Review of 'Eons End', a cooperative deck-building card game that works together to confront the mighty monsters that threaten humanity

A complete Japanese version of the cooperative deck construction game 'Eons End ' that fights against the enemy 'Nemesis' in order to become a 'hole magician' and protect the last base of humanity, Gravehold, will be released from Arclight Games in 2020. Introduced in May. It is a high-difficulty game that can be enjoyed with a wide range of strategies, which is unusual for a card game and has the feature of 'not shuffling the deck you made', so I actually played and confirmed how difficult it was.

Eons End Full Japanese Version | ArclightGames Official

The target age is 14 years old and over, the number of players is 1 to 4, and the play time is assumed to be 60 minutes.

Rule manual, first game guide, tokens

Tokens can be easily separated from cardboard without a cutter or scissors.

Player mat for recording and checking player skills and data

Nemesis mat with the status and rules of the enemy monster 'Nemesis' that will fight the player

A physical strength dial that displays the physical strength of Nemesis and 'Grave Hold', the last base of humankind protected by the player.

Bleach Dile and card for card classification, various cards.

The type of card is written on the classification card ...

By using it as a partition like this, it is possible to store cards by type.

The three card decks labeled 'Stop!' Are used for the first play and are designed so that you can play the game immediately. It's OK if you prepare as instructed while looking at the guide of the first game.

This time we played with 4 people. Prepare the 'starting deck' and 'starting hand' written on the player mat.

In addition, select a total of 9 types of cards from the player cards and arrange them in the field to make them 'Supply'.

There are four types of enemy Nemesis. In the first game, the purpose of the game is to defeat the red monster 'Rageborn', which is characterized by two huge horns.

The Nemesis Card determines the behavior of Nemesis. Nemesis cards are divided into 3 stages according to their strength, and the deck is built so that it becomes stronger from top to bottom.

Set the Gravehold health dial to 30. Gravehold is the last base of humankind, so if the physical strength of this Gravehold becomes 0, humanity will be defeated and the game is over.

Then adjust the Nemesis fitness dial according to the fitness written on the Nemesis mat. In the case of Rageborn, it boasts 70, which is more than double the physical strength of the base.

Place a breach tile on the player mat, and put a player number and health token on it. Then, place the deck and hand prepared in advance and you're ready to go.

◆ I tried playing with 4 people
First, shuffle the turn order cards and draw one, and the player with the number written on the drawn turn order card advances the turn.

The player's turn proceeds in the following three phases.
1: Spell phase
2: Main phase
3: Hand replenishment phase

The spell phase is a phase in which you cast a spell set on a breach tile to attack your opponent. In order to cast a spell in this game, you need to 'place a spell card on the breach tile in the main phase of your turn and then cast it in the spell phase of your turn'. In other words, the spell isn't immediately usable after being cast, but it takes one turn to cast.

There are 4 breach tiles to set spells, and basically only open tiles can be set. Only one of the four breach tiles is open from the beginning, so if you want to cast multiple spells at once, pay the cost of 'ether' during your main phase to enhance or unlock it. is needed.

You can get ether by using a jewel card from your hand.

Ether is like the money you spend in the game, and you can buy ether from the supply and add it to your deck by paying ether.

As the game progresses, you can purchase strong spell cards, open the puncture tiles and set spell cards, and the damage done to your enemies will increase.

Purchased cards will immediately move to the discard pile to the right of the player mat. When the main phase is over, move to the hand replenishment phase and discard the used cards in the pile. At this time, the important thing is, ' If you throw away the used cards in the pile, throw them in the order you like .' Then, draw 5 cards from the deck on the left side of the player mat to make it into your hand, but if the deck runs out ...

Turn the abandoned mountain over without shuffling it into a deck. 'Do not shuffle' means that the order in which you discard the cards in the discard pile is the order of the deck. In other words, the big point of Eons End is that 'thinking about the order of discarding ' is directly linked to the strategy for advancing the game in an advantageous manner.

When 'Nemesis' appears on the turn order card, Nemesis, not the player, begins to act.

Nemesis's actions are determined by flipping a card from the Nemesis deck. The 'Kill' card I drew is that Gravehold takes 3 damage.

Rageborn attacked the human guarding Gravehold and suffered great damage.

Also, depending on the card, a monster called a 'minion' may be summoned. Minions have individual health settings and can only be defeated by attacking with spells. For example, the 'Incarnation of Wrath' summoned in the following scenes activates the effect 'Rageborn strikes' every turn of Nemesis.

Rageborn has a 'Strike Card' in addition to the Nemesis Deck, and when you strike, draw this strike card and execute the effect written on it. The strike card 'Crush' drawn by the incarnation of wrath deals 3 damage to the Grave Hold and 1 damage to each player. Many strike cards have extremely vicious effects, and can overturn the battle situation and put humanity at a disadvantage.

As you progress through the game and reach the middle of the game, you will be able to cast powerful spells. The spell card 'Spark' (left) owned from the starting deck deals only 1 damage with 1 card, but the space insight that can be purchased with 6 ether is 2 damage + open hole tile. You can inflict 1 damage to your opponent. If you open all 4 breach tiles, you can deal 6 damage to your opponent with one shot.

