games, I bought it for the minis.

[@thomasromanelli2561]

This was a fair review, and although I think Ankh is a better game than you have concluded, it definitively has some issues. When I considered the evolution of the design choices Mr. Lang made during this trilogy, I discovered that some variations were better-executed that others. I've played my friend's copy (the deluxe KS version) several times but we haven't really delved into the expansion content. There's a lot to admire with Ankh, but the overall gameplay experience gave me some pause as well. Then there was the awkward atmosphere cast over the game when Mr. Lang exited CMON before the design was finalized and the middling reception of the merge mechanic. I remember thinking that making the merge mechanic optional was an odd choice, because it seemed to be a key part of the design philosophy. It's a beautifully produced game, but strangely leaves me with the impression that the bling is meant to distract from some lack of substance (more so in Ankh than in CMON's previous premiere titles). At the end of the day, Ankh remains a very good game. But... I'm happy I didn't spend my own money on it.

[@nipzie]

Why does your shirt say, "I love camel camels"? haha

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

They're the best kind!

[@paulb2474]

@@RoomandBoardReviews I was thinking the same, as well as 1 hump or 2.

[@EfrainRiveraJunior]

This looks like a game I will not enjoy playing.

[@chrismusix5669]

Stonkh.

[@sidneyleejohnson]

Wow No Pun Intended has such an opposite opinion than you. Weird. I wonder how often you've disagreed with NPI before... ever?

[@RoomandBoardReviews]

Quite frequently actually. They don't like Rising Sun and it's my favourite game ever.

[@john-qz3fu]

Your almost cheap...i know your not quite there because I am cheap. I wanted to get this game. But being cheap means there is no way in this world I'm spending that much on a game.... Even if it would be my favorite game... It's still not worth it.

[@rodgerk.]

Ankh is one of the worst games I've ever played. To me, it feels like a game that needs far more play-testing. The God powers are ridiculously unbalanced with some Gods gaining benefits every turn and other Gods rarely being able to even use their powers in a useful way. The very limited number of monsters that aid players are owned by the first players that obtain them which means the players in the lead pull further into the lead and thus harder for the slower players to catch up. As you mentioned, the monuments are super-important but so much of the monument building phase depends on things outside the player's control. E.G. Purely by luck of the Action table, some players will be able to have 3-4 monuments each before others even had the chance to obtain a second. It's easy to tell who's going to win each game by half-time. I suppose the merge mechanic is meant to help the players that are hopelessly losing but merging two turkey-gods does not make an eagle-god.