Matthew BaileyMuch like Tulikko yesterday, Asterix & Co. was a game that wasn’t really on my radar until it turned up on my doorstep a week or two ago. And just like Tulikko, this one turned out to be really good and absolutely worth your time. I’d seen it briefly at UK Games Expo but, not being massively fussed about the Asterix licence, I didn’t give it much of a chance. That was a big mistake because this is an excellent card game, especially at higher player counts.
Although this is a card game, the overall feel reminded me most of playing Seven Wonders: Architects. You start by placing albums (basically locations) between each player. These have gorgeous artwork from the Asterix books, with a Gaul side in blue and a Roman side in red. Each player has two locations to interact with: one on your left (Gaul side facing you) and one on your right (Roman side facing you). These are where you’ll play cards and where battles happen.
You start the game with five cards, which come in three types: Roman (playable on the Roman location), Gaul (playable on the Gaul location), and Neutral (playable anywhere). What’s clever is that the card backs reveal their alignment — red for Romans, blue for Gauls, and either for Neutral. This means you can often get a sneaky peek at what kind of cards other players are holding, which is a really neat twist I’ve not seen before. More than once I found myself deciding whether to abandon a losing location, because I could see my opponent’s hand was almost entirely useless there.
On your turn you can do one of three things:
- Play a character card to one of your locations.
- Use a bonus token and draw a character card.
- Reinforce your hand by discarding as many cards as you like and drawing back up to five.
It’s unusual in that you don’t automatically draw a card each turn, so sometimes you really do have to spend a turn just refreshing your hand. Bonus tokens can also let you do tricks like doubling an attack, knocking out a character, or reviving one, but these are limited and not something you can rely on.
Most characters have abilities when played — things like eliminating or stealing characters, or giving you points. The more powerful characters often have extra costs or requirements, which balances them out nicely. Cards also have types that tie into certain abilities or location requirements. Hero cards are limited to one of each type in play, and winning a location sometimes gives you Centurion or Legionnaire tokens that add bonus points.
Battles at locations are essentially a race to 15 strength. If you hit 15, you win that location, clear away the knocked-out cards, and claim any extra tokens attached. Each location is worth 15 points, and the first player to reach 50 points wins — which usually means winning three locations, plus a bit of help from tokens.
The components are solid: the cards you play with are good-quality textured cardstock, and the cardboard tokens have a nice finish. The only oddity is that the larger album cards are printed on a shinier, cheaper-feeling stock, but this is really minor. The box itself is a nice compact size (a bit smaller than a Carcassonne box) and comes with a simple but effective insert to keep everything tidy.
I went into Asterix & Co. with zero expectations and came away really impressed. Since my first plays for review I’ve brought it back to the table with both adults and kids, and even dragged my wife into a few games — she enjoyed it just as much. Her family have links to France, where Asterix is a much bigger deal, and they’re already keen to play it next time we meet up.
The game has some clever, fairly unique mechanics — especially the way you can tell the type of cards in other players’ hands — and it brings in just enough “take that” to stay interactive without being mean. It’s also flexible for family play: you can even seat younger kids in a way that avoids them being directly attacked as often, a trick I’ve suggested before with Seven Wonders: Architects.
This is the second game in a row that’s come completely out of nowhere and shot straight into my summer favourites list. If you’re after a family-friendly card game with great interactivity, Asterix & Co. is an absolute must-buy.
It’s literally just hit retail, so online shops are starting to stock it now, and your friendly local game store should have it in very soon.
Disclaimer: Asterix & Co. was kindly provided by “Hachette Games” for review. Flavien Loisier is the General Manager of Hachette and is an active member of our community. Our thoughts and opinions are, however, our own.
