Conflict is at the heart of many of the games we recognise as part of “The hobby”. Not the clash between players that mechanisms and ambitions encourage, but the actual concept of war. Wargames are in many ways responsible for the modern hobby, and many games still pay homage to that lineage. In recent years the breadth of games has expanded, and we now get themes other than war and conflict that have attracted a whole new wave of players. That doesn’t mean that war cannot be examined by games in new and interesting ways. Arcs from Leder Games not only asks what conflict does to us and the world, but also what effect it has on history and those in positions of power.
Arcs is designed by Cole Wherle with art from Kyle Ferrin. This is the same DNA that gave us Root and Oath. Arcs has elements of both for sure, but it is the rebellious teenager of the family determined to forge its own path.
I bought the base game of Arcs and the Leaders and Lore expansion with my own money. I have played the Blighted Reach campaign with a friends copy. The images in this piece are all from the Leder games press pack for Arcs.
Arcs is a game playable in 3 ways. The base game, the Leaders and Lore expansion you get with the base game which is also expanded by an add on pack, and the Blighted Reach campaign. I’m going to look at all 3 over the course of this two part review. In the first part we will visit the base box and Leaders and Lore. In the second we will venture into The Blighted Reach campaign.
Base Building
Let’s get one thing out of the way before we dive into the core of Arcs. Arcs is not a trick taking game. I don’t care who has called it that, it simply isn’t. Arcs wears the clothes of a trick taker, but in reality it is a unique beast, and I do not use the word unique lightly. It’s one of those terms that gets bandied around by folk desperate to get eyes on their latest project but it is rare that it is actually true.
Over the Chapters of the game, you are tasked with leading your civilisation to victory across the vast spaces and strange planets of The Reach. Points are the deciding factor and you fulfill ambitions over the course of a chapter to gain them: Tycoon, Warlord, Tyrant, Empath, and Keeper. Your ability to achieve these ambitions is dependent on a hand of cards and your ability to utilise it.
The action deck in Arcs is 4 suits strong with values ranging from 1-7 in each suit (less if playing with 3 or fewer players). If you are someone who likes to meticulously plan and then execute that idea, Arcs is unlikely to be for you. Arcs action deck gives you different tools than the ones you might need for that Chapter. You are the leader of your civilisation. I like to think of the deck as representing the will of the people, and the people don’t always want what you want.
Each Chapter is 6 Rounds long and you have 6 cards in hand. If you have the initiative then you play first, leading the Round. There’s that trick taking disguise being put on. In leading you are establishing the tone of the round through your choice of suit: Aggression, Mobilisation, Administration, or Construction.
Aggression means movement, battles, and securing cards in the court. Mobilisation will not only move ships around space, but agents around that court. Administration sees you gaining resources, repairing your infrastructure, and influencing the court again. Construction allows you to construct and repair. Hey they can’t all be dramatic. Sometimes you just need a starport.
Each card comes with a value from 1-7 and a number of pips. In playing the lead card you get to take a number of actions equal to the number of pips, but only the actions that suit allows. The higher the value of the card, the lower the number of pips it will have. Everyone else has to work around the tone set by the lead player.
If you can play a card of the same suit, but higher value you Surpass: you can take as many actions as the card you played has pips. Play the highest card this Round and you will also take the initiative on the next. You can instead Pivot, playing a card of a different suit but only getting one action regardless of pips. Finally you can Copy, playing a card facedown to take one action of the lead suit. Lots of trick taking terms in there for sure, but no tricks are ever taken.
Obviously being the lead player is powerful. Not only do you get to take all the actions of your card, you also dictate the tone of that round. For instance playing Aggression as lead lets everyone take Battle actions as they can Copy your suit. The round becomes potentially bloody and aggressive. If you can’t get yourself into a position to lead through Surpassing, there is an option to seize the initiative by effectively discarding one of your cards in the round. This gives you less actions that round, but at the right moment can be just the thing you need to do.
