Cardboard Corner: Review of Neuroshima Hex

I have a strong partiality to expandable games.  Give me a base box with soild core principles to have some fun with friends.  Then, let's see how we can iterate on that with new content that enhances but does not expode the core principles.  Android: Netrunner, Battletech CCG, Arkham Horror and other such card games are favorites.  A hexagon-based board on which post-nuclear armies battle it out according to initiative, ok, let's see about Neuroshima Hex (2006)... 

The core principles of Neuroshima Hex are:

• A hex board comprised of smaller hexes
• Armies consisting of 30 hex-shaped tiles each and one HQ tile
• Each HQ has twenty hit points, and the goal is to reduce your opponent to zero
• Army units attack in melee and/or ranged based on initiative value

Everything else is dependent on army.

The basic structure of the game is that players first place their HQ on the board.  After, they take turns drawing three random tiles from their stack, discarding one and playing the other two.  When a battle tile is drawn, players stop play and resolve it.  Starting with army units of the highest initiative, all attacks are resolved simultaneously, removing destroyed units and dealing damage to the HQ as appropriate.  They then move to the next initiative, doing the same and repeating until all initiatives have been resolved.  Play then resumes with players taking turns drawing tiles and putting army units on the board, and ends when either an HQ has been redued to zero or players have no more tiles remaining with the healthiest HQ winning.  There is nuance, but that is the basic structure of the game.  

On top of units that attack in melee and ranged, each army also has a variety of module and instant tiles that can be used to modify the game state.  Move tiles allow players to move an army unit they've already placed to another space.  Bump tiles allow one army to push a tile one space away (provided there is an empty space).  Grenade tiles allow for the immediate destruction of an army unit.  And so on.  Module tiles in essence upgrade army units they attach to, giving bonuses like higher inititative, additional ranged attacks, shields, and so on.  The game has a level of depth beyond two sides lining up to blast away at one another. 

As hinted in the intro, the joy of Neuroshima Hex is the variety of armies.  The base box comes with four: Moloch, Borgo, Hegemony, and Outpost.   Outpost are the mid-grade army: good but not great at everything.  Moloch are a slow, defensive army who look to snipe from a distance.  Hegemony are the opposite; fast and light, their units move easily around the board but likewise die easily.  Borgo are the heavy hitters, but in melee form only. 

On top of the four armies available in the base box, Neuroshima Hex offers more than a dozen additional armies (sold separately).  Expanding on and playing within the game's world, each has its own signature playstyle that iterates on core principles in highly enjoyable fashion - the same as booster boxes do for Magic: The Gathering, Android: Netrunner, Flesh and Blood, etc.

I have one major qualm about Neuroshima Hex: determinism, specifically the relative - relative - lack thereof.  Not often but often enough the game can feel like you've been drawing the wrong tiles at the wrong time while your opponent has been drawing the right tiles at the right time - getting lucky.  So while there is a strong tactical feel to the game and meaningful decisions on every turn, there are likewise situations that resolve in one player's favor based on the luck of the draw.  Another way of looking at this is, a best-of-7 series would be a better decider of who the best Neuroshima Hex player is compared to a single game.

Another potential drawback, or at least something players need to be aware of, is that Neuroshima Hex is a two-player game despite that the box says three to four. The board too small for four, and three really highlighting how luck plays a role, two is the sweet spot. At two there is room to strategize, there is often time to get reinforcements in place, and the players can focus on the idiosyncrasies of two army types rather than three or four. Four feels like chaos and three files like one player drops out too early, leaving the other two to play the two-player game they should have started to begin with.

There are some drawbacks to Neuroshima Hex, but the game is up to its third edition, there are more than a dozen official expansions (i.e.armies) available, and the community has come up with a few dozen more (some of which have gone on to be officially published). It’s a popular game. Playing fast, the armies unique and colorful, and the types of decisions sparking chain reactions of delight and disappointment (depending how well you calculated), it’s a family fun game that gets the brain gears turning just enough to be satisfying but not enough to grind them. Chess-light—with mutants… an added orthogonal… and asymmetry.