95fa806a44d0bb93d812be0c3680eb3c_largeSecond Look - Boardgame reviews in depth. Check out that cat.Golem Arcana took Kickstarter by storm a while back ago. Released to the public in August, the game has been making waves. I finally got my grubby little hands on a core set and sat down with my two oldest kids to give it a whirl.

Yes.

Yes, it’s awesome. Yes, you should buy it. Yes, you should play it.

The game does an amazing job of things in almost every aspect of delivery. For those of you who don’t know, Golem Arcana is a miniatures game that needs a tablet or smart phone to play. A special stylus is included with the game to help the free app “see” the golems, board tiles, and cards. Golems, and their abilities, can be selected by tapping their bases or cards. Golems are moved by tapping the spaces on the board tiles. Everything from golem stats, modifiers, terrain effects, etc… is accounted for in the app. This make it very easy to set the game up and just play without ready any rules at all. the tutorial battles in the app get you started right away. Of course there’s also a link to the full rules from inside the app or on the Golem Arcana website.

I initially played the first few tutorials with just the base set. I played a few times with my 9-year-old son and my 7-year-old daughter. Both had no problem picking up the basics and having a blast with the game. My daughter is still constantly asking me to play. I ended up snagged both expansion armies to play with, and now have my eyes on the colossi.

There’s also a few extras I’d like to mention here. You aren’t limited to just 1 stylus during play. More can be purchased so that you don’t need to pass it around. In later scenarios, golems are fully customizable. You can pick your golem, the knight who rides it, relics, and powers. Everything has a point value, just as you’d expect in a miniatures game. Also, a good read through the full rules of the game once you have a few battles under your belt is well worth it. Knowing the inner workings of the game will help you form better armies, and plan better strategies. While you can get away with just having the game do everything for you, it’s nice to know why certain things happen during the course of battle.

I really can’t recommend the game enough. It’s one of my favorites this year so far.

I foresee much more Golem Arcana products in our household soon as more expansions are released.

A copy of the base game was provided free for review by Harebrained Schemes. Additional products were purchased.