Stonemaier Games: Scythe (Base Game) by Jamey Stegmaier | an Engine-Building, Area Control Strategy Board Game with Mechs, Set in Dieselpunk 1920+ Europe for Adults and Family | 1-5 Players, 115 Mins
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Availability:
In Stock.
Arrives
Thursday, Jul 30
Style: Base
Features
- Explore: It is a time of unrest in 1920s Europa. The ashes from the first great war still darken the snow. The capitalistic city-state known simply as The Factory, which fueled the war with heavily armored mechs, has closed its doors, drawing the attention of several nearby countries.
- Alternate History: Scythe is an engine-building game set in an alternate-history 1920s period in Eastern Europe. It is a time of farming and war, broken hearts and rusted gears, innovation and valor.
- High Replayability and Variability: With five different factions and five different player boards, players can mix and match to enhance replayability. Asymmetric powers keep the game fresh every time!
- Quick Turns: Scythe uses a streamlined action-selection mechanism (no rounds or phases) to keep gameplay moving at a brisk pace and reduce downtime between turns. This area majority strategy game for 1-5 players has a 115 minute playing time with only a 5 minute setup time. Great game for couples, solo gamers, 2 players, family, and friends.
- Low Luck and Randomness: Scythe gives players almost complete control over their fate. Other than each players individual hidden objective card, the only elements of luck are encounter cards that players will draw as they interact with the citizens of newly explored lands.
- Beautifully Designed and Illustrated: Designed by Jamey Stegmaier (Viticulture). Richly developed alternate reality with interesting and beautiful 1920+ artwork done by Jakub Rozalski (Iron Harvest).
- Cold War Tension: The tension comes more from the threat of combat than the combat itself. Combat hurts both parties but can also benefit both parties. Popularity is lost when you are the attacker in Scythe or forcing a worker to move off of their land, but popularity is gained when making decisions that would gain popularity in a story.
- Thematically Designed Mechanisms: The reward descriptions on the Encounter cards add a role-playing feel to Scythe, giving your decisions some morality conflicts besides just selecting from resource benefits.The animal companions, mechs, and characters all tell a rich story of intrigue and sought glory. Upgrades reveal more benefits and make progress in the game easier, giving the feeling of actually upgrading something.
- Solo Play: Features an Automa to play against in a 1-player game for a fun solitaire experience. The Automa simulates an opponent for you to compete against, while your game as a player remains the same. On the Automas turn, flip a card to see what action it takes.
- Published by Stonemaier: Stonemaier is a tabletop game publisher based in St. Louis and distributed worldwide. Stonemaier's brands include Viticulture, Euphoria, Between Two Cities, Scythe, Charterstone, My Little Scythe, Between Two Castles, Wingspan, Tapestry, Pendulum, Red Rising, Rolling Realms Collection, Libertalia, Smitten, Expeditions, Apiary, Wyrmspan, Stamp Swap, Finspan, Tokaido, Vantage, and Origin Story.