In addition, the 'Burning Whip' deals 4 damage with 1 shot, and has the powerful effect of being able to cast the spell set on the breach tile on the spot by paying 2 ethers. Eons End is a collaborative card game, so it's important to discuss with other players and come up with strategies that combine these spell cards to do a lot of damage to your enemies.

In addition, special abilities defined for each character are also important for cooperative play. In order to use special abilities, you need to fill up the 'charge' that accumulates 1 gauge by paying 2 ethers. 'I'm not brave. I've been fighting for myself, not for Gravehold,' said the character mist's special ability, which says that one companion can draw four additional cards. It is 'fortune-telling'.

By using 'God Fortune-telling' for players whose hand has been reduced to 3 due to the effect of the attack by Nemesis, the disadvantageous situation turns into an advantage.

The turn order that follows is Nemesis's turn.

However, one out of four people has two remaining physical strength. If you take damage here, the player will go down. Players can continue to play even if their health becomes 0, but not only will one of the four perforated tiles become unusable, but Nemesis will power up, which is a very disadvantageous situation. Therefore, you should avoid setting your physical strength to 0 as much as possible.

Therefore, in a strategy to save time by activating the special ability 'Runes of Signs' that 'nullifies all damage given to the player and Grave Hold during that turn'.

Now, even if you draw a Nemesis card and take a lot of damage, it won't hurt or itchy ...

I thought, but the turn order card that followed was Nemesis again. In the case of 4-player play, there are 2 Nemesis cards in the 6 turn-order cards, so depending on the shuffle, Nemesis may attack twice in a row.

The card I drew was 'Collapse', which deals 4 damage to Gravehold. I was desperate to defeat the millions that were summoned more and more after the middle stage, and the game was over because the base was destroyed without being able to reduce the physical strength of the Ragebone body.

'I'm so frustrated that the base was destroyed so easily, could I clear it with another Nemesis?' Next, I started playing against the 'Queen of the Crustacean' who looked like a spider.

Since the crustacean queen gives birth to 'shell cubs', shell cub tokens will increase on top of the tokens. The shell child is a monster with 1 health, and although it does not attack, it brings a disadvantageous situation to the player due to the card effect called 'group dance'.

The minion 'Mother Insect' dedicated to the Queen of the Crustacean, summoned during the game, increases the number of child tokens of the shell by one each turn of Nemesis. Furthermore, the effect that this minion cannot be eliminated without defeating all the child tokens of the shell is quite evil.

Due to the effect of maternal insects, the number of shell pups has increased to a maximum of 15 in a blink of an eye. In this state, 'Gunmai' was activated, and the defeat of humankind was decided by haste.

Also, the nemesis of 'distorted mask' is ...

It has a harassing effect by adding a card called a 'falling card' to the player deck and shuffling it. While the effects of the cards damage the player, they also have a beneficial effect on the player, so they are not generally harmful. However, by 'not shuffling the deck', even though it is necessary to adjust the order of the cards and incorporate it into the strategy, if shuffled, all the strategies on the player side will be destroyed, so it is quite troublesome. ..

Distorted masks summon minions one after another and attack humanity who is confused by the fall of man.

A player whose distorted mask rampages and corrupt cards are smashed into the deck draws three cards in his hand. All the fallen cards need to be executed at the end of the main phase, but if you draw multiple cards, you will inevitably be damaged, so anyway, your physical strength will be sharpened and your physical strength will become 0 in a blink of an eye. I have. In addition, if all the players have 0 physical strength, the human race will be defeated.

◆ Impressions
One play is about 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours with 4 people. Also, when I played alone, one play was about one hour. The difficulty is quite high, and four-player play has been challenged four times, but humanity has won only one of them. The only victory was due to the condition that 'all the Nemesis cards were used up', and in the end it was not possible to completely defeat Nemesis. However, if it is a one-player or two-player game, it succeeded in winning by cutting down the physical strength of Nemesis even in the last minute situation, so it can be said that it is a little less difficult to play with one or two people as a game. I felt that it was a game for people who were used to playing board games to some extent.

'Dominion ' is famous when it comes to deck-building card games, but against Dominion, who competes for 'how much points to earn', Eons End says 'how much you can cooperate with other players to discuss and enemies.' Is it possible to defeat? ' At first, I had to proceed with the deck construction individually, and it was a point of reflection that the cooperation between the players was not so much.

Although the difficulty level is very high, the impression battle after the play was very exciting, such as 'I should have done it over there' and 'I should have moved more like this'. You can always feel fresh by changing the conditions such as 'Let's be more aware of purchasing spell cards this time' or 'Let's play with this supply combination' or 'I want to play with this character'. Can be played with. I also enjoyed exploring which cards are effective against Nemesis and which strategies are effective.

The full Japanese version of Eons End can be purchased at Amazon.co.jp. The price is 9500 yen including tax at the time of writing the article.

Amazon | Ark Light Eons End Full Japanese Version | Board Games | Toys