Lords of Hellas Unboxing/How to Play

Hello everyone, welcome!  I am an excited person today, more so than the other night when I had a shandy and talked gibberish for hours.  (I don’t normally drink so I qualify as a light weight).  Anyway, the reason I am excited is that wave one of my most hotly anticipated Kickstarter arrived this week and I got to guddle about in the box.  And it was awesome.  If you didn’t figure it out from the title, the Kickstarter in question was Lords of Hellas by Awaken Realms.  Lords of Hellas is a game set 1000 years BC in Ancient Greece, with a bit of a twist.  All the Greek Gods and Monsters are real, however they are aliens and their powers are simply advanced technology which they are more than happy to share with their worshipers.  Lords of Hellas has a variety of ways to win, including Territory control, Constructing a monument to the gods or slaying monsters.  Multiple options means multiple ways to play, with replayability added to by the fact that there are three monuments to choose from (Athena, Zeus, Hermes) and that is only the core set.  In Wave 2 we can expect Apollo, Hades, Hephaestus, Atlas and Poseidon.  Anyway, enough babbling by me.  Lets look in the box.

Update.

Since originally publishing this post on Feb 12 2018 I have since done a How to Play Video.  I include it now.

As is customary in these posts, I will now include a legion of photographs.

Lords of Hellas Set up and Ready to play

Helen, Her Hoplites and Priests From Lords of Hellas

Helen's player boards from Lords of Hellas

Heracles, Hoplites and Priests from Lords of Hellas

Heracles' Player Boards from Lords of Hellas

Perseus, Hoplites and Priests from Lords of Hellas

Perseus' Player Board from Lords of Hellas

Achilles, Hoplites and Priests from Lords of Hellas

(I am aware that some of the images are a bit blurry – I am hoping that the one for Achilles gives you a good enough idea of the units in any faction)

Achilles' Player Board from lords of hellas

The Hoplite Symbol on a Region denotes how many Hoplites are required to control it

Sparta - using the Terrain Expansion

A City - using the Terrain Expansion

You will note there is room in Sparta and the City miniatures for a Hoplite Unit to “Fortify”.  The terrain expansion was a Kickstarter thing, the core board still has symbols and room for a Hoplite to fortify.

Locations with the Shrine Symbol (to the right of Crete) are locations you can build templesTemples start off the board on the Temple Card. As each one is built there is a chance to draft blessings

There are multiple Temple cards, one of which is assigned at random at the start of the game.  Each one has a different order of when Blessing Drafts happen, and they also have differing rewards for building the Oracle of Delphi (The big one at the front).  The miniatures are from the Terrain expansion, the base game ships with card representations.

The completed Hermes Monument

The completed Athena Monument

The completed Zeus Monument

And now that we have seen the Gods in all their five parted glory, we look at the monsters.  Monsters are played when their respective event is drawn from the Event Deck.

This Event dictates Medusa appears in Attica

Enter Medusa

Medusa and her card

What if Medusa is already on the board when you draw her card?  Nothing?  Not likely!  The second time a monster card is drawn it is used to evolve the monster into a more powerful version.  As if it needed more power…

Medusa after evolution

And there are more monsters…

Cerberus

The Hydra

The Cyclops

The Minotaur

The Chimera

The Sphinx

Of course, slaying monsters is not the only way to be heroic (and thus earn glory).  You can complete Quests by visiting their location.

Heroes initiate quests by going to their location on the board

Once arrived, if the Hero meets the pre-requisites for level one of the quest, they move from the main board to the Quest Board.  For instance, if pre-requisite one was “Be in focus when getting pictures taken”, Achilles would not be able to initiate the quest.

Qualifying heroes move to the first location on the quest track

Once on a quest track, heroes cannot leave until completion.  If they meet the requirements, each turn they can advance one space on the track until completion.

Now, let’s have a closer look at some of the cards.

 

 

 

Combat Cards

Monster Combat Cards

Artifacts

Of course, there are other, more powerful artifacts, in the game that can be claimed by controlling monuments or by slaying monsters…

You can also accumulate blessings.  Below I am showing two blessing from each of the starter Gods, there are more blessings (and eventually, more Gods)

The Blessings of Athena

The Blessings of Hermes

The Blessings of Zeus

For a game with a lot of options, it is helpful to have prompt cards.  Lords of Hellas provides two of these.

Help Card - with Turn order and Army Strength Calculator

Help Card - with Monument Bonuses and Monster Hunt Helper

And that was all the important stuff in the box.  And I have to say it took ages.  So, when I got to the end, I started to think silly thoughts…

 

Joke about Dune

And that is all for me today.  I will be updating this post in the future with a “How to play video” however, I cannot give a definitive answer on when that will be.  Anyway, that is Lords of Hellas.  It looks really awesome and I hope to have more to tell you about it soon!  Bye for now.

 

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7 thoughts on “Lords of Hellas Unboxing/How to Play

  1. Annoying little voice again: “It’s monday that means we usually get a new post from John about boardgames…oh look there it is ” Me trying to ignore the voice and moving on. Annoying little voice again “Ah…this looks like a game that can’t be played solo…so you are safe, no harm in checking this out”.
    Me….checking the post out….looking at all the components thinking, wow this game looks absolutely stunning. Moving on boardgame geek, looking at number of players: 1-6. …Me ” curse you annoying little voice….. 😢😢😢”

    1. Yup. Solo mode has the monuments built at the star of the game (which is cool) and you fight the Persians. Haven’t read the solo rules yet though. Also, pay attention next Monday. I have put an Easter Egg in the next post…

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