This setup probably sounds restrictive, and it is. Let us return to my analogy of the deck being the voice of the people. You want to go on a murderous rampage across the Reach, but they want you to build new starports. You can of course bend the Construction suit to a weapon of war not only by copying an aggression card, but by deploying resources.
Resources pour forth from the planets that you occupy. By taxing cities you own, or control, you can gather them up. At the very start of the game you’ll get two based on the planets you occupy. These allow you to bend your choices to your will, no matter the cards in your hands.
Material, Fuel, and Relics are the simplest resources, letting you take a Build, Move, or Secure action respectively on top of the actions the card you played gives you. Empath resources let you take an action of the lead card. Weapons are the weirdest of the resources and are slightly stickier to explain. Using a Weapons resource effectively prints the Battle action on a card temporarily. This allows you to potentially take multiple battle actions if you have the pips to do so. If all you have is a gun, every card looks like the Aggression suit.
These resources allow you to manipulate your options, to bend the people’s will to your own. Importantly there is a very specific timing on when you can use these resources. This interplay of tight timing and permissive resources leads to some wonderful ‘I can do what?’ moments.
I’m belaboring this explanation a bit, but it is so fundamental to understanding what makes Arcs work that I feel no shame in doing so. There is a final piece to this central puzzle, that I have only briefly touched upon, but they are the only way to win: Ambitions.
Ambitions are scored at the end of a chapter, after all 6 rounds. The lead of each Round not only gets to take all their actions, they can also declare an Ambition, making it worth points at the end of the chapter. The Ambition they declare must match a symbol on the card played. Where playing the lead card sets the tone for the round, declaring an Ambition sets the agenda for the Chapter. It also leads to a loss of control.
In declaring an Ambition, the value of your card plummets to zero, Now everyone can Surpass you. Low value cards become incredibly powerful as you get to use all their pips and potentially gain the initiative. You’ve broadcast your intentions far and wide, painting a target on your back.
The ambitions see you gathering one thing or another, with prizes for first and second place in these endeavours. The Tycoon wants fuel and material, Empath and Keeper, want Empath and Relic resources. Tyrant sees you seeking captives, gained when you secure cards from the court taking enemy agents as prizes, or when you tax rival cities. Warlord needs trophies from battle: ships, cities, and starports. Importantly ambitions increase in value over the course of the game, and the earlier in a chapter they are chosen, the more they are worth. You can even declare the same ambition multiple times. Shout it loud early and often, and the points will come tumbling down upon you through strife and conflict.
This core puzzle of card play and victory point declaration is at the heart of Arcs. Every Round you’ll have to pivot and improvise. How do you accommodate the will of your people with your plans? How do you get yourself into a position to declare the correct Ambition, and then make good on that declaration? Maybe you will just declare an Ambition to focus everyone else’s attention on it so you can go elsewhere. I can Empath my own lead card. I can turn this Administration card into a declaration of war through the use of weapons. All these revelations and more go to the heart of Arcs. It gives you a sandbox of tools, and then tells you to build the biggest castle. If that sort of play doesn’t sound up your street then I would get out now. Things are about to get wilder.
I’ve mentioned the court a couple of times and it is about time we had a look at it. So far the base game of Arcs has a fairly symmetric setup. A certain number of ships per side, one star port, one city, two planets. That symmetry doesn’t last long because of the court.
This is a deck of cards with lots of different powers that you can grab. Influence a card with agents, using Administration or Mobilization, then secure it, using Aggression. There are not a lot of these cards, but each one is useful in the right context. Many have passive abilities that change up one of the core actions you can take. Some also allow you to discard them for a different effect. On top of that each one belongs to one of the five resources, giving you an extra point towards those all important Ambitions. Securing these cards can be time consuming, but worthwhile. When someone beats you to the punch, the only response is violence.
Much of what I’ve described so far feels, and is, like an abstraction of the 4x genre. It simplifies what could be a vast tech tree or complicated mechanism, and boils them down to the fundamentals. This allows narrative to emerge in the gaps. When it comes to extermination however it turns into a full out brawl.
