Yesterday evening, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a demo copy of Salamandra, our new worker-placement game releasing on the 19th of August. I had an absolute blast, and I wanted to write up this quick "how to play" report based on my session to give you an inside look at how the mechanics work.
Here is how my evening as a spell-casting Druid went down:
A Race Against the Sun and Moon
Stepping into the role of a Druid trying to earn the most Veneration Points (VP), you have 4 rounds to achieve this goal: a Day, a Night, another Day, and a final Night.
Each of my apprentice token (=the workers) has a Sun (Day) face and a Moon (Night) face. To put an apprentice to work, they had to be "active", meaning their face-up symbol had to match the current phase shown on my Druid tile.
My Turn: Choosing Between 5 Actions
On each of my turns, you have to choose one of five actions. The options felt very tactical and kept the pace of the game moving quickly:
- Place an Apprentice: You take an available apprentice from your player mat and place them on a free spot on a Field tile to instantly snag a placement bonus and gather crystals.
- Build a Tile: You pay crystals and resources to place new Field tiles into play. This is done by using your supply of crystals and resources you collect by using apprentices placed on Billhook tiles in previous turns. If you manage to connect tiles of the same colour, you can claim powerful Bear or Eagle secondary divinity cards that give you ongoing abilities for the rest of the game and potential score VPs at the end of the game.
- Activate a Cauldron: By putting an active apprentice to work on a Cauldron tile (and also your chain of Billhook tiles to get the necessary ressources), you can brew potions needed for Salamander cards from the temple or earn VPs based on how many specific tiles your workers are placed on.
- Activate the Temple: You can flip an active apprentice and spend the necessary resources and potions to claim Yellow or Black Salamander cards from the central temple, earning valuable Faith points for the end scoring and also immediate gains (scrolls, victory points, crystals etc).
- Pass & Harvest Groves: You may pass once all available apprentices for the round have been placed. The neat trick here is that any remaining active apprentices scattered on the board can be flipped to generate a bonus crystal. These crystals (3 per tile) can be spend to harvest connected Grove tiles for immediate rewards and VP.
The Brilliant "Billhook" Engine
What really makes the game interesting and turns every turn into a puzzle, is the game's resource generation. You need primary resources like leaves, flowers, and fruits to pay for new tiles and cauldrons. These apprentices need to be placed in previous turn to generate these resources when needed. It felt incredibly satisfying to chain these resource-generation moves across the board!
Chasing the Spellbooks
Another important element of the game are the Scroll Tokens. As soon as you collect 4 scrolls, you discard them to permanently move one of your apprentices from the board onto a Spellbook card. These Spellbooks are crucial - they act as massive VP multipliers at the end of the game based on the tiles you controll or the cards you collect. The number of available Spellbook cards changes with the player count and they also change from game to game because they are randomly selected during setup.
End of the Game
The game concluds after the 4th round with a final scoring tally that combines your accumulated VPs, completed Spellbooks, unused scrolls, and additional points earned by having the majority with the Bear, Eagle, and Salamander divinities (based on the cards you have collected during the game).
Salamandra arrives on the 19th of August, and after last night's session, I cannot wait to get it back to the table. If you want to try it out yourself you can play it online for free on GamePark or at the next HandyCon!