Smash Up

Smash Up is game that I had no knowledge of until two weeks ago. I was looking for card games or deck building games that were not collectible. I wanted a card game that had everything needed to play it in one box as I’ve grown tired of Magic the Gathering.

As I was researching different games such as Dominion, Ascension, and Nightfall, I kept seeing Smash Up come up. Finally my curiosity got the best of me, and I took a look at what Smash Up had to offer.

Let me tell you right now, after one look I new I had found what I had been looking for. Smash Up has everything I wanted. A self contained card game, prebuilt decks, very simple mechanics, a number of themes that cover a lot of interests, and short lite game play.

Now that I’ve got a few games under my belt, I’m even more excited about this game and it’s future. So let’s break it down. Everything I like about the game and few things to take into consideration.

-The Components
– 176 total cards
– Rulebook
– Box with card holding insert

The cards are very nice and durable, which is important because they will be shuffled many, many times during game play. Also, all the artwork on each card is very nicely done with a playful style that fits the game perfectly.

The rulebook is one of the best written and laid out rulebooks that I’ve ever read. It’s very clear and makes it super easy to learn how to play this game very quickly.

The box and the insert are very nicely done. AEG has done a wonderful job by giving enough space for each slot to hold a SLEEVED faction. This is very impressive to me as I’ve seen other games not take sleeves into consideration when making their boxes ( I’m looking at you Sentinels of the Multiverse ).

-The 8 factions

This is obviously the meat of the game. The 8 factions account for 160 of the cards, and they don’t disappoint. The variety of factions is fascinating. You have Aliens, Dinosaurs, Ninjas, Pirates, Robots, Tricksters, Wizards, and Zombies. Almost any gamer will be able to find a faction that they can immediately identify with no matter their age. Each faction has 10 minions and 10 actions, except for the Robots. They have 18 minions and 2 actions.

The factions all play differently and give you 28 possible deck combinations. In short, Aliens bounce stuff, Dinosaurs are powerful, Ninjas are sneaky, Pirates move from base to base, Robots flood the table, Tricksters play tricks, Wizards use a ton of actions, and Zombies keep coming back. With all the combinations you’ll have a unique playing experience each game.

-The 16 bases

The bases are how you earn your victory points to win the game. Just as the factions, you get a decent variety of bases that are themed to match the factions. You actually have 2 bases per faction so to speak, and each base, except for one, has it’s own unique ability that is in play as long as the base is in play. So not only will you find awesome combos between 2 factions, but you will find awesome combos involving the base abilities as well.

-The game play

The basic concept of the game, called Shufflebuilding, is just shuffling 2 factions together to make a 40 card deck. This is both simple and complex at the same time. This game has quite a bit more depth to it than I initially thought. Any one can sit down with Smash Up and shufflebuild, but gamers that want depth will find it in the combinations of factions and how each faction works with each other faction. Not to mention finding combos that factions have with the different base abilities. And if the base game gets a little stale, you can add another set of base game factions in. This gives players different match up options because with 2 sets of factions, 2 players could both use Ninjas as one of their factions and so on and so on.

Now the game isn’t just about shufflebuilding, you have to play your minions on a base, and when the base reaches it’s breaking point any player who has minions at that base has a chance to gain victory points. Depending on the number of players in any given game, a base could possibly award up to three players points when it breaks. If a base happens to have minions from 4 players, that means someone isn’t going to earn any points. The first player to earn 15 victory points wins the game.

In my experience games will only last 30 to 45 minutes once each player understands how to play the game. Some games could be shorter or longer depending on the number of players which can be 2, 3, or 4 players.

-Replay value

This game has tons of replay value. With the 28 shufflebuilding combinations, this game should see quite a bit of play at your table. And as stated above, you can always add a second set of base game factions to add even more match up options for your players.

-Who will like this game?

This game hits a wide variety of players and game groups. It would be a hit for Family gaming, gaming with friends, any avid gamer, and even casual gamers. This is the type of game you could take to your local game store and get a game going with any one very quickly.

-Some things to consider

While this game is a huge hit for me, it might not be for every one. Sometimes the game takes on a role of “attack the leader”, and that can upset some people. Other times a player may fall very far behind in points and become disinterested with the game in progress. If your gaming group has players that fall into these categories proceed with caution. Otherwise, I’d recommend that every gamer give this game a try. It’s a solid 9 out of 10 for me.

P.S. Be on the look out for Smash Up Awesome Level 9000. The first expansion for Smash Up due out in April that will offer 4 new factions that should really add some exciting new game play.

