Mage Knight: the Board Game came to my attention when it hit the top of the Geek. There were two things that were fairly unanimous: this game had a monster learning curve, and it is one of the best solitaire games.
The first is a major deterrent for me. I used to play Avalon Hill wargames and was able to learn games up to the intermediate level. However, I’ve since gravitated towards easier games, so I wasn’t certain I would be able to grasp this. The second, however, is a major draw for me. I play mostly solo, so games that play well alone is important for me. I decided to take a chance on it when I found it (first edition) at a local toy/hobby store after it was sold out pretty much everywhere else.
I’m happy to report that this game is a peculiar bundle of contradictions.
Contradiction 1: This game is difficult to learn, but it isn’t complicated, but it’s freaking complex.
Learning the game came in several stages for me. First, I spent a week working through the walkthrough booklet. Then I became comfortable with it and was able to play, but had to constantly stop and look up things. Then I became comfortable with it and was able to play without looking up things, only to realize in retrospect that I had made some errors in play where I had known the rules but had trouble juggling all the mechanics. Then I became comfortable with it and was able to play and juggle the mechanics, only to realize from reading various threads that I had played certain aspects of it incorrectly where I had misunderstood the rules. My education with the game continues, but I’d like to think I’m making some progress.
There are several reasons for this game’s complexity. Most games are modular in the sense that you can learn parts of the game at a time. You can focus on movement, then you can focus on combat, then you can focus on unit stats, etc. Mage Knight is so tightly integrated that you can’t really learn any aspect of the game without understanding how everything else works. Once you’ve finally graduated in understanding how things tie together, then you can add in the rest of the elements that can be taken modularly. This is, in fact, how the walkthrough is structured and why it is so important in learning the game. But this tight integration is also the reason that finding what you need in the rule book is so problematic. I’ll go into more detail on this later.
Another reason for the complexity is that the different elements aren’t consistent with one another. 52
You can’t really learn a universal rule that applies to everything, because each element introduces its own exceptions. For example, if you don’t defeat all the monsters in some locations, you leave the monster. Others require you to discard the monster and draw a fresh monster when the location is tackled again. There are several offers, but each is handled differently. The game is very procedural and has a lot of technical nuances that have to be learned.
But the inconsistencies among the various elements gives each element its own feel. For example, gaining a spell allows you to select one of three displayed in the offer. So you know before gaining a spell whether there's anything that you really want. When you gain an artifact, you draw the number of cards from the artifact equal to the number of artifacts you have gained that turn plus one, and you never know beforehand what you will draw. You examine them and return the one you don't want back to the bottom of the artifact deck. So you know what you'll gain beforehand when you earn a spell, whereas you won't know what you will gain when you receive an artifact. That, for me, makes the technicalities worth the effort.
Once you’ve conquered learning the game, you then confront the challenge in actually playing. This is a highly challenging game, and certain elements seem impossible when you dive into it. You have to juggle several different resources. You have skill tokens, mana in both your inventory and the source (the mana dice), your hand of cards and the various effects each card provides, your units, your influence adjustment from your reputation, and the way these resources interact. This is why it’s so important to learn by playing the First Reconnaissance scenario several times.
So Mage Knight is certainly a game that requires a lot of dedication to learn. So that means it’s complicated, right? Well, mostly yes, but not quite. There was a very peculiar part of my learning process where I felt like Dr. <PERSON> in the Star Trek episode, “Spock’s Brain” where Dr. <PERSON> learns how to perform brain surgery from a device. I reached a point where I said to myself, “Oh, of course! 884