Raiders of Scythia
My first foray into the Ancient Anthology series. It wont be my last.
Raiders of Scythia
Designer: Shem Phillips
Publisher: Garphill Games
2020
Overview:
As the reimplementation / redesign / updating of Raiders of the North Sea, Garphill Games first introduced us to Raiders of Scythia back in 2020, setting up what would later become the popular 'Ancient Anthology' series. Viking theme replaced, new art from Sam Phillips and a few other bells and whistles thrown in for good measure.
Here in Scythia you'll focus your efforts on building up as strong a Crew as possible and sending them off on increasingly challenging raids for points and 'plunder' (your ubiquitous wood, stone, gold Provisions, Silver and Kumis, if anyone was doubting that we are firmly, and reassuringly, in Euro territory here).
The core conceit is wonderfully straightforward but deviously brilliant. The top of the board acts as your Scythian village and, during setup, a few workers are already placed out onto worker-placement spots, leaving a good few more ready for you to race towards during your first turn.
But this isn't bog-standard worker placement. Here you'll place a worker out to take an action and then take a different worker from the board for an additional action. Which space you place out on is a straightforward enough choice, but which worker do you take back? Well, that leaves you with some devilish pause for thought as you ponder which space to leave wide open for your opponent to then use next turn.
Place a worker, take a worker. Repeat.
Well, that is until you have done enough that you feel you now have a strong enough Crew (replete perhaps with eagles and horses), collectively contributing towards a total 'strength' value. Perhaps you're finally strong enough to tackle a raid in one of the four distinct areas on the main board?! Those furthest away require a pretty hefty and powerful force, but the rewards are considerably greater than raiding a little closer to home. Get some victory points and plunder depending on where you raide and then a quick dice roll decides how many 'wounds' your crew takes (reducing its strength value for future raids). Don't worry though, you can heal them right back up when you return from the raid to...
...place a worker, take a worker, raid, repeat.
Each time you raid, you'll also reveal a ‘Quest’ that can be fulfilled on future turns by trading in the displayed resources, earning juicy victory points for your troubles.
When there are either only two Quests left on the board or only two places to raid remaining, the game ends. In addition to the victory points scored from raiding during the game, add up your points from any completed Quests, the VP displayed on your Crew members, as well as any tasty end-game scoring objectives that individual Crew members may have dangled in front of your nose during the game.
Solo Headlines:
What an absolute pleasure of a solo mode!
A really good blend of keeping things super simple, with minimal upkeep / brain space needed, whilst still feeling very much like you're competing against a human opponent who could just be sitting opposite you if you didn't know any better.
You're competing here against a point-scoring opponent, with four difficulty levels to suit most tastes. There is a tiny bit of "wait, let me read that again to make sure I understand what the bot needs to do" in the rulebook, but those rules could probably fit on the back of a postage stamp. For something so rules-light, it sure does work buttery smooth.
Flip the top card in its solo deck. Can it raid in the area shown? Great, it does and gets the points.
It can't because it doesn't have enough resources to go out raiding? Cool, give it some resources ready for next time.
It can't because it isn't strong enough to raid? Cool, give it a horse to boost its strength ready for next time.
That's it.
Wonderful, at-a-glance simplicity, but over the course of the game you'll see the solo mode swelling and raiding and rebuilding at much the same pace as you or another human would do. It's such an impressive solo mode for so little overhead and upkeep. Importantly though, it also gets in the way just enough. This isn't a solo opponent that simply sits in the corner quietly scoring points while you do your own thing. It's quite happy to beat you to raids, snaffle up opportunities and generally keep you on your toes throughout the game.
Turns are ridiculously snappy. While there is plenty to think about, the actual act of taking your turns and resolving the solo mode takes seconds. Before you know it, half an hour has disappeared and you've raided half the known world!
