Sometimes you sense the purpose of something, you grasp the motive behind the work in front of you. Normally you're presented with the final product and the best form of what something should be. On occasion the end result is so bright, so glittering that you end up slightly closing your eyes, almost squinting in order to see past the glitz and glamour to more stripped down version underneath. On occasion you wish the brightness had been toned down, that maybe that last fleck of gold had been left on the table and that last piece of glitter had been left in the bottle, as what you had was already good enough. You didn't need the ostrich feather to show everyone you had made something special.
Overview
There was a lasting peace between the Humans, Undead, Guardians and Orcs, that was shattered when someone decided they needed to make a kid friendly skirmish type board game. After a campaign of theft, apple stealing, stink bombs and threats of terrible Dad jokes, the four peaceful factions have vowed to not only wipe each other out, but try to maintain the highly lucrative construction industry that provides many of the jobs in Zaberias. It is your job as one of the heads of the factions to build, attack, defend and potentially let down the tyres of your rivals until you stand victorious over the land. (Some of this may not be true)
Mainplay
Zaberias lands at the table with a mixture of battle and building, where you'll be tasked of wiping out the units of the opposing teams. On your turn you'll be able to use coins to upgrade buildings that you have, starting from wood and working your way up to gold. Upgraded buildings give you the opportunities to field more powerful characters that you can take into battle with most of the characters having a special skill that can be used as you fight. You can team up if you are looking to increase your attack strength, or support units when they come under attack by providing extra power. It helps to open up a bigger variety of potential strategies as you play as opposed to constantly playing a one on one game between characters. You'll be laying siege to unprotected buildings to remove them from play, controlling square to give you more coin, or even using the teleport squares to zip around the board to help spread yourself across the land. Zaberias brings a lot of variable player powers to the table as you start to bring on the more expensive units and with such a diversity on offer it opens up the potential for replayability, though getting to grips with every character is definitely a steep learning curve.
Winning
Wipe everyone else out on the board including units and buildings and you'll win the game. With all of the various character designs, I was kind of surprised that there aren't other win modes available, though there is nothing to stop you from making something up if ultimate destruction isn't always your cup of tea.
Looks
Zarberias hits the table in a attack of rainbow primary colours, with the board, character art and the components are joyously cartoonish. Even though some of the characters are monstrous in appearance, it's more akin to the monsters you're going to see in a kids cartoon show than anything that is going to cause nightmares in younger players. The iconography is clear on the buildings and characters, and you're never really left second guessing. The reverse of the characters serve to remind you of the special powers each of them have, so you're only really a flip away if you do get stuck. The main difference from most of the games that you'll play, is that each of the factions in Zaberias is given their own individual pack where that faction's board acts as a lid that covers an active punchboard where the components are stored. As you use coins, buildings and characters you'll remove them from their recess in the board, or flip them if they are coins to show they have been spent. It's novel, unique and being honest, I found it was more a gimmick than something that improved the game itself. Yes, I played the first one or two rounds picking out coins and characters and buildings, but eventually I just took everything out and laid it next to the board. I have concerns that prolonged play might end up damaging the pieces if they are repeatedly removed and put back in and also how secure the dice are going to remain after the foam has had time to settle. I'm not entirely convinced the modular faction board works in terms of application or storage of the game in the long term.
Learning
Ah, I see you've decided to wave the huge red flag at this rampaging luddite bull reviewer. Maybe it's not Zaberias' fault that I'm fairly opposed to online rulebooks being used as a method to teach new games. Considering this is a game primarily aimed at the younger members of the tabletop squad, I'm really surprised of the missed opportunity to have some learning materials that a child could go through with their play partner and get something out of reading the rules together. Zaberias is asymmetrical in terms of the different player powers on offer here and so while the base rules are fairly simple to grasp, it's actually a lot more complicated that first impressions imply. You can view the rules online and there are videos that will explain the various factions and how they work. There are actually twenty-four videos that explain the factions and the downloadable rulebook has twenty nine pages, five of which explain the main gameplay and the rest give explanations of how each character works. That has the potential to lead to a lot of stopping and checking in the first couple of games and just like Root, you might be tempted to stick to the same faction for the first couple of games until you get the hang of all the nuances the different characters offer. A game like this is crying out for crib sheets for every faction, and even a reminder of the core mechanics would be welcome with some kind of quick start rulesheet.
Timing
Set up for Zaberias is never going to take too long due the to modular board system, and like most games aimed at kids timing isn't always going to be the decider on how long games will last. A slow relaxed game with three or four players might easily hit over the hour mark. Two player is going to be much shorter depending on how aggressively you decide to go after the other player. You'll need to set aside more time for your first couple of playthroughs especially of players are trying new character sets for the first time. So keep that in mind.
Final ThoughtsZaberias is like an over seasoned soup, where the main premise has been added to again and again to the point where the strength of the core game is diluted and unnecessarily over complicated. The game contains so many additional extras it comes to the detriment of a solid and entertaining experience. It is like someone has presented you with a most excellent meal but is insisting that your drink the soup through a garlic and chilli breadstick straw, and that you can only start eating the main course once the chef has danced around cascading flower petals over your steak and triple cooked chips, while reciting an appetite chant. There's a lot of things to like though. The upgrading of the buildings to allow more advance units reminds me of a cool tower defence game, and the ability to assist other units in battle to either attack or defend is fun and inspired. The overall production in terms of the art is bright and colourful and it's perfect for the market that is trying to be captured here. At the same time though, I wish they would have just went for dull and boring for some of the production choices. Zaberias could do with a box to keep the components and game board in, and yes, I'm banging the online rulebook drum again, but in an age where I play board games to keep my kids away from screens as much as possible, I want a paper copy rulebook to flick through especially since there seems to be quite a few differences between the factions when it comes to learning. Additions that would have helped to make the game easier to play have been sacrificed for the sake of modular boards that will be dumped after several plays. There's a good kid friendly game here, but the over production is rampant in an attempt to make it stand out that ultimately hurts what it could be.
Any Tips?
While it's tempting to dash off and explore in those first few turns, it actually makes sense to try to upgrade your main city as quickly as possible while spending some money on some smaller cheaper units to defend.
You can find out more about the game by visiting https://www.zaberias.com/
The majority of the games that we are play are going to take a reasonable number of sessions and playthroughs to fully understand every possibility that they offer. We hope this write up gives you an idea of whether or not this game is something that you will consider playing or even add to your collection. Our Six Degrees of Expectation have been written to make it easier for you to find out what is important to you as a player. Even if we don't like something, hopefully it helps you to decide if it is something that you should find out more about. We always suggest you check out a gameplay video to give you a better understanding of the game as it is played.
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