It’s one of the biggest releases of the year, and Cry Havoc has made its mark; nearly universal critical acclaim. Raf and Calvin look under the hood and see and how it stacks up against the rest of the area control war games on your shelf.

A previously undiscovered planet holds bountiful resources ripe for the taking - will your faction rise victorious? A card-driven game of unique combat, area control, and even a little deck customization - Cry Havoc is a unique take on an old genre.

The game is played over exactly 15 turns with 4 asymmetrical factions. Players must improve their deck of cards, playing them to recruit units, build powerful structures, and conquering crystal-rich portions of the map in order to score points. Cards are also used in the game’s incredible combat system, a back and forth tug of war where combatants compete for control of the area being fought over, the capture of prisoners, or just attrition warfare - which do you prioritize? Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war.

Calvin: Controversial opening lede: I said in episode 31 that Cry Havoc may actually fire Chaos in the Old World AND Forbidden Stars, two games that are so near and dear and to my heart I had thought them lodged there.

Raf: That was a bold statement. Does that hold up?

C: I think it might? I need to schedule sessions of CitOW and FS to compare but consider this: One of the friends in my local gaming circle declared it ‘equal to Netrunner and Twilight Imperium in terms of enjoyability.’ I might actually go that far.

R: Netrunner?! Wow that’s some pretty high praise if you’re truly willing to go that far. Why do you like it so much?

I mean, first of all it looks like this...

C: It’s got that same feeling of chess-like back and forth; reading what an opponent is trying to do with their *very* limited time. Also the theme kicks butt. I simply cannot decide which of the four factions I like the most and that’s so rare for me - usually I develop a single favorite.

I like how friendly it is to get into. All of my plays so far have been with first timers; and they’ve grokked it pretty fast and gotten deep into the strategy once they understood how the systems worked.

Human drop troopers encounter the native Trog forces while the Machines plot their sudden but inevitable betrayal.

In my most recent game I played the controversial Human faction who a lot of people online complain are incredibly overpowered. I played my hardest against two complete newbies and barely won. Machines were within 4 points of me - admittedly, I was giving advice to the other players because I don’t think it’s fair for an experienced player to just go into a game with newbies completely blind.

R: Hmm. I love Cry Havoc and can’t play it enough, but I’m not sure I’ve had that same experience. There’s a lot to digest and the game can punish you pretty hard if you aren’t efficient with your few actions.

C: I absolutely agree which is why I was giving advice to them both about not wasting their actions and getting the most out of their card play so they wouldn’t get completely stomped.

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R: Asymmetry can be tough to wrap your head around too, especially one as dramatically asymmetrical as this. I don’t consider these faults, just that they’ve made 1st/2nd plays a little tough. Maybe I’m not as nice as you are.

C: Play A Distant Plain with me then we’ll see.

Although ADP doesn’t look like this.

C: The comparison to games like ADP and Twilight Struggle and that ilk are apt here because the asymmetry is so apparent. It’s worth mentioning that all the faction decks, abilities, and structures are completely unique - but unlike the afternoon-length playtimes of those games, Cry Havoc is a 90 minute game with all the of the nail biting tension of those titles.

The core difference is that the depth is baked into fairly simple mechanics - mainly the combat - without needing to memorize the contents of other player’s decks (Chaos in the Old World, Forbidden Stars, Twilight Struggle).

R: That is definitely true. It’s a mad scramble for crystals and territories that jams the pedal to the floor and never lets up. Once you get the hang of it, this is really nice. No actions can be wasted and you need to be locked in from the beginning. The spoils are all there out in the open right from the start, better get to fightin’ if you want to be the victor.

If card play is the heart of the game, the combat board is the nervous system.

C: Because it’s so short (15 turns exactly) every decision is balanced on a knife edge and the tension is there from turn one. In some games, the early turns feel like you’re going through the motions: expand, get some territory, build some units - whereas in Cry Havoc your strategy (based on what skills you got) is going to dictate far more about your openings than rote openings. Some games you might not even want to build or use structures, for example.

R: Let’s talk for a moment about the turn structure. 15 turns is the maximum number of turns you can have in the game. It’s possible to cut down to 12 or even less if someone is scoring points aggressively. It means the game ends if someone is running away with it. Do you like that? While I do appreciate that no action can be wasted and that the game begins aggressively, the limited number of turns means I don’t feel like I get to really inhabit the world or my army very long. By the time my engine is humming or I’ve retaken some lost spaces, the game is over. It turns the traditional arc of a board game into a 45 degree line going ever upward. Much more like a Euro honestly.

