Kaiju Table Battles

Designer: Amabel Holland
Art: Wil Alambre
Hex Number: 73
Duration: 30-60 minutes
Players: 2
Solitaire Suitability: High
Theme: Science Fiction
MSRP: $70.00

Clobber your enemies, knock down buildings, and unleash your fearsome breath weapons in this personal love letter to Showa-era monster fights. At its core, Amabel Holland's Kaiju Table Battles is about teams of giant monsters beating the snot out of each other on a tense 5 x 4 battle grid. Dice you roll and place this turn can be spent on a later turn to unleash attacks, or to use reactions to cancel or mitigate the attacks coming in your direction. Each of your fifty-foot fighters has their own combination of attacks, reactions, movement effects, and special powers, giving them a unique role on the battlefield and in your team.

While you're trying to win a match against your opponent, you're also working with them to achieve a cooperative goal that emphasizes some aspect of the game. For example, you might be trying to knock down three buildings, and the most efficient way to do that of course is to slam an enemy monster into them! Achieve the goal, and you'll get to open an envelope containing a brand new monster and a new rule that applies to all future matches. These envelopes also contain "swaps" – alternate attacks and powers for existing monsters, allowing you to customize your team and try out new strategies. (Each of the nine envelopes is hand-packed by the game's designer or someone important to her.)

Over the course of several matches, the game itself becomes more complex, challenging, and nuanced. It's not quite a legacy game – no components are destroyed or altered, and there isn't an overarching start-to-finish narrative with plot twists. But as the game's colorful cast of characters grows, what emerges is a kind of story told along the edges – a series of meditations on monsters, identity, community, and queerness.

• 38 starting cards
• Countersheet
• 3D Building sheet
• 1 Display sheet
• 1 Player's Aid
• 28-page rulebook
• 9 envelopes filled with surprises, hand-packed by the designer or someone important to her
• 12 dice