Welcome to Hadria, land of heists and holdup artists, clockpunk gadgets and windup gizmos. This is Age of Thieves.

Colin isn't very good at this whole sneaking thing.

You know that scene in the heist movie when all the plans have hit the fan and the team has to improvise their way through the ensuing chaos? Or that scene where the cast simultaneously discovers that everyone has just sold out everyone else?

Age of Thieves is that, but with crossbows & flame grenades; a game of narrow escapes and narrower margins. If you make it out of the city with your payday in hand, the feeling is exactly like having pulled off a great and magnificent heist.

The game is mechanically simple - each thief starts with a modest hand of action cards and a target - the emperor’s jewel, residing in the middle of the board. Ringing the palace are guards, other jewels, (more on that later)... and the other thieves.

Actions are taken by allocating action points to cards - the more action points one dedicates, the earlier it happens - an action on 8 happens before an action on 7, with actions on 1 going last. This is important for beating other players to the punch and also avoiding the guards, which move on a randomly selected initiative order each turn. Caught thieves are tossed in the nearest dungeon - none of which can hold you, of course, but depending on when it happens this derailment ranges from mildly inconvenient to game-endingly crippling.

Action points are spent facedown behind a screen, giving an air of ‘oh god what is she doing now?!’

Each thief spends the first half of the game gathering gadgets, distracting guards from their posts, and positioning themselves to sabotage the other players; in other words, planning the heist. The criminal vultures circle the center, probing and feinting at the palace, until someone decides the time is now.

Maybe overdoing it, Zain.

The moment someone grabs Big Red, the game explodes: alarms are raised, guards go on high alert, elite captains join the search, and three of the city’s four gates slam shut, leaving only a single escape route - which is now crawling with guards. Now it’s every man, woman, or sewer-thing for themselves - and whoever makes it out with the jewel wins.

Now the quality of your prep is put to the test - if you don’t have the right tools, or haven’t lured the right guards out of position, your suddenly simple escape plan is about as arrowproof as the parchment it’s written on.

I have a very specific set of skills...

This frantic descent into the climax is the game’s emotional high point; if you’ve got the crown jewels, you’re suddenly the target of every thief in Hadria, as there is only one winner. There’s also an element of luck-pushing as only thieves who escape are eligible to win - even if their total loot value is zero, meaning someone from the back of the pack can still turn the tide with a well placed flame grenade...

SO LONG, SUCKERS!

Age of Thieves has been tuned until the tension hums like a latched crossbow string - every location is juuuust out of reach with normal movement, and many times over you will curse a guard for being just ONE space too close or too far away. Prepare to spend a lot of time standing over the board counting spaces under your breath - only to howl with betrayal as your friend throws a noisemaker into your path and the guards descend on you like crows.

Tools of the trade

Age of Thieves is a really good medium weight game with the theme of a heist movie and a structure to match. Its highly backstabby and solitary nature does make me yearn for a co-operative or team variant to the game - someone to run interference as you dash through the cobbled, rain-slicked streets - but it’s immersive and packs plenty of tense decisions and opportunities for sabotage into its 60-90 minutes.

On their Facebook page, Galakta has been teasing an expansion with thieves that bend the mechanics of the game, new rules for stealing minor jewels and moving through sewers, as well as providing alternate win conditions to broaden the scope of the game. I’m very excited by the prospect of the expansion, although, again - co-op mode please, Galakta!

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