When you get the opportunity to battle, the attacker makes all the decisions. A single roll of special dice resolves each battle, but what you roll will determine the story of that conflict. The attacker gets a dice per ship in the clash. Skirmish dice are the safe bet, with a 50/50 chance of inflicting a single hit. Unfortunately ships and buildings all take 2 hits to take out. Not a great way to make an impact.
Assault dice escalate the potential for destruction massively. Now you have a 5 in 6 chance of inflicting at least 1 hit, and a 1 in 3 of doing 2 hits per dice. Unfortunately going all out means you pick up a 50/50 chance of a hit in return. Any undamaged ships facing you also pick up a 1 in 6 chance of all firing back at you.
The final type of dice, the Raid, is an altogether different beast. These represent you targeting the planet’s surface, raining fire down upon it and looting from the ruins. Choosing these dice is dangerous, so you get a 50/50 chance of being hit in return and a 1 in 3 of undamaged defending ships returning fire. For your troubles you get the opportunity to nab cards and resources from the defender. All the court cards and your resource storage have keys on them. During a raid you spend keys on the dice you roll to steal these objects.
See that court card that has loads of the blue player’s agents on it? Blowing up a city of that player allows you to ransack the court, taking a card with their agents on it. All those agents are now your captives. This does come with a cost as you Outrage the resource, discarding all your cards of that resource type along with the resources themselves from your play area. You can now no longer use that resource to alter your actions, though you can still gather it for ambitions.
The base game of Arcs is not complicated but it is unusual. It will take you a couple of games to get all the nuances of the system. What I feel is remarkable about it is that the game always presents an answer to any problem. How you can get to that answer, is something you have to learn. Thanks to Leder’s excellent player aides, you don’t have to memorise the rules, you can get on with playing and Arcs wants you to do just that. It is a lean system, ready for you to pull the levers however you see fit to make it work.
Ledering the Way
After you’ve played a couple of games you’ll want to crack open the Leaders and Lore expansion that the base game comes packed with. This adds a dash of asymmetry to the setup and play, but most importantly it adds a lot of narrative.
The Leaders are cards that give you your setup instructions as well as a benefit and a drawback. They are evocatively named: Rebel, Demagogue, and Mystic. The art is fantastic evoking many sci-fi influences and each one dripping with personality and potential. The Lore cards are similar to court cards and represent technology and ideas that can help you conquer the Reach. Both of these are drafted from a selection until everyone has one of each.
This shifts the tone of the game. The abstraction that is at the heart of Arcs is given form and function by these choices. You aren’t a faceless leader anymore, you are the Upstart who can gain a resource when they declare an ambition. You have developed the tech of Seeker Torpedoes, allowing you to re-roll assault dice on attack. I wonder if those resources you can gain on declaring ambitions will be Weapons? It’s the sort of expansion I love that adds depth and colour to the game without adding too much complexity.
There is an expansion pack for these cards which is just more of them, if a bit weirder and more experimental. You could argue that that small pack expansion should have been in the base box. However I think Leder made an excellent decision to keep the base game at a really good price (you can get it for about £45 in the UK). This allows folk to get a feel for the game before investing further. If you do get on with Arcs, then the Leaders & Lore expansion pack is a no brainer.
Strong Foundations
Arcs is a game that leans into its name, giving you satisfying narrative from a set of abstracted mechanisms. It strives to make every decision entertaining, every twist have emotional weight and impact, and every choice feel important. The base box has a lot of game in it that you could play for a long time without needing more. It’s a game that gives you all the tools you need to succeed but then pushes you out into the universe to use them as you see fit. It is not a game that allows you to meticulously plan, you have to pivot, think on your feet, and improvise. I love that kind of play.
The Leaders and Lore expansion just gives you a little bit more of that experience and injects a bit more explicit narrative into the proceedings. It also sets you up for what is to come in The Blighted Reach, and let me tell you that you haven’t seen anything yet. That said, if you don’t feel compelled by a campaign experience the base game really is a complete and satisfying experience in its own right. You don’t need The Blighted Reach but I hope after part 2 of this review, you might want it.
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