Caleb Smay
United States
Dayton
Ohio
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Omen: Reign of War is a two player game in which you each take on the role of a human son of the god Zeus. You are fighting against your brother using mercenary forces. Every victory brings you closer to becoming the ruler of Greece.
Prepare for glory! the review.
Rules and Setup
Omen: Reign of War comes with three different decks of cards and twenty wooden coins. There are also twenty stickers depicting open treasure chests that you can use on these coins if you wish. Coins work find without these sticks, but its a nice visual affect when you get to see treasure on them.
The first of the three decks are called 'Treasure' cards. There are twelve of these cards. They are shuffled and placed facedown in three equal piles. These piles represent the cities in which the players' forces will be battling.
The second deck are the 'Feat' cards. One of each of the six different feats is given to each player. These cards tell you what you may do to please the gods and earn victory points at the end of the game. Both players have identical feat cards.
The last deck is comprised of unit cards. In the main game players share one pool of cards. In a variant, they use this pool to create personal decks. I have yet to play this variant so I not be able to comment on it. Each of these unit cards has three numbers on the left side. The first number is how many coins it costs to play it from your hand. The second is its 'Sacrafice' value. The third is it combat value. This is used when wars are fought over cities.
There are three unit types in the game; oracles, soldiers, and beasts. The main difference between the three is how their special abilities work. Oracles trigger their abilities every turn. Soldiers trigger any time they enter a city, even if they were just moved from one city to another their abilithy still triggers.
Beasts are a little different. First off, while in a city they count as two units. When you play a beast from your hand, you may place it in a city or discard it. If it is placed in a city, its special ability is ignored. The only way a beast's special ability is triggered is when you discard it from play out of your hand.
After the deck of unit cards is shuffled, each player draws four cards and takes four coins. The game is now ready to begin.
Gameplay
A turn for a player is seperated into six different phases. These phases must be completed in order. The following is an explination of each phase and the order you must do them in.
Wealth
A player has 3 wealth points on their turn. You use these points to draw cards or gain coins. You can draw cards or take coins in any combination. However, if you only draw cards, you will draw four cards instead of just three. Likewise cyou will gain four coins if you only take coins.
Surge
In the surge phase, you will play card from your hand into one of the three cities or, in the case of 'Beasts,' into yoju discard pile for their affect. Once a unit is in a city, it cannot be moved except by special abilities on other cards.
Portent
In this phase, any 'Oracles' you have in play will trigger their special abilities. All 'Oracles' have an ability that will always occur. After that, you will reveal the top card of the deck. If it is an 'Oracle,' something more will happen.
Feat
This is when you will look at your 'Feat' cards and see if you have accomplished any this round. If you have, you will flip the card over and get two victory points at the end of the game. A quick explination of each 'Feat.'
-Have an 'Oracle' in each of the three cities.
-Have a 'Soldier' in each of the three cities.
-Have a 'Beast' in each of the three cities.
-Have a total of five units in one city.
-If you drew five or more cards this turn.
-If your opponent discard - either from hand or one of the cities - five cards this turn.
War
A battle takes place in any city that is war-torn. A city is war-torn when either A) there are five units total from both players in the city or b) you opponent has three or more units in the city. A battle is decided by simply adding all the strengthe numbers on all the cards in the city and comparing the results. The winner gets to take the top card in that city's deck and discards all but one unit from that city. The loser of the war must discard all but two units from that city.
Offering
Each unit has an offering value. In this phase, you may discard one card and draw cards or gain coins in any combination upto that number. There is no bonus if you take all card or all coins like in your 'Wealth' phase.
After a player has completed all these steps, play passes to the other player.
The 'Treasure' cards a player gains from winning wars in cities goes into their hand for the rest of the game and is worth two victory points at end. No special affect can cause them to discard it. However, the player may place the card in fron of them to gain a one time only special ability. After this, the card is turned facedown in front of them and is only worth one point at the end of the game.
The game ends when either one player accomplishes their fifth 'Feat' or two of the three city deck are exhausted.
Components
The cards for Omen are not the highest quality I have ever seen. However, this is to be somewhat expected from a smaller publisher. The woodern coins do their job and look neat but aren't really anything to write home about.
Now, the artwork on the cards? Amazing! The depictions of these guys is really impressive and I would like to give a special shoutout to Michael 'Riiven' Ng for his excellent design work on this game. My hat's off to you! The only problem I have with the artwork is that it is the same for all the 'Feat' and 'Treasure' cards. However, this is going to change when the second edition -which has reached its goal on Kickstater and will be funded by the end of the today(1/20/12) - of the game fixes this minor problem.
My copy of this game came in a VHS box. Protects the cards nicely, but neither this box nor the one containing the expansion - Shattered Aegis - is large enough to hold both sets. Again, I have been told this will be fixed in the second edition.
Final Thoughts
Excellent tactical game. As I said, I have not played the deck building variant which I hear is much better, but I do not need to do so enjoy this game very much. Every time I have played we finished in under an hour and it is so easy to pick-up and teach. I cannot wait for the second edition - which will include a card with my ugly mug on it(please don't let that scare you away from buying this game). This game will be hitting the table probably every gaming night from now on. May even have to buy several copies and have an Omen: Reign of War tournament.
Great job on the game, John Clowdus! Keep up the good work!
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tom moughan
United States
Rochester
New York
ahh....I love the smell of a stack of sketchily placed animals in the morning!
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Good job...Very timely review since the kick starter will end in less than 24 hours! I was personally pleased with the quality of cards and dn't have the issues with card design choices that others have stated on BGG. I will be loving my metal coins, proper box... and bonus units and champions now that it's been overfunded and has reached two levels of extra bonus swag! if you were on the fence, there has not been a better time to make the leap!
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Caleb Smay
United States
Dayton
Ohio
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lengthtoavoid wrote: I was personally pleased with the quality of cards and dn't have the issues with card design choices that others have stated on BGG.
I didn’t mean for it to sound like I was unhappy with the cards. They are good quality, but I am so used to playing so many Fantasy Flight games that there card quality has spoiled me I guess.
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Jack
United States
Cumberland
Rhode Island
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Omen is a wonderful game. If anyone out there is interested in it and has not yet supported it via Kickstarter, give it a shot.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/smallboxgames/omen-a-rei...
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