C: I can feel the Euro influence heavily. It ends right as it’s getting good, which has the effect of leaving us hungry for more. To propose a counterargument: having a definite limit rather than an endless back and forth (or worse - a round 2 sudden victory) is preferable, no? It does increase the likelihood of the game coming to the table when you can say ‘90 minutes’ and not feel like you’re stretching the truth a little.

R: Well sure...but I think you can still have an arc in a short game. It’s only notable because it’s so different for the genre. Area control and territory battles typically have an ebb and flow to them, independent of how long it takes to play. I don’t really feel that in Cry Havoc.

C: Which leads me nicely into: Who might not enjoy Cry Havoc? It’s got no dice, so the drama of combat can feel fairly ‘over before it’s begun’ especially if you didn’t reserve enough cards to go into combat. It’s flattened out the curve so your highs aren’t as high but your lows aren’t as low either - being crushed in another game is a more miserable experience.

R: Yes, if you don’t reserve cards then combat will be tough. So you better reserve some cards because Cry Havoc has one of my favorite combat systems ever. That Battle Board is amazing. Having to allocate your troops between killing, taking prisoners, or winning the area is a really nice tactical wrinkle and it makes combat something more than just “KILL DUDES TAKE THINGS” like in most games. You can fight for the kill, ignoring the territory control part. Or vice versa. The way you resolve each theater of combat in a specific order just adds another tactical wrinkle.

It’s tactical area control within tactical area control, and I love it.

Above: the reason why Cry Havoc won my ‘Best Game To Punch Out’ during our Essen Awards

C: It’s incredibly satisfying. That combat puzzle. The gorgeous minis. The way the structure tiles lock in next to each other. The crystal gem minis make you want to own them. Making an engine and running it or winning a crucial combat by the skin of your teeth

The combat system in particular is something many other games need to copy. Portal Games CEO Ignacy Trzewicek says that he signed the game based on that combat system alone.

The map is extraordinarily small too, giving it that knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth feel like Kemet except without frontloading all the information on those power tiles.

R: Kemet is a good comparison. Like you said, both have small maps that make it easy to get across, and don’t necessarily tie unit removal to combat victory. As much as I love the hidden info and surprise of Kemet combat though, I have to give the nod to Cry Havoc. I can’t get over how much fun the tactical mini game of card play and troop movement within the combat is. Your combat is active, not passive. And when you can flip the resolution order and screw up your opponent’s entire plan? What a feeling.

C: Yes! You get to feel like a master tactician luring your enemy into a very deliberate trap. The name of the card that does this is called Shifted Priorities and the designers KNEW it was good because they made it a different color from all the other cards - but ‘Shifted Priorities’ makes it sound like a bullet on a meeting memo rather than a bullet through your opponent’s entire battle plan.

Each faction fulfils a very primal fantasy: the machines are the unstoppable Borg, the Pilgrims are a eurogamer point buffet if you can defend their stuff, the Humans feel like the elite air cavalry from movies like Avatar and Aliens, and the Trogs will just wreck your face with their fists - they don’t care about all your high tech, they have tunnels and they know the terrain and they will smash you really hard.

R: The Trogs are amazing. Again, rules that seem simple throw a few wrinkles into the genre. Battles don’t happen until the end of the round, but as soon as you share a space with an opponent that space is locked down. Very little can happen to change the situation and that includes adding or removing troops. With the way Trogs can pop up all over the board, sending in a single Trog simply to bog down your opponent’s expansion is a great way to gum up the works. You don’t need to defend a valuable territory if you can keep the fighting on the outskirts.

C: The flipside being that losing a combat in this manner is just feeding victory points to your opponent AND you used a precious action to do so unless you just so happened to plan your turn perfectly. It’s so good.

A note on player counts: I’ve not played it at 2. Only 3 and 4, and I liked 4 more just because the Trogs felt like an autonomous force rather than neutral obstacles to be encountered and overcome. At the same time I think that 2 players would be fine, I can’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be.

C: Okay, final thoughts time?

R: Final thoughts? One of the best of the year in an incredibly stacked year. As a game, Cry Havoc is successful in almost every way. Even my minor hangups are as much taste as anything. I think the game’s deep and is something a group can grow into, exploring strategies and counterstrategies. I also think there’s potential for Cry Havoc as a system. The combat system, the fixed turns, the area lockdowns...I can see this game influencing the genre going forward.

C: Cry Havoc is impeccable. One of the best games of its class, and one that punches well above its weight. Top 5 of all time material.

Raf & Calvin Review Cry Havoc

Rafael Cordero, Calvin Wong

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