Features
- It is a time of unrest in 1920s Europa. The ashes from the first great war still darken the snow. The capitalistic city-state known simply as The Factory, which fueled the war with heavily armored mechs, has closed its doors, drawing the attention of several nearby countries
- Lead your faction to victory, building mechs, working the land, and exploring the mysterious factory, all while protecting your territory from the mechs of other encroaching factions
- Explore the alternate-history of 1920 plus Europe through Jakub Rozalski's stunning artwork
- For 1-5 players
- Plays in 90-120 minutes
Brand: Stonemaier Games
Material: Paper
Theme: Mystery
Genre: Science Fiction
Number of Players: 5
Product Dimensions: 14.57 x 11.81 x 3.94 inches
Item Weight: 2.2 pounds
Country of Origin: China
Item model number: STM600
Manufacturer recommended age: 14 years and up
Is Discontinued By Manufacturer: No
Release date: August 10, 2016
Language: English
Manufacturer: Stonemaier Games
Age Range Description: Adult
Brand Name: Stonemaier Games
Included Components: 1 game board, 5 player mats, 5 faction mats, 5 plastic character miniatures, 20 plastic mech miniatures, 2 rulebooks (multiplayer and solo), 1 quick reference guide, 6 structure bonus tiles, 42 combat cards, 23 objective cards, 28 encounter cards, 12 factory cards, 5 riverwalk cards, 5 quick-start cards, 2 power dials, 80 coins tokens, 12 multiplier tokens, 12 encounter tokens, 36 wooden technology cubes, 80 wooden resource tokens, 5 wooden action tokens, 5 wooden popularity tokens, 36 wooden star tokens, 20 wooden structure tokens, 20 wooden recruit tokens, 48 wooden workers
Unit Count: 1.0 Count
Item Type Name: board game
Model Name: Scythe
Set Name: Base Game
UPC: 791109147986 653341025005
Global Trade Identification Number: 05
Manufacturer Maximum Age (MONTHS): 1200.0
Manufacturer Minimum Age (MONTHS): 168
Model Number: STM600
Item Part Number: STM600
Manufacturer Part Number: STM600
Manufacturer Warranty Description: No Warranty
Manufacturer: Stonemaier Games
Material Type: Cardboard, Cardstock, Plastic, Wood
Number of Players: 1-5
Number of Items: 1
Language: English
Estimated Playing Time: 115 Minutes
Is Assembly Required: No
Indoor Outdoor Usage: Indoor
Educational Objective: Develop strategic thinking and planning skills
Operation Mode: Manual
Power Source: Board Game
Supported Battery Types: No battery required
Theme: Mystery
Color: Multi-colored
Subject Character: Sichel
Product Style: Base
Grenre: Eurogame, Strategy
Item Dimensions L x W: 14.57"L x 11.81"W
Package Quantity: 1
Item Weight: 7.25 Pounds
Size: One Size
Item Dimensions: 11.81 x 4 x 14.57 inches
Frequently asked questions
If you place your order now, the estimated arrival date for this product is:
Thursday, Jul 30
Yes, absolutely! You may return this product for a full refund within 30 days of receiving it.
To initiate a return, please visit our Returns Center.
View our full returns policy here.
To initiate a return, please visit our Returns Center.
View our full returns policy here.
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Top Amazon Reviews
Style: Base
This game looks busy, so many little pieces, so many little actions. However, it's not as it seems. I don't like overcomplicated games with convoluted rules. If I buy a game then I expect to learn it and play it, not spending time a college course equivalent of reading through and learning the rules. For the longest time, I avoided this game because of how busy it looks. Eventually, after hearing the praises by others and a 30 dollar price drop I decided to buy it. I was surprised to find a very engaging game with an efficient rule set. The system is what makes it work. If you have played enough games over the years one thing you will notice is how a few of the mechanics are borrowed. Little bits of other working games fitted in just right, like a recipe for a good meal. With that in mind, I would describe this game as a two-course meal. The action mats like the appetizer with the actions playing out on the game board like the main course. During the game, you will primarily interact with these two mechanics. First the action boards. They are laminated cardboard, unlike whole pieces, this makes them feel heavier and longer-lasting. Most of your bits and bobs fit into these mats. The small squares, most of the figures and buildings start or stay on this matt. As you play you only be interacting with parts of this mat making things much more easier to manage. Each section is just two actions so you will never have to deal with more than these two actions. The main actions on the top will either give resources or allow you to perform an action on the game board while the bottom the optional action will always cost something but will upgrade something, making things easier later or allowing you to deploy something. The player mats are mainly for reference and will be interacted with only when needed, like deploying a mech or using an inlist action giving a quick bonus or stat upgrades. The game board, this sucker is huge. Not only that but they have a larger board on the bottom that you can add to. On the game board, there are