…Yep, I’m serious.

Smash-Up is a very interesting game that has been published by Alderac Entertainment. The theme is factions, and there are 8 to choose from with the game, with plenty of room for expansions later on. Each faction consists of 20 cards, and two factions are combined together to make a single playable deck, which can then be used to play against your opponents. A faction consists of minion cards and action cards; Minion cards have a power ranking from 1 to 7; 1 is the least powerful, while 7 is the most and is the domain of King Rex, the most powerful minion in the game. Action cards are just that; you can play one action card per turn (as well as one minion card per turn), and that action can do anything from allowing someone to play extra minions, to clearing an entire location of minions, depending on the faction that uses the action.

The object of the game is to control locations. At any time in the game there will be four locations available to control. Each location has a break point; a score total that will tell when the location can be collected for victory points. When the break point is reached (by placing minions on the location until the break point value is met or exceeded), scoring begins, and victory points are awarded based on who had the most points in minions placed on the location, who had the second-most, and who had the third-most. The person who has the first-place spot won’t necessarily get the most victory points, however; some locations have better rewards for coming in second place in the rankings. The locations will also sometimes have effects that come into play while a location is in play or when a location is scored, and these effects can have an effect on who ultimately was rewarded the most by that location. Once a certain number of victory points are reached, the game is over, and whoever has the most, wins.

The decks, however, are where the real fun of this game lies. When I first played this game, it struck me to how similar the formation of decks is with another collectible card game – Magic: The Gathering. Don’t get me wrong; Smash-Up isn’t nearly as complicated, and they actually managed to recapture the feel somewhat without oversimplifying it. Let me explain.

Each faction in Smash-Up does something, and does it particularly well.

Pirates can move from location to location, changing the amounts of minion points associated with that location and possibly stealing a first-place ranking out from under another player’s feet.

Robots can send other minions out via actions or minion effects, superceding the rule that only one minion can be played a turn; they’re very fast.

Tricksters are representative of fey folk; they excel in locking down a location and doing things to mess up other player’s plans.

Dinosaurs have very few additional effects, but they make up for it in sheer power, and can quickly bring a location to its break point, usually scoring at a significant level.

Aliens can bounce minions back to their owners hand (note, this can be done with the Alien minions as well), and can gain victory points through use of the Invader card.

Wizards excel at card draw, and can utilize actions that will give the player the ability to play more actions, meaning that they can often use cards one after the other.

Zombies can utilize cards from the discard pile, ensuring that zombie cards are never truly gone; they’re just misplaced for the time being.

Ninjas are sneaky, and can both kill minion cards, as well as substitute or sneak in minions to change the end result of a scoring round.

When two of these factions are united to make a 40 card deck, these abilities will combine. Zombie Pirates can place minions in the discard pile to a location on the card when there are no minions in hand, then move them to another location to force that location to score. Robot Tricksters can place multiple minions on a location, then play action cards to make sure that it will be more difficult for other players to put their own minions on that location. Alien Wizards can go on a rampage, using multiple actions to return other minions to their owners hands, then lay down an Invader to gain one Victory Point, then return that same Invader to their own hand to play again later on.

To get back to my original point. This game is like M:TG in that it combines two different ‘civilizations’ in order to produce a deck that works. Combining the decks gives things a flavor that makes for interesting synergy. Where this game trumps M:TG is that sometimes in M:TG, you can have problems playing cards because you don’t have the mana to use everything, and sometimes you simply don’t have enough power. In Smash-Up, you can play a card without paying a cost, and all the factions are designed to work together with ease. Every faction is worded so that any card that has affects a minion will affect any faction’s minion; negative effects are specified as opponent’s minions, which keeps things clear.

The game is simple to learn and easy to play, which is good. The game also runs fairly quickly once learned, which means that you can get in a couple of games for rematches with other players. Keeping the individual factions to 20 cards is good to make sure that you will eventually use cards from both factions in the course of the game, but I think utilizing 25 or 30 cards decks might have been better for longevity. Having 8 factions means you can either try something new for a game (there are a lot of combinations to exhaust), or you can stick with a tried and true favorite.

