Our Review

SAints and guardian angels

Ragami

Conflict RESOLUTION ON THE STREETS

Mythical beings who protect humans and help them when they have problems - within our culture we know them by the name of Guardian Angels; Ragami is another name for them. As players we assume the guise of such a Ragami and wander through the streets of the metropolis, represented by the game board. We encounter numerous conflicts which we try to resolve or at least try to assist in resolving them. But we are not alone with this quest, in addition to other Ragamis there are Saints and Demons on the prowl and interfere in conflicts.

With our help given to resolve conflicts we win Virtue points, and - very humanely - try to accumulate most of them and thus win the game.

Let’s take a look at the metropolis first: The game board shows part of a city with roads and Housing Blocks, overlaid by a grid of clearly marked and numbered squares - those are the locations where conflicts happen. All characters in the game - Ragamis, Saints and Demons move over those locations around the metropolis. Ragamis can also move along Housing Blocks, there are several conflict areas adjacent to each Housing Block. The bottom fringe of the game board features storage areas, areas for the action dice and a track on which we mark the conflicts we did resolve and the Virtue points we have accumulated.

First of all, we need to get some conflicts onto the board which we can then set out to resolve - therefore one player rolls the six black conflict dice and draws one location marker for each dice; both die and location marker are placed into the corresponding conflict area. Then the next player draws four additional location markers and places them, together with a Demon, into the corresponding conflict areas. Then you determine a starting player and each player chooses his color.

As basic equipment for our actions we are dealt three action cards; we choose one of them and discard the remaining two cards. This is already one of the deciding points in the game, because at that point you should really hand around the rules to enable each player to closely study the abilities of all the cards before deciding on one - but which is not really helpful, because I do not know yet, what will be the use of moving two Saints or of moving Demons or of rolling the power dice twice, and so on. Well, we have managed to decide on a card and now place - starting not surprisingly with the starting player - our Saints onto a conflict area and then - now beginning with the second player in playing order - our Virtue die any Housing Block, showing value one and there can be more than one Virtue die on a Housing Block. The third player in playing order now begins with placing his Ragami onto a Housing Block, there can only be one Ragami in a block. The fourth player is given the task to roll the action dice. He puts each die on one of the action areas; should the result of the roll have yielded one or several red One results, he places one Demon on any conflict area of his choice for each of those red One results. (The rule refers to road sections or road squares sometimes, but you always use the numbered conflict areas). Then the player turns the conflict die to any value but a red One and places it in an action area.

This finishes our preparations for the game and we can now concentrate on the game play. In playing order we always have one turn, until we pass. In a turn you can do an action using one of the action dice and then play as many action cards as you can and want to play. The order of these options is your choice, you can play action cards before and/or after the action of the action dice, but you also can do only one of the options. When all players have passed, the round ends.

The action dice on the action areas tell you, how often this action is available in this round of the game. When you decide on a die, you then decide on one of the actions that are offered in the area where the die is located and reduce the value of the die by 1. Actions are:

In the first area: Move a Saint or move/place a Demon OR move a Ragami. In the next are you can draw cards OR move a Ragami and in the third action area you can resolve a conflict OR move a Ragami.

For the movement of a Ragami there are stringent rules: You can only move your own Ragami, up to a maximum of four steps. You cannot move your Ragami onto the square with your own Saint but you can move the Ragami through such a square; a Ragami also cannot pass through or enter an area with an unresolved conflict and he can move from one Housing Block to the next without entering the road. Should a Ragami end its move on a square which holds only Demons, those Demons are removed from the game and the Ragami earns one VP per Demon. When the Ragami ends his move on a Housing Block with a Virtue die, the value of the die rises by 1.

If you want to move a Saint - also one that is not your own - you can only do so over road squares and also only for a maximum of four steps. A Saint cannot end his move on a spot with the Ragami of the same color and cannot go back to the square where he started the move. When a Saint is moved to a conflict area the player who moved the Saint and NOT the owner of the Saint, gets a white cube! When you did move a Saint, you must then either move a Demon or enter a new Demon on the board. A Demon only uses road squares, again up to four steps in any direction and not back to where he started. There is no restriction to the number of Saints and Demons on the same spot. When you use the action Draw cards, you cannot use the card in this action, and there is a card limit of three cards for your hand.

