Lesezeit: 5 Minuten I briefly thought that Markus and King Raccon Games had taken over the blog with Tsukuyumi: Sunrise Kingdom. I checked my access several times a day with sweaty hands, but I’m still not locked out. Guys, I can give the all-clear! You can all breathe easy again. To be honest, I also enjoyed it a bit, because you know that I love Tsukuyumi, at least since my Top 10 Area Control games or my review. However, new factions only appealed to me on a tertiary level, because such big board games don’t come onto the table that often and a big plus in additional modules and factions isn’t exactly conducive to that.

Nevertheless, I always had one foot in the shopping basket and the reason was the passionate presentations by author Felix Mertikat at press events, when he raved about the new factions in his very own positive way. Then Markus came around the corner with his special. Then came all his buddies. And the phone calls in between. Guys, I was beaten and so I spent several Fridays in a row deliberately fighting with my Waterkant buddies for supremacy in Sunrise Kingdom. I don’t want to withhold my impression of the last few weeks and Markus‘ special and a final joint assessment from you.

Big, bigger, Sunrise Kingdom

 

Am I going to carry on with the long commercials that aren’t really commercials at all? It’s not my fault, but the evenings with the new factions were some of the best games this year. And that’s why I’d like to start by thanking Markus for bringing me to this expansion with his enthusiasm.

The factions in fast-forward

I’ll go into less detail about the factions now, that’s been done enough in the last few weeks, but I’d still like to paint an overall picture here. I have to, because the factions are just crazy cool and such creativity beats even Root or Cthulhu Wars! There were the Sisters of Seven, who cleverly negated faction effects in the area with their bear and still caused terror with their few units. Simply fly into an area and move enemy figures away. Well, you can even do that when you’re under attack. In other words, if you play the aggressor without a large superior force, you may find yourself without troops in battle. Everyone was so pissed off about these control effects! One of my new favorite factions. Then we have the Moon Circus, who simply start with what feels like 10,000 units, wherever they want, as long as they’re on the edge of the field. WTF. Pressure refueling from the first round. It makes you look stupid at best! Plus very special combat maps, perverse mobility and a visually awesome flash of color.

The turtles of The First Guardians are incredibly thematic. How peaceful they seem, how slowly they move, how they pose no threat at all, how they simply win in the end because they own everything with their burrowing ability. Just ignore enemy control markers. Sore point, their strongest units, once destroyed, can’t come back into play. Let’s move on to the Reef Collective aka Carcassonne meets Tsukuyumi. Guys, everything is different now. No units, no battle cards, just puzzle coral tiles and get on people’s nerves until their heads explode. There’s also digging in here and if you can’t ignore barriers, I warn you that your tear ducts will be inflamed. The Circle of the Sun fall a little short for me personally, although their mass of basically immortal troops, who have to enter dance formations on the hex fields, is also not something you’ve seen countless times before.

Extra bonus

I then also took a look at the additional expansion Chronomaster. Welcome to my next new favorite faction, although my fellow gamers will probably forbid me to play with the monkeys from the future again. Markus introduced them with enthusiasm and I can only agree. Absolute mobility, wild teleporting of enemy units, absolute control over the initiative of all factions and a modified game structure that lets you start with the feeling that you own half of the territories. You simply choose the phases of the game without having to stick to the predetermined order. It all sounds powerful, but you’re public enemy number one and can’t earn victory points via missions! You have to like that, but if you like it, you’re in love with them instantliy. So if you want to buy Sunrise Kingdom, add the Chronomaster straight away!

What should not be forgotten

Crazy faction concepts, which is exactly what Tsukuyumi: Sunrise Kingdom celebrates in the hardest way, certainly don’t always make for fair constellations, especially in the mass of factions. I spent a lot of the phone calls with Markus discussing and unraveling this very fact. I think I speak for both of us when I say that you have to live with it, but you can also live with it. A balance is established at the table by other players. If the Reef spreads too far because it was underestimated or the other factions have less good counters, they will work together. Sometimes an adjustment to the conventional way of playing is enough. The creativity with which the factions were created is also required of the players. If this is successful, it is not a question of balance, but a response. And the result is dynamism, because nothing else is celebrated here in every game.

The additional modules and alternative game modes, in which the moon disappears as the center and you play on small islands connected by portals, are certainly a nice bonus. Anyone who plays Tsukuyumi extremely often will appreciate them. In my opinion, however, you want this expansion because of the really great factions.

Conclusion

Markus has worked really hard with his special and rarely has a game received so much attention from us. But there is a reason for this. Tsukuyumi: Sunrise Kingdom is simply an excellent expansion whose factions not only enrich the basic game enormously with their creativity, but also almost pulverise the popular buzzword asymmetry in other board games. Over the last few weeks, we at the table have agreed more than ever that Sunrise Kingdom is really great cinema. Intense table talk through changing alliances, constant tension through close results and an enormous playful force through the new factions.

If you play often, you will also get variety through an alternative game structure and Amaterasu’s gifts, which can be used to gain permanent advantages, new troops or battle cards depending on the faction. With this expansion, Tsukuyumi confirms its status within the genre and remains more than ever an absolutely exceptional game for me.

Info: It’s not really my place to draw a sole conclusion here, so this review was written in consultation with Markus.