Personally, I find the fun of this game lies not in trying to find combinations that win you the game, but in finding logical impossibilities or combinations that just seem silly. Zombie Robots make me laugh, simply from the definition. Doesn’t something have to die before it comes back as a zombie? How can robots die? If they cease to function, can’t they simply be repaired? Note that you could have Robot Zombies, though…just need to catch a zombie and make em a cyborg zombie. So that only works one way. Wizard Dinosaurs is another interesting concept. Where can a Dinosaur find a pointy wizard’s hat that large? And how can a T-rex hold a spellbook with those tiny little hands? My advice when playing this game is to be as silly as possible and try to enjoy the game for what it is; a mashup of cliches that works out to be a pretty entertaining game.

Smash Up is perhaps one of the most misunderstood board games I have had the opportunity to play lately. I picked it up about a month ago based off a recommendation in /r/boardgames, it was pointed out to me that Smash Up is by the same designer as Guillotine which has become our go to filler for quite some time. Even after doing some research and discovering they had little to nothing in common, I was sold by the artwork/theme and stopped by my flgs to grab a copy of Smash Up the next day.

To read the full review complete with a photo assisted play through, go to http://toddsboardgames.blogspot.ca/2014/04/smash-up.html

Objective:

Your objective is to mass 15 Victory Points primarily from destroying locations but some factions have other options to gain points.

Destroying Locations?

During the game you will place Minions at locations in order to try and have majority control when the location “breaks”. Each location has a break value in the top left corner, once the combined power of every players’ minions reaches the break point, the location awards victory points based on majority control, the player with the most power gets the value on the left, the 2nd highest power total gets the value in the middle and so on.

How to play:

On your turn you will play 1 action and 1 minion in any order, provided that you do not get bonus actions or minions from those cards, you will then draw 2 cards and your turn is over.

Similarly to Guillotine all the important text is on the cards, that means when you first crack it open there is some reading but eventually the pace will pick up, although the same draw your cards at the end of the turn mechanic is present to help offset the text heavy cards.

My Thoughts:

I really like the theory behind Smash Up, bang two premade faction decks together to get some wacky combo and battle to the death for random locations. The artwork on the cards is fantastic, and I really like some of the faction choices although I feel like others are a bit too generic in the base game.

I do not like how unbalanced some of the combos are, Robots win almost every time unless the other person has a good combo to counter them (ninja gnome works great for this) you can offset this by giving Robots to the new player or by not choosing them or even by selecting factions 1 at a time.

I do not like how in a 4 player game there are no factions left over, base games usually support more than what is required to play in games like this and give you some options even at max players. Having at least 1 expansion feels mandatory but I am unsure as of now if the game is good enough to justify buying an expansion.

I also do not enjoy Smash Up because of the extreme variance in playtime. I like being able to judge how long a game is going to last, sometimes we finish a game of Smash Up in 10 minutes and think we have time to play another only for it to go past 45 minutes. This is because there is no rule to end the game if someone else happens other than hitting 15 points, if your deck runs out you simply reshuffle it so you can end up in a stalemate easily especially when all the factions are in play.

That all being said there are things I enjoy about Smash Up, the game is quite fun once everyone playing has had a chance to play 3 or 4 times and knows what to expect from some factions so they don’t have to spend every turn reading text. I do like how Smash Up implements the draw at the end of your turn that way on your turn you aren’t having to read new cards that you draw and can try to come up with a bit of a strategy. But usually by the time its your turn again what you wanted to do before isn’t an option anymore, Smash Up changes often and it is actually pretty easy to catch up and pull a win from behind unless someone is playing robots or another overpowered combination. I like how intense Smash Up feels like all these random factions are just throwing down yet it still maintains some comical theme although I think lots of that is lost in the gameplay especially when you are first being introduced. Like most games Smash Up is a ton more enjoyable if you call things by the right names, don’t just say you are going for this location or that, send your Grave Digger to the Tar Pits to dig up your Supreme Alien Overlord.

Overall I think Smash Up is a misunderstood game, people expect it to be fun, light and easy based on the artwork and theme and then don’t have any fun as they get lost in all the text. It actually doesn’t take long to get the hang of the game and you will know cards by name before long and the terminology all makes sense. Actually in my opinion the learning curve is not as stepe as a lot of people claim simply because each card tells you exactly what it does on it, there aren’t keywords to learn and remember or anything to memorize really. At the same time that does slow things down, so I would say Smash Up takes time to learn and get into but is worth the commitment as long as everyone understands what they are getting into.

How does it scale?

Two Players: I like two player Smash Up, 3 locations feels like the right number to be fighting over, you can plan a few turns ahead, it feels more strategic and is a pretty fun game to play if you want to duke it out with a friend using some funny factions. The game length varies the most in a 2 player game but similar to Guillotine there is a really fun game hidden in the two player game that is heavier in strategy than at first glance.

