(Photo credit to Twilight Creations)
Written by Ed Carter, Staff Writer
MARTIANS!!!
2-6 players
Dice rolling, tile laying, card use, cooperative or semi cooperative
It’s an invasion! Game overviewÂ
Twilight Creations has become experts at transferring campy horror to your table for years, since their first game Zombies!!! (Now in its third version). They have taken the formula from Zombies!!! and tweaked it to fit an invading army of angry Martians.
In this game, players can work together (or not) to stop an invasion from Mars by either blowing up the mothership or being the first to kill 30 Martians. With limited resources and wave after wave of little green men and their lasers all aimed at you, its a race to find the things you need before they zap you out of existence.
The Martians are here!!! – Game set up
This setup is for the standard semi cooperative game, see the rulebook for the fully cooperative version. To start, take the 30 map tiles and find the starting space, placing it on the table. Place all the martians within easy reach as well as the martian overlord token. Shuffle the remaining tiles and the player deck into a corresponding face down decks. Each player takes 3 heart and 3 bullet tokens. Deal each player 3 cards from the player deck. Select a pawn and place it on the starting space. Take all the tokens and shuffle them into a face down pile. Separate the 3 crop circle tokens into their own face down pile (1 token is the mothership, the other 2 are blank crop circles.) Shuffle the martian deck into a facedown pile. Select a first player and you’re ready to go.
It’s Go time! – Game round
Each player takes their turn following the exact same steps:
- Draw and place a map tile. For named buildings place the appropriate number of bullet, hearts and face down tokens. For unnamed roads, place a martian on each road space. For crop circles, place a face down crop circle token and a single martian on top. If the tile has a martian symbol, draw the top card of the martian deck and do what it says in addition to placing martians.
- Fight any martians on your current space. To fight a martian roll a single die. A 4-6 automatically kills the martian. You can spend bullets to add 1 to any roll or spend a life token to re-roll.
- If you have less than 3 event cards, draw up to three. You may play 1 event card per turn.
- Roll the dice for movement. Move your pawn up to the number of spaces indicated. If you move into a space with a token, bullet or heart and there are no martians, you can collect it. You can only have 3 hearts but unlimited bullets. If you land in a space with a martian you have to fight it.
- Roll the die for martian movement. Move the indicated number of martians one space.
- Place a martian on any crop circle without one. When the mothership is revealed, add one martian to the tile with the token until each space is filled.
- You have the option to discard one event card before passing to the next player.
Taking the fight to them! inning and losing the game
To defeat the mothership, players must take 1 of each token type, (dynamite, fertilizer and fuel) to the space of the mothership. This will blow it up and win the game. Alternatively, the first player to kill 30 martians wins as well.
The martian overlord token gives the martian army some extra punch. It makes each martian have an additional bonus by only being defeated with a 5 or 6 on any tile adjacent to the overlord. Plus, it takes a 6 to take out the overlord itself.
There is a mode with one player as the martians and the remaining players are the human resistance. The martian player has their own deck of cards they use to boost the martian armada. If you lose a fight and have no more hearts, you lose half of your martian kills, all your event cards in play and tokens. You start over the next round at the start tile with 3 hearts and bullets.
Humanity lives! Final thoughts
Martians uses the foundation mechanics from Zombies!!! But it isn’t just a re skin. With the challenge of collecting the tokens and the extra power of the martian overlord, this game requires different strategies to win. You can just go all out and try to kill the 30 Martians to win instead of the mothership objective and depending on how the tiles come out, that may be the better option. Each game is completely different due to the randomized tile layout. You need to have flexible strategies to do well. The limited resources require good planning before going into a massive fight. Bullets can mitigate the dice but only so far. The event cards can really turn the tide in some situations so its important to use them.
For as simple as the game is mechanically, it offers moments of challenges and decisions that bring it above your basic roll and move games. Twilight Creations has done well with this formula, and Martians is another addition to their line of fun lighthearted games.
Until next time, keep moving those meeples and happy gaming!
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