This preview of Shu’s Tactics is based on a prototype. Everything you read here is subject to change. This prototype has been provided to me by the designer. The prototype contains only the first chapter.
About Shu’s Tactics: Zhang Jue, together with his siblings Zhang Liang and Zhang Bao, has declared the beginning of the Yellow Turban rebellion, wreaking havoc on cities and villages across China. Liu Bei, a young man who can’t stand seeing innocent people being harmed by the war, has sworn brotherhood with Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, and is now planning to build up an army to help the government quell the rebellion. The three men have requested assistance from wealthy individuals in town, and you have decided to aid them knowing their great potential and heroic personalities. Now go ahead and join force with the brothers to become a part in the history of the Shu nation. (from boardgamegeek.com)
What is Shu’s Tactics?
Shu’s Tactics is a solo campaign roll-and-write game. In the game you will build military tactics to reclaim cities and lands from the Yellow Turban rebellious army. During the game you can train soldiers for your army, craft various handy items, draw up schemes, and recruit heroes and mercenaries to fight the rebellion. In the full game you will play through a series of chapters to complete the story of the Shu Han nation.
How to play
I will focus my explanation on the first chapter of the campaign as this is the only one that was available to me. Some of the mechanics or details may vary slightly for the different chapters.
Each chapter you will play a number of rounds, in this case eight, that consist of two phases: the preparation phase and the action phase.
Preparation Phase
The preparation phase consists of four steps each round, except for the first round.
- Enemy defense: if the flag icon of the current round shows a waving flag the enemy will attack. For each arrow that can be seen in that column, you lose one stamina. If you get hit too many times you will lose the game.
- Income: after the first round you can gain income by unlocking this on your player sheet.
- Roll the die/shift the tokens: alternating rounds you either roll a 20-sided die or shift the tokens to the three cards not used in the previous round. After determining which three cards are available to you, you will choose two cards for their top parts (containing orders) and one for the bottom part (containing a scheme).
- Enemy reaction: based on the scheme you choose the enemy will react according to the weather symbols.
Action Phase
During this phase you can take as many actions as you want. There are three actions you can take.
- Advance a track: spend an order to advance the matching track. There are four different areas, each requiring a particular type of order to fill. These areas are: Drillground (used to unlock tactics), Forge (used to unlock special abilities, income or extra points), Council (gain various rewards and points) and Travel (unlock benefits by surrounding them).
- Launch an attack: spend an order to launch an attack in the shape of an unlocked tactic. The number you use for the order decides the range of the attach (which can be modified with coins). You can then use your tactics to cover enemy tiles, gaining benefits and covering arrows.
- Use scheme: use the scheme from the chosen card.
You will use your actions to try and meet the chapters win condition and score as many points as possible.
What I think of the game?
I like Shu’s Tactics a lot and this is mainly due to the combination it presents of known and unknown factors. You can plan ahead a fair bit because of the known facts. When and where the enemies will attack is something you know throughout the game. The round tracker shows when the attacks will happen and the arrows show where the attacks will come from. So you can anticipate the coming attacks and try to cover up the arrows before the attacks happen.
On the other hand you have the big unknown of the dice roll at the start of the alternating rounds. You don’t know which cards you will get, so you never know for sure if you will get the orders you need. There are always plenty of orders available from the three cards you get but you also will want to look at which scheme to choose. For the scheme itself of course, but also because the scheme you pick will decide the enemies action. More than once I chose to pick a less than ideal scheme to avoid a certain enemy action.
One of the most interesting mechanics though can be found on the rounds you don’t roll the dice. Because on those rounds you will get the three cards you didn’t get the previous round to choose your orders and scheme from. Having this mechanic means you have some information about what will be available to you in the next round after you roll the dice for that round. This can help you plan efficiently ahead and prepare to stack some great combos.
What also helps the game a lot is the way it looks (at least for me). The design is very pretty and vibrant while also communicating everything you need to know clearly. The design also fits the theme and makes the game feel more alive than just crossing off numbers and putting down Tetris pieces.
Then what do I not like about Shu’s Tactics? The most obvious thing is that I only got to play the first chapter. So I have no knowledge about how good the overall campaign will be. Will the story unfold in an interesting direction? Will the other chapters be equally as fun? How different will the other chapters be? Basically there are a lot of unknowns which makes it impossible to judge the game as a whole. I really like the first chapter and having the chapter objectives and challenges even makes it pretty replayable. After a few games I still haven’t achieved all the challenges at once. But the full game should bring a lot more replayability and maybe interesting new mechanics and on that I simply cannot comment right now.
The conclusion here is that I like the game and the gameplay mechanics it brings. I’m also looking forward to the rest of the campaign and what that will add to the game.
Want to discover more great solo games? Read my dedicated solo board game article HERE.
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