Three Players: Hands down my favourite way to play, 4 locations is manageable and you can still plan a turn ahead. Our three player games also seem to last roughly the same amount of time each game, the focus seems to be on scoring points rather than prohibiting other players which means that game keeps progressing towards an end. There is just the right balance of tactics, strategy and luck in a 3 player game.

Four Players: This is where the theme fits best, **** is chaotic and things could change in any direction at any given time. People seem to focus on screwing each other over a lot more which means unless someone is sneaking points in the game will drag. I do like how quickly turns move around the table in a 4 player game and I also like seeing more than 1 base score at a time but that can happen just as easily in a 3 player game. I did not like 4 player Smash Up because the turn order seems to have a lot to do with who wins, there are a few things you can do to offset this but only if you have factions that combo well together, which in a 4 player game where they don’t include any extra options and they aren’t all balanced together, this is unlikely to happen.

Who should buy Smash Up?

Casual Gamers: I would only buy Smash Up if your game pool to choose from is small, there is a lot of replay value in Smash Up and you will need to play more than the average game to really get into it. The learning curve is slower than most games I would recommend to a casual gamer, but the rules are not challenging and the theme should appeal to a wide variety of people. The playing time and setup / cleanup time are also very casual friendly and take almost no time.

Gamer Gamers: I think there are a lot of things appealing about Smash Up although I think it may be a little too random for the typical serious gamer. It can also be frustrating to be unable to get your plan / strategy rolling and that happens quite a bit in Smash Up. Keeping that in mind there is a ton of room for backstabbing and elaborate combos / turns, avid gamers will have a much easier time learning how to play and should be able to pick it up after 1 play and Smash Up is a good game to have around if your friends want to start moving into harder games.

Overview
Smash Up is a card game for 2-4 players taking around an hour to play.
It is released by AEG in 2012 and is still in print.
Also covering the expansions a bit in this as well.

Components
-Nice Sturdy Box with lots of space in it for the factions (won’t support card sleeves)
-Faction decks (20 cards each)
-Counters
-Location Cards
-Artwork is fantastic and fits the theme they are going for.

These are all really nice. I do recommend getting the Big Geeky Box once that is released as the base set box just lacks the rooms for all the factions that have been released with the Expansions. Plus the Big Geeky Box comes with factions as well and will support card sleeves in it.

Gameplay

Players are competing to be the first to 15 Victory Points. They do so by competing over various ‘bases’ that are out to capture, and they capture those by playing minions onto them. Each minion has a power rating, and when the added power of all minions on a base beats its’ ‘breakpoint’ they well..break, and points are awarded to 1st/2nd/3rd place.

Each turn, a player gets to play 1 minion and 1 action from their hand. Each card has an ability, and it’s good management of these abilities that can lead a player to victory.

Its a very easy game to explain to people and the interesting stuff comes in the form of the combos you can play with your cards.

Pros
-Good Quality Components
-Plays in about an hour, so can use it as a filler game or main game of the session by playing a few times over.
-Some Interesting Combos.
-Base Set was designed with expansions in mind, so has room to store them pretty decently.

Cons
-With the player limit of 4, makes it hard to get out with larger groups when you got the 5-6 people showing up.
-Some people just take forever making up their minds on what to play either too many options or they are not reading the text. So pays to keep on reminding people to read the text on their cards
when its not their turn.
-Some people refuse to take and try other factions at all, so some house ruling can help this out.

Conclusion/Thoughts
Smash Up is a great game to play. I wish I got more chances to play it, but I normally sit out since on average I get five people showing up to my weekly open game night I host at my place. It changes when a bit with some of my other groups, but those are dedicated to RPGs and Wargames. Sometimes they like to shake things up and try something else for a session or two.

I recommend this game for pretty much anyone. A hardcore gamer will have fun trying to figure out the optimal combinations and a casual gamer will just have fun with the ridiculous premise of the game.

“Who’d win? A T-Rex or a ninja?” If you’ve ever had silly conversations like this as a child — or an adult — Smash Up might be the game for you. A very simple concept which allows for thousands of variations on play, Smash Up is a “shufflebuilding” game for 2-4 players.

