Review: War for Edadh: The Beginning

Edadh is roughly disc-shaped and conical. Many people have now sailed to the edge of the world to see for themselves the Infinite Waterfalls: the places where the waters of the seas fall away forever. The legend of Mabaeth tells us how it took her 225 days by foot to travel Edadh’s diameter. She began from the frozen, blizzard stricken realms of the north and then traveled across tundra, through evergreen forests into the deciduous forests and dry plains of the central lands, to grassland hills and through savannah, to finally come upon the southern most point of the world and peer over the rim from within a jungle: wild, humid and dangerous.

Introduction

War for Edadh has really only been released, and it is well on the way to becoming a massive franchise that could very well take over the geek world. War for Edadh is spearheaded by WarriorElite, Ltd., a small UK firm owned and operated by Ash and Nigel Pyne.

As of now I only have what has been released as of this time to base this review on, but I have played this game so many times already that you could swear its been out for a year.

Just think a little about this: the game has already made a name for itself, and it’s barely even out of the gate. That should tell you something about the game’s overall fun factor. And to top it off, I enjoyed it immensely. As no fan of card games (I think that in general, CCGs and TCGs are played out and on their last legs, lacking in any sort of originality, and involve almost no strategy to win) I was originally hesitant to accept the review – but with all said and done, I am glad that I did (especially when I pleasantly discovered that this is not a CCG or TCG).

Contents

Included with War for Edadh: The Beginning are the following items:

• 120 Cards
• 22 Counters
• 10 Scoresheets
• Art of the Apprentice
• Art of the Warrior
• Summary Sheet

Set-up

What you see in the above picture is what you get in the box. There’s no hard work getting things set up at all, and you can have a game going in no time flat. The only problematic area is that once the cards are removed from their shrink wrap, they aren’t going to go back into the box so easily. Gamers should probably invest in an Ultra-Pro Deck Box to store the cards (as well as some card sleeves if they so choose). The box itself is simply so nice (I am reminded a bit of Metallica’s self-titled album) that it should be kept under all circumstances – at least to hold the scoresheets and rules.

Play

There are 3 ways to play War for Edadh – “Unit vs. Unit”, “Skirmish” and “Battle”. New players should start out with the Unit vs. Unit game, as it is the easiest to learn (in about 15-20 minutes you’ll have it figured out). For an extra layer of strategy, tactics and gameplay, the 64-page “Art of The Warrior” rulebook will take you beyond the basics of “The Art of The Apprentice” (weighing in at 32-pages). It sounds a bit overwhelming, but that is simply not the case. Once you’ve gotten the basics down, the “Warrior” book is actually not that hard to get into at all – it’s merely like an expansion module for a video game.

The cards represent the troops, leaders, standards, terrain and all aspects of the battle. Cards are also used in the core mechanic of the game which is a unique, tactical system. This mechanic, called “Conflict Resolution”, places the outcome of each battle in the player’s hands.

Players with tabletop gaming experience will find that the game is uncannily fluid-like. You get all the feel of a wargame minus the physical terrain and minis that you would normally use. There really is no similar game mechanic out there to compare this with.

There is of course, an Army Cost factor to the game. In the starter set reviewed here, the armies provided have a cost of 167 points each.

Each opponent sits across from the other at a table with cards for their chosen forces (for example the Angueth rebels vs. the Huaos-Dzaa) plus a Battle Master card. A terrain card is placed between the two sides.

A round of unit combat is broken up into 3 different types (Ballistic, Charge, and Melee). From there it enters the Combat Resolution phase – which has 4 separate steps. From there it is wash, rinse, and repeat until either you or your opponent have accrued too much damage.

At the risk of repeating the more advanced rules word-for-word, I will leave the subtle details out and encourage readers to try it on their own. While the game does increase in complexity, all of the basics are there that you learn in a simple starter game.

I was really impressed that with all 3 game types how very unique the gameplay is. At the most simple level, a game shouldn’t take over 20 minutes after you’ve got the rules down pat. At the most complex that we played it, a game took one hour and forty-five minutes.

It is impossible to get a bad hand in War for Edadh since everything is set up as though you were playing a points-based wargame with miniatures. With future expansions, you will be able to amass the forces that you choose to field against your opponents. It’s not about luck, folks – it’s about skill.

The Conflict Resolution mechanic makes War for Edadh a very aggressive game. Essentially, the better you are at reading your opponent’s moves, and the strategies that you use in outguessing him and making your attacks will make or break you.

The Good

I can’t comment much on the War for Edadh gaming community or tournament support because the game is still far too young to provide a good measure of quality in those respects, however I can comment on rules support, which so far has been quite thorough. Warrior Elite’s homepage provides not only excellent FAQs, but contact information to put you in touch with the actual designers of the game.

Overall, I would have to say that the future looks very bright for War for Edadh. While it doesn’t strike me as the type of game that you will see pros coming out in the tens of thousands to play at a national event – it does strike me as fun, and that is what is important. It’s inexpensive, low impact, simple to learn, and makes a good game to play on the side.

If you are a fan of RPGs or fantasy gaming, you may wish to check out the game, if only for the beautiful art:

If you aren’t, you might as well go check out a demonstration at your local gaming store. It’s the kind of game everyone should play once or twice just so they can experience the system.

There aren’t too many games out there where you can learn the basics in 15 minutes. With rules for multi-player games, team play, solo play and variants the game is extremely versatile and can be tailored to the length of time or depth that you want.

As I’ve said before, this game has a bright future. I can certainly see unlimited marketing potential with the property – the unique setting of Edadh gives endless possibilities for novels, miniatures, and role-playing games. It is a unique world. There are no humans, elves, elf, dwarfs, halflings, orcs, or goblins. That makes it all the more special to me.

Too many times in this day and age, new companies seem put out a product just to make a few quid. Often the rules or packaging suffers quite a bit as a result, and it becomes easy to see that there was not too much effort put into the game whatsoever.

War for Edadh was crafted with love. You can see it and feel it. It shows in every single bit of what you get, and in every play session.

Lastly, and most importantly – this is as fun a game to me to play as is Elfball. It’s hard to stop, and everyone had such a good time with it that all other regular play sessions (and reviews) were set aside for 3 weeks while we enjoyed this. If I had a higher ratings system than 4 stars, this would have gotten 5. Maybe 6. I love this game that much.

I cannot wait for future expansions and hope that I’ll be honored enough to review them here.

The Bad

None.

The Ugly

None.

Product Summary

Name: War for Edadh
Publisher: WarriorElite
Game concept: Nigel and Ash Pyne
Game mechanics: Nigel and Ash Pyne
Category: Cardgame
Cost: £15.99
Year: 2008
SKU: wfe1
ISBN: N/A

Rating