(Photo credits to CMON)
Written by Ed Carter
Looney Tunes Mayhem
2-4 players
Dice placement, card playing, modular board, miniatures, combat, point gathering
What’s up Doc-Game overview
Mayhem is part of the Warner Brothers series of games from CMON; this one using the characters from Looney Tunes. The base game comes with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Taz, and Elmer Fudd. Each player selects 2 toons to form their team; the first team to get 5 victory points is the winner. Players earn Victory points (VP) by knocking out other toons or going to certain places on the board that reward points. It’s a fun lighthearted easy game with some challenging decisions to make in order to win.
Should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque: Game set up
To start, select two toons to make up your team by taking their figures and dashboards. Next, take the bases and dice in your color. Randomly lay the game tiles out in a 3-4-3 grid. Place the VP tokens on their matching spaces and the Acme boxes on the desert road tile. Place a toon figure on one of your colors home base. Set the health, poison, barricades, shield, traps and other tokens next to the board. Deal each player 7 Mayhem cards to look at, keeping 4 and returning the rest to the bottom of the Mayhem deck. These cards can enhance an ability during a Toons activation.
Its wabbit season! A game round
The game is played in rounds made up of 4 parts: Round Start, Recovery, Toon Activation, and Round End.
Round Start
- Roll activation dice and determine initiative – Each player rolls their 2 dice; the lowest results gets the initiative
- Roll the Mayhem die – This shows how much damage each toon can inflict in the round. If the Mayhem symbol is rolled, the Toon can activate their mayhem abilities indicated on their player board.
Recovery
- Return any knocked out Toons to the board – Toons return on any of their colors home base tiles.
- Resolve any poison affects- See the rulebook for specific rules on poison.
Toon Activation
- Place an activation die on a Toon ability to use it this round. Pay attention to any additional modifiers based on the Mayhem die results.
- Make an optional free move – Move from one tile to an adjacent tile. Note that obstacles prevent tile adjacency. There are 6 tiles that can activate certain conditions whenever a Toon enters one. Refer to the rulebook for explanations of the tiles.
- Use the chosen ability – Abilities can consist of doing damage, inflicting poison, putting up obstacles or setting traps.
- Players can also play a Mayhem card.
- Note any effects caused by traps and what they do when triggered.
- Pass the Activation to your opponents.
- Repeat until all Toons have activated.
Round End
- Discard all Mayhem cards played that round.
The game continues until one team has achieved 5 victory points.
That’s all folks! Final thoughts
Mayhem surprised me; its a tricky puzzle and not an all out slugfest. Timing is involved and playing Mayhem cards can really impact a Toon’s turn. Since earning victory points are the winning conditions, its critical to take advantage of the tiles that offers VP (Home sweet home, Poker night, The desert road, and Hunting Grounds.) If you can get 4 of the 5, you only need 1 KO to win. There is a VP token available for each team on the tiles so both players can take advantage of them.
Components in this game are amazing; the miniatures are fully painted and highly detailed. The tiles look like a Looney Tunes cartoon, and the dice are nice and solid. The rulebook is laid out in easy to follow sections. The theme permeates the game; its not just added on. Each toon acts like they are portrayed in the cartoon, Bugs ability to teleport mimics his constant ability to run away from trouble.
It’s a short game, usually lasts about 30 minutes and is geared as a family one as opposed to a strategy one. I am enjoying this one a lot especially as a fan of classic Bugs Bunny cartoons. I’m sure Looney Tunes fans may find a lot of fun in this one as well.
You can find it retail for about $50 online. There are 2 expansions for it, one is the Kickstarter exclusive character pack and one is the 4 character retail expansion with Sylvester, Tweety bird, Road Runner and Wile E Coyote.
Until next time, keep moving those meeples and happy gaming!
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