Setup is as simple as it comes: the game has eight factions mostly representing some of geekdom’s “beloved” groups: Aliens, Dinosaurs, Ninjas, Pirates, Robots, Tricksters, Wizards, and Zombies. Each has a schtick which they are better at in the game; for example, Zombies specialize in recursion (coming back from the dead) while Pirates specialize in movement (sailing the Seven Seas). Each faction’s deck has 20 cards, usually 10 Minions and 10 Actions. (Robots break this rule of thumb with 18 Minions and 2 Actions, but many of their Minions have coming-into-play effects that work like Actions.)

At the start of the game, each player drafts a chosen faction, then reverses the draft order to select a second faction: first to select is also last to select, and so forth. Players shuffle the two decks together to make a deck of 40 cards, and can begin play. Thus “Smash Up”: every time you play the game, you will have two different factions “smashed” together to hopefully make something both effective and fun.

The goal of the game is for players to “smash” Base cards by piling Minions on with a total strength greater than the Base’s breakpoint. Based on who had the most strength in Minions there at the end, there are Victory Point rewards for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. Once a player reaches 15 Victory Points or more, the game is over. Each player’s turn consists of playing a Minion card and/or an Action card, resolving their effects, checking for base breaking, then drawing two cards and passing to the next player. Some combinations of card effects can allow for cascading base breakage, and a very few effects allow for surprise moves on other players’ turns. The Base cards each have effects of their own, some that apply while Minions are played there, some that give effects to the winner, etc.

Strategy in the game involves having an idea of your opponents are capable of, correctly reading board position, and convincing opponents to gang up on each other instead of you. The trappings of the game allow for a great deal of fun, and it is both simple to learn and complex in its interactions. I personally have successfully taught the game to both drunken adults and easily distractable children (not at the same time), and everyone has had a grand time playing it. There’s nothing in the game that has overly frightening or violent content — the art is well done and unobjectionable, and game play is abstract enough that even “destroying” Minions isn’t a personal thing.

The game does have its limitations — without more surprise moves possible, the game is more about preventing yourself from setting up your opponents for victory. The eight factions allow for 28 deck combinations, and it is clear that certain factions are more powerful than others within the base set. Wizards’ card draw, Tricksters’ discard tech, and Zombies’ recursion are very strong. To prevent players from always gravitating towards the same factions, it may be preferable to occasionally doing random allocation instead of draft.

Still, games run fairly quickly, and this is a great beer-and-pretzels uproarious good time, or a Childhood Revisited fun night with the family. Smash Up is fun in a distilled form, a competitive, no-holds-barred free-for-all that never takes itself too seriously.

NOTE: Although two expansions to the game have been released as of the time of this review, the review is written to only account for the base game. I will review the expansions separately and discuss them both as standalone sets and in the context of the base game.

Pros:
Very easy to learn and set up
Good for different audiences, including children
Relatively short games (30-45 minutes)
Decent amount of game variance
Entertainment value of factions, art, and text

Cons:
Very little surprise factor possible (two factions out of eight: Pirates and Ninjas)
Faction schtick imbalance

Smash Up is freaking fantastic. There, that’s it, that’s my review. Okay, but no, really, I was reserved about it at first and was very pleasantly surprised. Smash Up is a game built around combing any two of different 20-card faction decks to try and take over bases and score the most victory points. What lies beyond its simple rules and presentation is a whole lot of strategy and variety that has kept me up into the wee hours of the morning.

Set up is easy. Depending on the number of players, place Base cards down. Each Base card has a number in the top left that indicates at what point value it will ‘break’ and then be scored for victory points. Each base also has a unique ability that will affect what a player can do at that base and in some cases how points will be scored.

Each player gets two faction decks consisting of Minion and Action cards (the base game comes with eight factions) and shuffles them together. Minions are played on Bases and have the Power value which is what is used to break a Base. For example, a Base card with a breakpoint value of 12 will need Minion cards on it with a combined Power value of at least 12 in order to break the base and then score it. Most Minions will also have another ability, and, like Action cards, these are pretty self-explanatory. Some abilities are used once, when a Minion or Action is played, or are ongoing and apply whenever the appropriate conditions are met.

Now, a little more explanation on scoring a Base. Besides a breakpoint value, each Base has three victory point values. When a Base is scored, the player whose Minions have the highest combined Power value win first place on that Base and get the corresponding amount of points. Second and third place get points according to their respective place as well. The Base is then discarded and replaced with a new card from the Base deck. The first player to get to 15 victory points wins the game.

Now, the best part about Smash Up is trying out different combinations of factions. How will the Wizards work with the Dinosaurs? What about combining Zombies with Robots? Each faction has a distinct personality to it and way of being played and, well, smashing them together to see what happens is fun as ****. While you do end up getting certain favourites and some combinations could end up a bit overpowered, there’s always an incentive to try a different pairing of decks. Ninjas in particular are hard to use and I want to play more to see if I can get the hang of them.