I love games with very little downtime. Sure, I enjoy disappearing down the occasional analysis-paralysis rabbit hole as much as the next person, but there is something wonderfully satisfying about a game that just keeps moving you constantly along. Raiders of Scythia has that in abundance. It falls well within my 60-minute solo sweet spot too. Perfect, in fact, for an "I think I might reset that and give it another go" session
I do wonder quite how challenging the difficulty levels might become. I won comfortably on the first two levels (which is unusual for me). Time to crank things up a notch, I guess.
Really good solo mode, this one.
Impressed.
General Headlines:
I dithered over whether to pick up Raiders of the North Sea or Raiders of Scythia for years.
On one hand, North Sea always looked like a lot of fun but I worried that it might end up a little too light for my tastes and that I'd quickly find myself needing to add all of the expansions (£££ Gulp £££) On the other hand, Scythia's artwork never quite grabbed me in the same way as the other Garphill titles illustrated by The Mico (what a fool I was, the art here is great!). Ultimately though, curiosity got the better of me and Scythia won out.
The first thing that surprised me was how quick and easy the game is to get to the table. Small box. Straightforward setup. Concise rulebook. Before I knew it I was placing workers, gathering a crew and setting off on raids. There was none of that "right then, lets spend twenty minutes setting all of this up before the fun starts" feeling. Up and running in no time at all. Lovely. If the other games in the ‘Ancient Anthology’ series are as quick to table then I might well be a fresh convert.
The second thing that surprised me was just how well the theme integrates with the mechanisms. Sure, this is a procedural resource conversion Euro game at heart, but building up your crew, gathering provisions, acquiring horses and eagles, heading off on increasingly ambitious raids, picking up a few inevitable wounds and coming home laden with plunder all feels wonderfully cohesive. Everything just seems to make thematic sense.
My biggest concern though during the first game or two was that things might feel too procedural and repetitive.
Place a worker. Take a worker. Gather some bits and bobs. Go on a raid. Repeat.
…and indeed my biggest critique (or should I say ‘word of warning’) is that I don't think this is a game that is going to play wildly differently from one game to the next. Quite the opposite. If you're looking for radically different strategies and experiences every time then there are certainly games out there with a lot more variability. But there are enough subtle shifts from game to game here to keep things engaging.
Different crew combinations emerge, different abilities become available and different opportunities present themselves. The puzzle remains familiar but the route through it changes just enough to keep things interesting. And you know what? I quite like having a couple of games on my shelf that have that more procedural, repetitive (zen?) nature. Sometimes I don’t want my mind to melt by a board of seemingly endless possibilities. Much like when I play Shipyard and I find myself zoning out a little and just repetitively building ships to order and setting them off to sail, here in Scythia I liked switching the brain off a little and looping through the cycle as efficiently as possible each time. This game does that well, mainly due to the synergies you try to find on your player board – recruiting crew that have a particular ‘strength’ attribute but also having their own unique power. On its own that power isn’t game breaking stuff – little benefits here and there. Get four or five of them singing in harmony? Now we’re talking a bigger boost! Lovely.
Deep down, I was secretly hoping that Raiders of Scythia might end up sitting alongside the excellent Shipwrights of the North Sea: Redux in my affections.
I'm not quite there.
Yet.
But after this initial burst of plays I'm very happy that Raiders of Scythia finally won that long-running battle for shelf space. It might not be the deepest puzzle in the Garphill catalogue, but there is something incredibly appealing about how efficiently it delivers its experience. Fast, thematic and wonderfully streamlined, it leaves me wanting to immediately set up another game and go raiding all over again. I have grabbed a copy of the recently announced Omens expansion, which cannot arrive soon enough!
At a Glance:
Raiders of Scythia finally won a years-long battle for shelf space and I'm very glad it did. Fast to set up, quick to play and full of satisfying little decisions, it delivers a wonderfully streamlined raiding experience that continually nudges you towards "just one more game." The solo mode is an absolute pleasure to run, the worker-placement mechanism is deceptively clever, and while the puzzle doesn't vary dramatically from game to game, it remains consistently engaging throughout. Fast, thematic and quietly addictive. Wonderful stuff.
Final Score:
8 out of 10 (reviewed after 4 plays)
*Review copy provided by the publisher
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