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In April 2020, I had the privilege of playing a partial game of Ankh on Tabletop Simulator when Eric Lang demoed it for the BGG Team just days before CMON Limited launched its Kickstarter campaign for the game. Spoiler alert: I left the demo knowing I had to have this game in my collection.
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In Ankh, 2-5 players compete as ancient Egyptian gods as history advances from polytheism to monotheism. Using unique asymmetric powers and mythical guardians, players build and control monuments, gain followers, and battle each other for territorial control, all with the goal of earning enough devotion (i.e., victory points) to be the one and only God of Egypt.
During the game, players take turns in clockwise order performing one or two actions until the game end is triggered. The actions include moving figures on the board, summoning figures onto the board, gaining followers, and unlocking Ankh powers. Followers are essentially your currency in Ankh — you will need to sacrifice followers to build monuments, bid in battle to avoid the dreaded "Plague of Locusts", and unlock ankh powers, that is, special abilities and bonuses that will make your god even more powerful.
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Cat-mummy guardian
Unlocking ankh powers will sometimes reveal a guardian icon that will allow you to add a guardian creature to your pool of warriors. These guardians have their own special abilities, and each type is limited, so not everyone will get to add every type of guardian. Once they're in your pool under your control, you can summon them like your warriors that you have from the start of the game.
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Central dashboard
The events are pretty awesome. You really want to be the one triggering them every time while your opponents stare in envy from the sidelines as you:
• Gain control of a monument to align yourself strategically to gain followers and area majority when it comes to conflict events.
• Claim the battle tiebreaker token in a conflict event and win a tie during a battle.
• Deploy a caravan of camels on the board, splitting an existing region into two new regions to manipulate how area majorities are evaluated during conflict events.
Regardless of the event, again, you will typically want to be the one who triggers it — but the reality is that everyone quickly realizes how juicy these events are and watches like a hawk as the action markers creep toward the event-trigger zone, trying to time things precisely so that you're the one who triggers the event. There were moments when I knew exactly what I wanted to do on my next turn, but then as my opponents took their turns and I saw the action markers moving closer and closer to the end of their tracks, I had to rethink my plans. I kept thinking, How can I avoid helping my opponents trigger events while at the same time trying to set myself up to be on the receiving end?
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Isis in color (image from CMON)
When resolving conflict, any regions with figures from two or more players will result in battle. Players involved in a battle secretly select a battle card, placing it face down in front of them, then all players reveal them simultaneously. Each player has six battle cards with which to work, but once a card has been played, it remains face up in front of you until you play the "Cycle of Ma'at" card, which is the only way to return all of your battle cards to your hand. Battle cards can modify your strength and grant you special abilities, which reminded me a bit of how the combat cards work in Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation, so they create similar suspenseful feelings before each reveal.
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Devotion track
Not only is this a solid catch-up mechanism, but the power of merging gods might lead some players to intentionally strategize ways to position themselves lower on the devotion track specifically to merge gods with another particular player.
After the fourth conflict, all players in the red zone of the devotion track are eliminated from the game. Therefore, if all players are still in the red zone at this point, the game ends immediately with no winner. The people of Egypt essentially revert to atheism. On the other hand, if only one god (or the super-merged-mega god) survives, that god becomes the one and only god of Egypt and wins. Otherwise, players continue until the fifth conflict is resolved, which triggers the end of the game. In that case, whoever is highest on the devotion track wins.
Not only did I find the mechanisms in Ankh quite impressive, but oh my Egyptian God (!!), the art and minis are top notch! Adrian Smith, Mike McVey, and his sculpting team really worked their magic here to fully immerse us in the theme. The art and miniatures are amazing and oozing with unique Egyptian vibes. The minis are so intricate and detailed that the guardian creatures are pretty creepy. I think we all jumped out of our chairs a bit when we zoomed in on the cat-mummy for the first time.
Ankh is highly thematic with incredible artwork and some of the most intricate miniatures that I've ever seen, but these strengths are merely sprinkles on top of a well-designed game that is rules-light and strategy-heavy with plenty of player interaction and variety to keep things interesting with each game you play. Considering how much I enjoyed playing Ankh on Tabletop Simulator, I'm looking forward to actually sitting at the table with friends to play a full game of Ankh when it's released.
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