While being chaotic is certainly part of its charm, it can be off-putting to some folks though. Although it’s a simple set-up, with more than two players there can start to be a lot to keep track of in terms of where your Minions are, what ongoing abilities might be in play, and how many points all these Bases have left before breaking. Half the game is spent just calculating points.

As well, 15 victory points just makes the game end way too fast and doesn’t let folks get a good feel for how their combined factions function together. My group’s had to institute a house rule of 25 points to make a session of Smash Up truly satisfying.

Those are relatively small flaws though, and the biggest factor going against the game is its….meme-yness. Luckily it’s mainly contained to its marketing and rulebook, and the gameplay goes above and beyond it making it easy to forget about, but man this is 2014. It’s important to think about how your game’s humor, especially in the age of the internet with memes coming and going in mere days, will become quickly outdated and embarrassing.

But anyway, Smash Up is a contender for one of my favourite card games. The eight factions contained in the base set is more than plenty to experiment with for a while, but I highly recommend looking into the two expansions, Awesome Level 9000 and The Obligatory Cthulhu Expansion, which offer eight more factions and victory point tokens to help keep track of things.

With its quick gameplay and easy to learn system Smash Up is a fun game for any group. The concept is fairly straight forward, choose 2 out of the 8 starter factions in the starter box to be your deck. Reveal a certain amount of base cards depending on how many players you have. Then everyone plays cards on the revealed bases in an attempt to break the base and score points. The first player to 15 points wins.

The big draw about the game is the faction combinations. With the base sets 8, and each additonal expansions 4 you can have a grand total of 20 factions. With all of these possible factions the combinations become nearly endless. Even if you stick with the base game deck combinations often make for interesting and sometimes comical interactions(See Wizard Dinosaurs). However some of these combinations seem to be completely unbalanced(See Robot Zombies).

For all of its upsides Smash Up is not without its share of problems. Its a card based game that comes in a boardgame box and although there are some slots for the faction decks the holders do not really do a great job of keeping the decks from getting shuffled around. If you have the 3 expansions you will not be able to fit the 12 additional expansion factions in the base game box and will be left carrying around the additional boxes. In addition to this minor inconvenience is the seemingly loose phrasing used with some of the rules. This game was not really built for the power gamer type and without some simple house rules can become a bit silly.

Overall this game is a great grab if you are looking for a casual game.

Pros-
-Easy to learn
-Nice art
-Lots of combinations and replay value

Cons-
-Packaging could have been better
-Not for the power gamer
-Some unbalanced faction combos
-May need some house rules to navigate some of the ambiguous wording.

Overview
Smash Up is a card game for 2-4 players in which each player attempts to take over the world. This is done by taking two of the eight available faction decks and shuffling them together. Each faction is radically different from the others, so the resulting deck is a thematic “smash up” that serves as the game’s hook. Players then use these decks to try to capture locations, each of which is worth a different number of victory points. The first player to 15 VP wins.

Setup
The rule book is very straight forward and pretty short, so it shouldn’t take much time to get through. It even makes some attempts at humor. Whether those are successful attempts or not will vary from person to person, though. From there, it’s just a matter of taking each faction’s deck out of the plastic wrap, choosing two factions, and shuffling things up (each player’s deck and the deck of locations).

I’ve played two different variations for faction selection. In both, we rolled a die, and the winner chose first, followed by each other player in descending order of die roll. In one system, the faction decks were faceup and the player actively chose two factions that would play together well, and in the other they were all facedown, so it was more random since no one knew what was in the stacks they were choosing. Your mileage may vary, but I found both to be about equal. The first can lead to the final player being stuck with two factions that go together horribly, while the second can put anyone in that position.

Gameplay
Gameplay in Smash Up is very simple. Each turn, a player may play up to one minion card from their hand on a location (or “Base” as the game calls them) and up to one action. Neither playing a minion or action is mandatory. The only way to play more than one of either is for an action or minion ability to tell you to do so. For instance, Wizards are often able to play additional actions on a turn and Robots frequently let you play more than one Robot minion per turn.

