Sometimes you see a game at the store and the name just begs you to buy it. That game a couple weeks ago was Yetisburg, a civil war combat game with a fantasy setting twist. The Union and the Confederacy square off with the aid of melee combat specialist Yetis and long range artillery Mastodons.
Each player has access to identical armies, each with infantry and cavalry (regular and elite troopers, the elite being able to withstand more damage before needing to head to the hospital), Generals, Mastodons and Yetis. Game play is pretty straightforward. Each player has 5 columns of troops, 3 rows deep. The first and second rows, the front and reserve lines, are face up and can make attacks or take advantage of abilities. The third row is the supply line, face down cards that will be used to replenish the first two rows when when those cards are killed in combat. Player's take turns attacking by playing a card from their hand, and ordering all troops of that card type to attack. Results of the attack are created randomly, by drawing a meat token and flipping it over to see what direction the shot went, and what the range of the shot is. Damage is dealt by counting the number of rows in the direction listed, according to the units ability. Regular troops all deal one damage while yetis and mastodons deal damage equal to the range. Killed troops are sent to the discard pile, and lines are replenished. This goes back and forth until both players have either exhausted all their troops or both players pass their turn to attack. After that, players can use their Generals in the field to refresh troops for the next turn, swap positions, or bring troops back from the discard pile into the fight. The game continues on until someone cannot reinforce their lines from the supply line, or when drawing cards for their hand cant draw anymore.
Yeti combat is a little different from regular troops. They move to a row in between the players front lines called the trench. Yetis crash through their own lines, killing friendly troops to get into the trench, and if their is an opposing Yeti in the trench for their column, they will knock them back to the opponents front lien, killing any troops that are there. If a Yeti gets hit by friendly fire, they swap sides, going under control of your opponent until they get hit again. Yetis only deal damage to the units directly next to them.
My game group has played this game now a few times and has come to a pretty much unanimous consensus: The game is a a fun, quickly paced short game, but the randomness doesn't leave you really wanting to play it again and again. The combat mechanic makes it extremely likely you're going to on more than one occasion shoot your own troops, especially those at the left and right of them. If there was a way to somehow get a little more strategic control of how units were shooting the game would be a bit better for replay value, especially since the artwork on the cards is so fantastic.
