Fall of the Mountain King – First Impressions
First, we dug tunnels. We were excavators of dirt. Miners of stone. Trolls reclaiming their mountain homeland by unearthing great halls, recovering historical totems, and rebuilding the past to assert a glorious future!
Also, players of In the Hall of the Mountain King were assembling trollsmoots. Which is the best word you’ll read today.
It was a good game, but the shadow of the past loomed over it, threatening to spoil the progress of the present. The ignominious Gnomes had been the ones to bring the mighty Trolls down into the darkness. How did these lawn ornaments devise such a destructive plan? Why did they make such a pivot from helping travelers find great rates?
Now the ancient story can be played out in Fall of the Mountain King! We will face the gobs of gnomes. The mischievous mites swarm into the tunnels and overwhelm the larger denizens of the dark.
It’s a familiar world. A new story. And a completely different game.
Designed by Adam Daulton with art from Xaiver Cuenca and Fahed Alrajil, Fall of the Mountain King is live on Kickstarter and I’ve got some thoughts for you!
What It Does
Fall of the Mountain King is a board game study of a society in decline. Disparate clans of trolls seek glory and influence and are swayed by the aggressive action and conflict of the most ambitious types.
The trolls are destined to fall to the gnomes. We know this already. But how it happens is worth experiencing. Players will vie for the attention of champions and clans, all while faltering under the relentless advance of the gnomes. Attack the gnomes. Increase your stature while doing so. But know that failure is imminent.
The gnomes will assail the mountain kingdom over the course of three waves. Each one is stronger than the last and it’s up to players to figure out the best way forward. In between the larger incursions, players will want to fight the gnomes to gain prestige and the loyalty of the clans under attack.
With each big gnome push, though, the motives switch. Players want their trolls to valiantly succumb to the invasion… before the trolls of other players. It’s all about who has the clout to say they died defending the homeland.
And to control that hot-then-cold process is an intricate system of actions for players to consider. Bolster and gain more trolls to replace those fallen. Advance into new territories before your rivals and be in position for the next assault.
Gain influence with champions so that they can increase the potency of your trollish forces. Increase your supply to build up the reserve of what you can do. And then infiltrate the tunnels to get a better idea of what the gnomes are up to and where they’ll strike next.
The gnomes will win. They have overwhelming numbers. So it’s up to the smartest trolls to decide when and where they make their last stand. Protect the great halls. They are the cultural hub of the trolls in the mountain.
If your trolls surround the great halls more than others, it’s just one more chance for glory. Influence with the troll clans and a place in the history books. That’s where the real heroes reside.
How It Does It
I’ve mentioned it already but the juxtaposition between the unique area control mechanism and the puzzle-y action selection is the thumping troll heart of Fall of the Mountain King. That’s what you have to decipher in order to win.
The strategy is complex but the basic turn structure is pretty straightforward.
During your turn, you can take one Strong action or two Weak actions. Strong indicates an action with a value of 2 or higher. That’s how you can make big plays on Influence, Bolster, Advance, and Gnomish surveillance and espionage. A Weak action is one of those same options but with a value of 1, allowing you to perform two smaller actions of possibly different types. Maybe a Bolster first, then an advance. Or an Influence and then a Gnome action. It gives more variability but isn’t as big of a play.
Bolster gives new trolls for deployment and fighting. Advance moves trolls around the board which can initiate conflict or influence-gain with certain clans. Influence is how you endeavor to recruit champions and gain favor with the clans. And then the Gnome action enables you to take a peek at upcoming invasion points and the relative strength of certain gnome units.
Troll champions give benefits that are either passive or active throughout the game.
They can inform how a player uses their Ancestry (which is the tile-based action selection part of the game).
Play progresses over three waves. In each wave, players have a certain number of actions they can perform based on the specific wave and any barrels that are present in a player’s action-selection tableau. At the end of each wave, the gnomes attack and push further into the mountain, pushing the players back and killing off more trolls.
At the end of the game, troll presence around the great halls is tabulated and influence with each clan is scored.
The story is all about defeat. You get to decide how you go down fighting, though.
And speaking of how you fight, the area control has several layers to it. Pushing into more territory is necessary, as it gives you access to other parts of the map and it builds influence with the clans. When gnomes are present, killing them grants you victory points and helps you solidify positions and relationships with the respective clans where the gnomish invaders are. But when the end-of-wave invasion occurs, players will want their trolls on the front line because dying first is what gives the most victory points.
You need to balance where you are on the map with where you want to be when the gnomes make a big push. There is a somewhat un-intuitive aspect to the area control that is actually very interesting and encourages you to approach it differently than other games.
The mechanics may seem disparate when being described but they fit together nicely and make for a very satisfying puzzle.
Why You Might Like It
Like other Burnt Island Games, Fall of the Mountain King uses familiar mechanics in unusual ways, to great effect. The area control is fascinating and subversive. The action selection is clever and nuanced.
While many games could be described as a puzzle in terms of players developing strategies, titles from Burnt Island Games really feel like you’re exploring a crunchy and satisfying mechanical mystery and Fall of the Mountain King does this in spades.
Why You Might Not
There is a lot going on that players have to manage. Juggling a layered area control approach with a spatial action selection process while considering the influence of troll champions and the advance of the gnome army might be a bit much for some players. It’s definitely a heavier mid-weight title.
Final Thoughts
Fall of the Mountain King immediately casts aside any doubt that you might have when you hear words like “prequel” or “sequel” and it tosses those uncertainties out the window along with a few unruly gnomes.
It introduces new ideas for area control. It challenges players with a twisted tango of strong and weak actions each turn. It’s got freakish swarms of gnomes and battered but beautiful trolls. And it’s got a central puzzle that will delight many players as they discover the best paths to victory. Most importantly, though, Fall of the Mountain King does its own thing… really, really well. That’s the best part.
I’m not good at the game. I got trounced the two times I played. I didn’t manipulate the mechanisms in the most effective manner. I couldn’t get a handle on the area control. Namely, because it didn’t involve playing people off of each other in a twelve-hour Twilight Imperium fest, but that’s ultimately still my fault.
So the fact that I want to keep playing it even when I’m somewhat of a loser is a testament to the quality of the experience. It’s a riddle I want to unravel. It’s a design that I want to understand. And it’s also plain fun. It’s nice when games are fun. And it’s easy to forget that when you play and review games constantly. So there’s a takeaway for you: Fall of the Mountain King is actually fun!
I am excited to play again and see how my strategy evolves over time as I deconstruct the mechanisms more and more. And I think it’s only going to get better as more stuff is unlocked (or revealed) during the Kickstarter campaign.
If you like other titles from Burnt Island Games, I can say with some certainty that you’ll also enjoy this one. Who knows? Maybe it will be your favorite of the bunch!
If you want to check out Fall of the Mountain King, you can visit the Kickstarter campaign or read what the community thinks on BoardGameGeek.
Are you thinking of backing Fall of the Mountain King? What’s your favorite area control game?
Let us know in the comments and give a recommendation for other games of which to share our first impressions.