Once any minions and actions have been played, each base is “checked for scoring.” To do this, the number in the top left corner of all minions at a base (not just your own) are added up. If that number exceeds the base’s “Breakpoint” (i.e. the number in the top left corner of the base card), you begin to score the base. Whoever has the most minion power at a base gets the number of victory points on the left, the person in second gets the middle amount, and the person with the least gets the far right. These generally start with the highest amount on the left and descend to the right, though some give more points to the third place player than second place. All of this becomes important when planning where to play your minions and if to use any abilities that trigger when scoring begins, such as being able to sneak in additional minions or move an opponent’s minion to a different base.

Finally, after any bases have been scored, the player draws two cards and ends the turn. Play continues like this until a player accumulates 15 victory points and wins.

Learning Curve
There is very, very little learning curve involved with this game. It really is as simple as it sounds, and it’s a great game to play with non-gaming friends or as a family with relatively young children (most kids should be able to handle the rules by age 8 or 10). It also makes it a less daunting task to teach the game to others.

Components
The cards are a good thickness and the coating is nice and glossy without feeling slick. The art is also quite good and really gives each faction a unique identity. The fact that each faction also has a unique card frame that matches the thematic feel of the faction also helps this aspect. One of the best aspects of the game components is the inclusion of a tray that holds each deck and has slots ready to go for the factions in the expansions. Everything can be kept in one box without having to resort to any sort of alternative storage or homebrew modifications to the packaging.

Overall Judgment/TL;DR Takeaway
I really wanted to love Smash Up, but instead I just like it. It’s certainly a great premise, and in theory it’s fantastic, but problems come in with the actual “smashing up” of the factions. Some factions, like the Ninjas, work very well with most other factions, as they can sneak additional units into play and other stealthy actions. Others, like the Robots, are more concerned with their own faction than anyone else. Like the Ninjas, you can sneak additional units into play and even pump your units, but they generally have to be other Robots. While these two factions work well together, it’s mainly because Ninjas work so well with other factions that it makes up for Robots’ lack of interactivity. Now, if you paired Robots with Dinosaurs, you’d have lots of brute force, but brute force only gets you so far in this game, so you’d probably find yourself falling behind. Then there are factions like the Tricksters that don’t work particularly well or poorly with other factions, but are so reactive, requiring other players to have done certain things, that you can end up with dead cards in your hand for turns at a time, which isn’t fun.

Sometimes the game works beautifully, and when it does, it’s a lot of fun. Unfortunately, sometimes the main theme behind the game (smashing together two different factions) holds the game back if the factions don’t really seem to care about the other faction. For all the talk of combo effects, there are some combinations that just don’t work like that. Sometimes you get two great tastes that taste great together, but other times you’ll get factions that go together about as well as chocolate pudding and tuna salad. Even the most fun-loving, laid back person would have a hard time making that enjoyable. If you’re willing to accept the risk of a frustrating mess in a generally enjoyable game, there are good times to be had with Smash Up. If you’re not sure, though, I’d recommend playing it a few times before settling on a purchase.

Alien Ninja versus Dinosaur Tricksters versus Pirate Wizards versus Robot Zombies or Alien Dinosaurs versus Ninja Pirates versus Robot Wizards versus Trickster Zombies or Alien Wizards versus Zombie Tricksters versus Robot Pirates versus Dinosaur Ninjas or… Take an Internet meme like Pirates versus Ninja versus Robots versus Monkeys and whisk into a stiff froth and what you have is Smash Up: The Shufflebuilding Game of Total Awesomeness!, a card game published by Alderac Entertainment Group. Best known for its Legend of the Five Rings CCG and Legend of the Five Rings RPG, Alderac Entertainment Group has within the last three years expanded rapidly into the design and publication of board and card games. Smash Up, which was the 2013 UK Games Expo Awards Best General Card Game Winner, is a light card game, designed for play by two to four players, aged twelve and up, in which different factions team up and battle for control of the world!

Smash Up consists of eight factions – Aliens, Dinosaurs, Ninjas, Pirates, Robots, Tricksters, Wizards, and Zombies, each represented by a twenty-card deck. A ninth deck, containing sixteen cards, consists of the Bases, such as the ‘Temple of Goju’ or ‘Evans City Cemetery’, which the factions will battle over. To win, each player must take control of a pairing of two of these factions, usually randomly determined, which might be Robot Tricksters or Pirate Zombies, and use it to take control of these Bases. Score enough points from these Bases – fifteen Victory Points is enough – and a player will win.

