OUR REVIEW

THE SUN REVEALS ALL (Chamisso)

Helios

SUN LIGHTS UP THE LAND

Games published by „Hans im Glück“ for me are virtually a guarantee for excellent games. Why? Well, highlights like Brügge, Carcassonne, Dominion, El Grande, Hawaii, Russian Railroads, Stone Age, St. Petersburg and many more are a statement unto themselves. Not for nothing the publisher, Bernd Brunnhofer, who was born in Graz, has won already six times the award “Spiel des Jahres” and, equally often, the award “Deutscher Spielepreis”. So I did approach Helios with very high expectations and - let me tell you right at the beginning - I was not disappointed. The designer duo Martin Kalleborn and Matthias Prinz spent four years in developing the game and the time was well spent.

Helios the God of Sun was a grandson of Uranus and Gaia, the founders of the Titan dynasty. He was the driver of the Sun Chariot in Greek mythology, being preceded by his Sister Eos, representing dawn, and followed by Selene, the Moon goddess. Both are very well known to solvers of crossword puzzles. I could not figure out, however, why the rules mention Hanau, the Mayan God of Sun, and it seemed a bit of a clashing topic to me. Helios was also glorified by a Colossus at the entry of the harbor of Rhodes and thus was one of the seven ancient wonders of the world.

So you need not be able to speak Greek to know that this game Helios is all about the sun, or to express it more precisely, that the sun is is all that is important in the game. You are tasked with creating your own region, which is made up from five different landscape cases, which can be populated with temples. IN addition to the temples you can acquire buildings and persons who will give you advantages, but more on that later. As is only to be expected from a „Hans im Glück“ game, we can warm our hearts at the plethora of components that we find in the big rectangular box. Each player receives his own landscape board and also a city board with 12 buildings that can be acquired. This is supplemented by a sun disc, a sun marker and a summary card. There is also a little cloth bag to hold the victory points that you collect in the course of the game.

Other components include 70 houses, 48 action tiles featuring three different symbols, 70 resource bits in five different colors, 30 red Mana stones, made from synthetics as well as 36 landscape tiles, also sorted into colors, 104 markers for victory points and 8 person cards that can be acquired and enable you to collect special victory points.

How to play: A lot of decisions need to be taken all over the game, which are partly also influenced by chance. This starts with the action tiles that are displayed sorted by symbols. On one hand taking of such a tile determines one of the following actions which in turn can also be implemented in different ways and on the other hand you should try to choose identical colors, if possible, as this results in a bonus action which gives you an extra turn. Grey tiles are used as jokers and can replace any color. By the way, as regards a bonus action - one building, the palace, also provides this advantage.

Let’s start with the various options for actions. If you have decided to expand you can choose from different landscape tiles or special tiles. This results in a certain resource appearing on the board. There is Bamboo (green), Granite (gray), Mammoth tree (brown), Obsidian (black) and a Spring (blue). Those resources acquire long-term planning. Expanding the landscape is done by placing your chosen tile on a free adjacent case. That means, at the start you have already five adjacent cases to choose from. I recommend to build in a way that as many tiles as possible benefit from sun rays at the same time, during the sun movement phase.

A second option would be to decide on extending temples or to acquire a building. Temples, however, cost at least one resources of your choice, each additional one costs one additional resource, but they are indispensable if you want to score victory points during the sun movement phase. As consolation, so to say, you receive the same amount of Mana as your spent resources. This Mana is necessary for acquiring persons later on. If you decide to build a house you hand in the necessary resources and place the house on the cost markings of the building type. The advantage and special functions of the building are instantly available to you. A point of information: White resources are deemed to be neutral and be replaced by any resource and you can also trade resources in a ratio of 2:1.

The third option for an action would be to choose sun movement. The sun is not only the eponym for the game, but also a deciding factor in acquiring victory points or the reload empty landscape tiles with resources. The sun may move in relation to its position on the sun track, but minimum one step, whereby it must be permanently in contact with the landscape area and must avoid dead ends. You also need to pay attention to the fact that there are 11 pre-determined positions that can either yield resources, Mana or victory points at the very end of the game After a complete sun circuit you receive five victory points for your bag.

The action phase is followed by the persons phase. At that point you can acquire one of eight persons on display or activate a person that you did acquire previously. The costs for activation are again combinations of resources. Advantages of the person only come into effect when the person is activated - additional movement, Mana and especially victory points at the end of the game.

The last phase is the refill phase. New landscape tiles are revealed and equipped with resources. The remaining two action cards are removed and 16 new action cards are revealed. The starting player changes and the second round out of three rounds begins. Players in third and fourth position receive one additional resource of their choice. This should even out the advantage of the starting player.

Components and rules are, as is only to be expected, flawless. As regards to the victory point markers, we would have been happy if there were some of value 3. The time frame of 45 to 60 minutes is too optimistic. It doesn’t even need a thinker for the game to take 90 minutes. But all this does not diminish the fun with the game at all. Due to the enormous amount of acquisition decisions one has to take - 12 buildings and eight person cards - Helios recommends itself rather more to experienced players that to casual ones, and experienced players will enjoy the game. In your group the game was well received and I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

Rudolf Ammer

Players: 2-4

Age: 10+

Time: 90+

Designer: Martin Kallenborn, Matthias Prinz

Artist: Dennis Lohausen

Price: ca. 40 Euro

Publisher: Hans im Glück 2014

Web: www.hans-im-glueck.de

Genre: tactical/strategic development

Users: For experts

Version: de

Rules: de en fr

In-game text: nein

Comments:

Well-structured rules

Good, functional components

Very attractive board

Compares to:

All games with selecting of actions

Other editions:

Z-Man Games, Filosofia Editions

My rating: 6

Rudolf Ammer:

A very varied game with many different winning strategies, a game offering a high replay value.

Chance (pink): 0

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 0

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 1