resources, tunnels, lakes and even a central factory. Using your action board you interact with the game board. Choose a move action and move a piece, choose a deploy action and deploy a worker. Using a secondary action to build/place a mech. Moving your workers onto a resource allows you to use the produce action to create resources that you can use any time to pay for costs on your action board. Doing this creates a cycle of production and paying costs to improve your possibilities. You're never doing more than one normal interaction with the game board at any one given time unless you start combat. By moving your character or mechs into spaces with your opponent's pieces starts combat. In this case, worker pieces will flee and or you fight your opponent's characters and mechs using combat cards and the combat dial. During gameplay, you will draw cards with numbers bonuses and gain power with the bolster action. Combat is easy, spend power using your dial and add power cards to add bonuses to it. Each player has the dial and cards face down, reveals them and the highest numbers win. That simple. The loser takes their peace and places them at the home base. The cost is though if you force workers to flee you will lose popularity, apparently, the people of your employer don't like seeing you bully unarmed people. Lastly on the game board are encounters. These are represented by tokens and if your player peace runs into one you draw an encounter card. These are great. Each one has three choices that are tied into one another and will put you in the situation to gain something and lose something depending on what you do. They represent great extra flavor and things that can mix things up. Combat vs peace. Despite using mechs the game is only one part combat. The other two parts being production and popularity. Combat can be useful but it's not the endgame method. The game is balanced nicely to make it so that no one player can dominate in any one given area, instead of its all about taking what you can do to push past your opponents. In this way, combat is more of a tool used only when you really need to instead of an end-all solution. A player can initiate combat just with the idea of placing a star on the victory track or just when you really need to push out an opponent from a strategic spot. The same goes for resources, you can't win just doing what an econobox does. You will need to fight sooner or later and worrying about resources gives no direct advantage. Popularity, the final component is how popular your character becomes, despite seemingly small, this is the last third of the game. In this case the more your people like you the more bonuses you get at the end of the game. The end goal is to end up the richest among your peers. You will earn some gold during the game but most of it will come from the popularity track. The multipliers on this track is a make it or break it, mechanic. Being down just one tier on this track can break a win. So popularity is very important and you need to keep in mind throughout the entire game. One thing I want to bring up though is how the game is balanced so it's very difficult for any player to truly know if they are winning. No single player during this game will be able to say they are absolutely winning. Only at the final moments of calculations will anyone truly know. In the manual, it is stated that this is done on purpose. This is great because it makes for an enjoyable experience throughout the whole game. It makes it harder for those power gamers of the world to create bad situations and makes it easier for new players to enjoy themselves. There is a rule in the game that states that at no time should any player attempt to take their turn calculating the other players. If any player takes more than 30 seconds gauging the other players they automatically lose 10 popularity. A very large penalty considering that's more than half possible. Overall I have really enjoyed this game despite my previous fears and recommend the base game for any player. For people who end up a fan than buying the expansions is definitely worth it. I got this game for 60, a great buy for a game you can easily spend 90 to 100 for at your local shop. The components despite being cardboard, plastic and wood are well made. The components even play into the rules a little to help smooth certain things over. This game is best for serious board game players but definitely accessible for people who are more casual. So give it a try and play on.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2020 by AtlusFox
Style: Base
I rarely write reviews. This game is fantastic. Every game I play is different then the previous round, and even if I lose, I want to get better. Takes some time to learn, but it is so worth it. Give this game a couple of rounds and you will be hooked.
Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2023 by Josh Martin
Style: Base
Throughly enjoyable game that requires planning the best actions and moves to succeed. Love it. Wife and I enjoy are 2 player games. More challenging with 3 or 4 as the board requires more interaction with others to succeed at your goals.
Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2023 by Survivor Survivor
Style: Base
Behold!! Gaze in amazement, as you have stumbled upon the greatest board game, in all the ages! Prepare yourself to be immersed in a glorious steam-punk reality of endless wonder! You my friend, are about to embark on the intrepid journey that is.... Scythe!! With the expansion pack, choose from 7 different factions, and 7 different game boards to set forth on your quest of glory! Boost your defenses, conquer your surrounding land, and take no prisoners from your enemies! I've currently played well over 100 games of scythe, which probably clocks in close to 150 hours of total game time. I can honestly say it is THE most fun board game I've played, and I'm still not tired of it. Many other board games I will vouch for as being amazing, and I've played them several times over, but at some point, even those games become a little stale, and the gameplay itself becomes boiled down to a science. Such is not the case with scythe. It's got just enough random elements to keep it fresh and new every time you play it, without making it so random that you have no control over the outcome. It's the perfect blend. And now with its most recent expansion "Wind Gambits" the game has evolved anymore. But for newcomers, don't let the expansion intimidate you. I highly recommend playing the base game of Scythe for all it's worth (which is a TON) before worrying about playing with the expansion. I am an avid board gamer, and this is truly a one of a kind game that I have yet to become bored with, and I have yet to dice up into a science. Every single game will have you attempting new strategies, and exploring new options to declare yourself the victor. One of the most exciting parts of Scythe is that when the game ends, rarely will there ever be a distinct winner before the final points have been carefully calculated. There is a Scythe app on iOS and Android that I highly recommend downloading for deciding factions at the beginning of the game, and tallying score at the end. Without going into game play detail (I'll leave that to the rulebook) What I can say is that Scythe is, on the surface, a very complex game, but once you get your feet wet and play it, it really isn't too terrifying to learn. There's only so much you can do per turn, and once you run through it a few times, you begin to see the gears of the game click and turn, and you'll have a well running engine of a faction in no time! If you're just starting out with a group of people who are also new to the game, you're going to have your questions and missteps along the way where you might find you weren't playing certain rules down to their very exact intent, but this is perfectly fine. A lot of the fun in Scythe is discovering all the things you missed, or even may have been doing incorrectly, and changing up your game for the next time. For the most part, Scythe is an incredibly balanced game. If you get into a rhythm of playing with a core group of people, you'll start to realize the few imbalances it has *cough* Industrial Rusviet *cough* and learn to play around them. Again, figuring out what each faction is good at, how to make it work with your unique play mat, and formulate the best plan of attack, are just a few of the things that make Scythe such an immersive and brilliant game that will have you wanting to re-rack the game again and again. Hour and half to two-hour sessions seem like mere minutes when you really start grasp how fun the game is. If I had one gripe about the game, it would be the amount of players that can play. It's nice that Scythe can include 7 players, especially if you have a lot of board-game savvy friends who all want to be included. But be warned! 6 or 7-player games of Scythe tend to drag on, and when that happens, more often than not, one if not more people will lose interest, and thus become unenthused with the game. And nothing kills the fun of a game, like some one who is currently playing the game and not giving a crap about it. So if you have 6 or 7 brave souls willing to stick it out, it's best that all parties involved have a vast knowledge of the game, and indeed the actually WANT to play, knowing full well what they are signing up for. The sweet spot for Scythe, seems to be around the 4-5 player mark. The games are long enough that you don't feel cheated out of an epic board game experience, but short enough that the ADD in your friends doesn't start to show itself, and manifest into playing candy crush on their phones in between turns. Scythe is a massively wonderful game of strategy that I would absolutely suggest to any board game enthusiast looking to play one of the greatest games of all time. If new to board games, I would suggest watching several Scythe tutorials on the internet or playing with some one who has played before and has a good concept of the game. Again, it's complex, but not so much that I would say anyone wanting to learn the game, wouldn't be able to, regardless of their prior knowledge of board games. If you're willing to invest a little time to learn this game, you won't be disappointed!!
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Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2017 by Luke Marrs
Style: Base
Awesome game. We play a lot. It has a lot of different game parts of other games combined into one very strategic game. There are no dice which we like because it takes most of the luck out of the play. Until we played this game Catan was by far the best. And now I would rate this as the top game. We have all the expansions to go with Scythe and the wind gambit is great despite the reviews it receives.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2023 by Thomas
Style: Base
Scythe is a complex game with a lot going on during play. You have to pay close attention to each move. Setting up & packing away the game takes almost as long as playing a game! Beautiful design! Many pieces! The game is fun to play. Very detailed & players have to keep track of several goals as they play. Recommend watching a couple of through play videos on YouTube. Found these to be really helpful in learning how to play Scythe. It will take awhile to be good at the game.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2023 by Amazon Customer
Style: Base
My cousin had introduced me to Scythe a few months ago and i found it so much fun. definitely recommend if your into strategy games and hanging out with your friends
Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2023 by Jerakiah Emerson