Your review of PAX seems interesting already, and now this? Man, I hope I can persuade my FLGS to bring these two in.

Thanks for the review Ryan. Enjoyed it.

You put a lot of time into that review. It's a shame you didn't like the game. I have found it quite engaging in my initial plays. There were a number of rules you I thought were explained incorrectly in the video. I am not sure it will change your opinion of it being a glorified version of the card game War, but they do affect how the game plays.

1. You have to use one of the charisma cards tucked under your city when spending influence to recruit a creature. If you don't have any charisma cards tucked under your city, your only choice is battle.

2. You didn't explain battles correctly. There is a very interesting mechanic in the first card played in battle. The defender only adds a second supporting card to his first card played if it does not have enough defense to equal the value of the attack. If the first card the defender plays can absorb the attacker's attack value in their defense, then the defender gains the card advantage as they use the attack on that first played card rather then add another card to counterattack. The defender will be able to play the last card, gaining the attacker's advantage (unless playing against Persia since they have a 4 card hand advantage).

3. You never play a second support card if the card being attacked can absorb the damage being dealt to it. If the counter attack is absorbed by the attack card already in play, preventing an additional attack being made (since that card's attack value has already been spent), then you have a tie. Again, this is an interesting mechanic, and adds more decision for the turn. The way you described it does not seem like you played it correctly.

4. The winner of the battle (not the attacker, necessarily) takes the next turn (or the defender in the case of a draw). If there is a battle, one of those two players will be taking the next turn regardless of the outcome. In fact, the only time the next clockwise active player will take their turn is when the current player is recruiting a creature.

5. Pay attention to when you are able to discard and refill your hand. There are only a few times you can discard cards from your hand - losing a battle, when you discard as many as you choose, or recruiting a creature, when you discard your entire hand. Note that you do not discard in a tie. You only draw back up to a full hand. You didn't really touch on it in the review, but it seemed important.

Anyway, this game impresses me for the amount of interesting decisions it packs into a very small amount of cards. I would encourage you to take a closer look at the rules (the translation is not ideal) and some of the clarifications the designer made on BGG in response to player questions.

There is some merit to your opinion that you are subjected to increased luck of your card draw for the turn since the hand size is small, but there are more choices to do with your turn than I think you realized based on how you explained the game.

I really don't know if you'll like Pergamemnon any better when played as intended, but I do feel that you reviewed the game with significant (although, perhaps, subtle) differences in how it was designed to be played. I feel you missed some of the interesting nuances as a result, at least going by how you explained the game.

Unfortunately, I played all of those rules correctly. For relative brevity, I didn't go into ALL of the rules nuances...but rest assured I played properly. While I agree it isn't simply war, it definitely isn't a game for me...and it definitely shouldn't be played 2 player. More players, sure...not 2.

Also, a lot of the things you say I didn't cover I mentioned, if only in passing, such as how counter attacking works and draws...