When we have used all those actions to reach an unresolved conflict and have arrived with our Ragami on an area holding a black conflict die, we can now try to resolve the conflict. To do so we must spend at least the number of power points equal to the sum of Demons present in the area plus the number of pips showing on the conflict die. Those power points are acquired from different sources: Each white cube you own is worth one power point - you can swap action cards for power cubes - each Saint present in the conflict area contributes a power point without spending a white cube and his owner scores one Virtue point when the conflict is resolved - you use your own Virtue die in an adjacent Housing Block up to the maximum number of visible pips - a second Ragami in the conflict area contributes two power points and is rewarded afterwards with two white cubes - or you can use the power die, but this stops and additional use of cards or Virtue die.

For solving the conflict you score the value of the conflict die in the shape as Virtue points and also mark one more conflict on the Resolved-Conflicts track. The conflict die is set aside; white cubes and cards are discarded.

Let me summarize here once again how you acquire white cubes: You take Saints to conflicts (+1 cube), you help another Ragami in solving a conflict (+2 cubes) or use action cards to trade them.  

Virtue points are acquired by trading white cubes for Virtue points or at the end of a move on an area holding only Demons or from resolving conflicts or from your Saint present at conflict resolving or from the Virtue die or at the end of the game for most or second most resolved conflicts.

When all players have passed, the next round is prepared:

- Unresolved conflicts are enhanced by one point, as are the values of all Virtue dice in Housing Blocks; they get one addition point for each Ragami in adjacent Housing Block or road

- Conflict dice not on the board are rolled and placed with a location marker drawn for each of them

- Values of Virtue dice can be exchanged for Virtue points, 3:1, or you can relocate the die to another Housing Block, which also changes the die value to 1.

- All action dice are rolled and placed again.

When after a move a player has acquired a total of 30 Virtue points or all location markers for the conflicts have been used, the game ends. The Ragami, who was involved in resolving the majority of conflicts, is awarded 7 additional Virtue points, and 4 Virtue points are awarded to the Ragami with the second most resolved conflicts.

If you are still with me, you will be happy to learn that Ragami, like 7 Wonders, is one of those games that explain themselves within a few minutes when playing them, but are difficult to explain verbally, because in order to explain one thing you need a term which you should explain first … When you have overcome this obstacle, Ragami offers you an attractive game with a positive and unusual topic, which all the same is not essential for the mechanism. The interaction between Saints and Ragamis is not self-evident, but all other mechanisms in the game are very direct: >Go to the conflict, collect as much support as you need and resolve the conflict. This is repeated again and again in a rather static and steady race for Virtue points, without any great fluctuations. In the interplay between rolling of conflict dice and action dice and the planning by players and their directed use of of cards planning has the advantage, albeit by a narrow margin. You can risk to involve other players in solving conflicts and them getting rewards as long as you manage to resolve a majority of conflicts, which in turn earns you an additional seven Virtue points. At least, that’s what you believe in your first games; later you will discover that there are some hidden strategies that you can use to thwart your opponents and earn the Virtue points all on your own.

Dagmar de Cassan

Players: 2-4

Age: 10+

Time: 90+

Designer: Gil d‘Orey

Art: Gil d‘Orey

Price: ca. 35 Euro

Publisher: Mesaboardgames 2012

Web: www.mesaboardgames.com

Genre: Placement game with dice

Users: With friends

Version: multi

Rules: de en es pt

In-game text: no 

Comments:

Rather dark, stark graphics despite angel topic

Some gaming experience useful for mastering the rules

Learning by doing works best

Compares to:

First game with this topic and combination of mechanism, in general a worker placement game

Other editions:

Currently none

My rating: 5

Dagmar de Cassan:

If the topic of the game appeals to you and you do not mind an intense look at the rules you are rewarded with a well-working, rather static game in which planning has a slight advantage over chance and in which you recognize additional option with every play.

Chance (pink): 2

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0