Each faction consists of Action and Minion cards, the latter valued between one and seven Power, but at the heart of the game are the special abilities particular to each faction. Aliens zap the minions of rival players back into their hands; Dinosaurs, many with lasers for eyes, get to stomp on Bases with their big Power and scare other factions when it is not their turn; Ninjas sneak onto Bases just at the right time when you least expect it; and Pirates can set sail easily from one Base to another. Robots bring out lots of tiny little microbots that quickly stack and power each other up; Tricksters – fae such as gnomes, gremlins, and leprechauns play seemingly random ruses that protect their Minions or have consequences on attacking players; Wizards cast spells that let them play extra Action cards; and Zombies never die, but end up in the player’s discard pile to swarm back out again. Playing one faction might be easy enough, but mastering Smash Up means getting to grips with how one faction interacts with another, because the abilities of one faction will usually affect the other faction in a pairing.

The game starts with each player taking two faction decks and shuffling these together. This is the ‘shufflebuilding’ of the game’s title and it is how a player forms his deck for the game. Then a number of Bases are laid out, equal to the number of players plus one. Each Base has a Breakpoint, ranging from sixteen to twenty-five. When the total value of Minions on the Base played by everyone equals or succeeds this Breakpoint, the Base is smashed and Victory Points are scored. Each Base awards points to the player with the highest total value in Minions on the Base, and then to the players with the second and third highest totals. As soon as a Base is scored in this fashion, a new one is added to fight over. Each Base has a special ability of its own. For example, ‘The Central Brain’ grants everyone Minion a +1 bonus to its Power when played on the Base, whilst the ‘Rhodes Plaza Mall’ awards one Victory Point to each player for every Minion he has on the Base when it scores.

Each turn a player can play two cards – an Action card and a Minion card, though he does not have to play either. Played onto a Base, a Minion has a set of instructions that trigger as soon as it is played. Usually this means getting to add another Minion to a Base or sending a rival Minion away, but the exact effect varies from one faction to another, and this essentially is Smash Up. Play is very simple, but things get somewhat complex when it comes to working out how the cards interact with each other and how they continue to affect the game from turn to another. This requires keeping track of the text on the card, and that can slow game play down, as can having to add up the total value of the Minions on a Base at the end of almost every turn, though neither really impedes play. Indeed, the text on the cards actually adds a little tactical substance to the game.

Physically, Smash Up is an attractive game. The cards are very nicely illustrated and the rules are clear and simple. The language used in the rules is sometimes annoyingly, if not patronisingly, informal and should never got past the editor. The inclusion of a scoring track would have been a useful addition.

A recent trend in game design has been the ‘deck building’ game, a type of card game in which a player builds and manipulates his own deck of cards in order to create the optimum deck and so win the game. Alderac Entertainment Group has published several of these, including Nightfall and Thunderstone, but Smash Up cuts to the chase – one ‘shufflebuild’ of two twenty-card decks and a player is ready to go and finds himself playing a simple, but strongly themed beat ‘em up card game that adds a little complexity and a surprising tactical substance when working how the cards interact. Smash Up: The Shufflebuilding Game of Total Awesomeness! is light and fun, attractive and varied with innumerable combinations to try out and see who gets to Smash Up the world!

I love this game! As a geek for the better part of 20 years, I feel very qualified to offer an opinion as to the nature of this game. They actually found a way for geeks (and that term is meant as a compliment) to once and for all (until the next game) decide who will win between ninjas and space aliens, dinosaurs and pirates! ***MIND BLOWN***
You would think this would keep us from arguing about these things, but it really just fuels the flames.

Overall: Literally hours of fun, this game has a high replay factor. One could easily go quite some time without playing the same game again. Then to make it better, there are a bunch of expansions available! I love this aspect of the game. I can sit down and play a quick game, or I can spend hours planning the best combo of factions with which I shall destroy all who oppose me and RULE THE WORLD!!!! MWA-HA-HA-HA!!!!

…ehem

Materials: Like many new games today, the materials are high quality, meant to be transported from game night to game night. I have reviewed The Big Geeky Box under its own heading but that review applies here as well. Excellent construction down to the card separators. These people knew what they were doing when they built this game. Well done!

Game play: Easy to learn, easy to play. There is a lot of room for strategy here, but you can also “Draft” and play random factions against one another. This game is highly versatile and will entertain even the most game wary among your friends. If you are looking for a lighthearted intro to game night this should be a strong contender.

Conclusion:This is the game you are looking for. Find that Friendly Local Game Store and ask…no, plead for…NO! DEMAND they stock this one. It is worth the effort, I assure you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a global domination to plan…

Now then…pirates or laser dinosaurs….decisions decisions….