Scythe: Ten(ish) years in - A Scythe Board Game Review

I tend to have a almost constant flow of “potential...

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What hasn't been said about Scythe at this point? Hopefully, I hit upon some interesting, if not unique points points.

I've played this game exactly once and I hated it. I can't forgive a game that contains giant robots but doesn't really let them do anything.

I watched part of a game of Scythe, because the artwork is amazing, but it was only slightly more interesting than watching someone get their hair cut.

I think it has some good ideas, but it feels too sterile to me.

I've had Scythe earnestly recommended to me by my stepson. OTOH, with one exception, I've had it dismissed by everyone else whose opinion I trust, which would be mostly the TWBG crew as seen here and a couple other friends who generally gave it a similar "meh" shrug. The lone exception is right here, this minute, in these words by Wade. The problem I've had with Stonemaier games over the years is that they're just... fine. They're not great. They're not terrible. They're just fine. It was the problem I had with Wingspan. It was the problem I had with their reworking of Libertalia. I actually thought Tapestry was somewhat less than "fine." In most cases, they're not BAD games. I've been interested to try things like Apiary and Viticulture and even Scythe. But then I think about my experience with all of their other games and realize that I want more than "fine." As Wade notes here, they've released a ton of expansions that address some of the problems that people have had with the base game (they've done the same thing with Tapestry and Viticulture and Wingspan and...) and I'm not really that interested in having to buy expansions to "fix" the game that I thought I was getting in the first place (my primary complaint with Dune: Imperium, to use a non-Stonemaier example.) I think n815e's use of the word "sterile" may be a good description of my general opinion of most of Stonemaier's output. Again, not bad, but not compelling, either, and I can't say that I'm swayed to Scythe yet, either.

I am hopeful that Vantage is better than "fine," but I haven't gotten it on the table yet. The recent comments on this site about Vantage sparked my interest, and further investigation made it seem like the kind of game that I enjoy. I am hoping that the mechanical and possibly unthematic process of allocating rolled dice will not detract from the experience.

Jackwraith wrote: I've had Scythe earnestly recommended to me by my stepson. OTOH, with one exception, I've had it dismissed by everyone else whose opinion I trust, which would be mostly the TWBG crew as seen here and a couple other friends who generally gave it a similar "meh" shrug. The lone exception is right here, this minute, in these words by Wade. The problem I've had with Stonemaier games over the years is that they're just... fine. They're not great. They're not terrible. They're just fine. It was the problem I had with Wingspan. It was the problem I had with their reworking of Libertalia. I actually thought Tapestry was somewhat less than "fine." In most cases, they're not BAD games. I've been interested to try things like Apiary and Viticulture and even Scythe. But then I think about my experience with all of their other games and realize that I want more than "fine." As Wade notes here, they've released a ton of expansions that address some of the problems that people have had with the base game (they've done the same thing with Tapestry and Viticulture and Wingspan and...) and I'm not really that interested in having to buy expansions to "fix" the game that I thought I was getting in the first place (my primary complaint with Dune: Imperium, to use a non-Stonemaier example.) I think n815e's use of the word "sterile" may be a good description of my general opinion of most of Stonemaier's output. Again, not bad, but not compelling, either, and I can't say that I'm swayed to Scythe yet, either.

No amount of expansions can fix the fundamental flaws of SCYTHE ( bizarre movemement, pillow fight mech "combat" ) or TAPESTRY ( one game a player finished a half hour before everyone else. WTF??? And the stupid tetris sub board each player has ).

DUNE IMPERIUM I already liked, so the expansion was a no brainer.