Wouter & Ymke 
Become an Egyptian God, build your army and destroy your rivals to claim your dominance and earn eternal worship!
2-5 players, ages 14+
Playing time: 90 minutes
Designers: Jacques Bariot & Guillaume Montiage
Artwork: Arnaud Boudoiron & Pierre Santamaria
Publisher: Editions Matagot
https://www.matagot.com/
Everyone has a few games that they would like to try out, but for some reason they never do. For me, Kemet has always been one of those games, probably because of the ‘battle’ that made it rather difficult to play with the people from my regular gaming group.
Until this new version was released, because who doesn’t want to play something so shiny and new.
As an Egyptian God, players earn points in various ways, until one of them starts their turn with 9 points, and immediately wins. There are 2 different types of points: permanent ones, gained after winning a battle or buying certain tiles, and temporary ones, which you receive for controlling temples or level 4 pyramids.
The action selection mechanism is fairly easy to explain: Each player has a pyramid on their player board, showing various actions, and 5 tokens to place on the actions they perform. The only limitation is at the end of each round, after taking 5 turns, each of the 3 pyramid levels has to have at least one token.
Actions allow players to gain troops or move them and go to battle, gain prayer points, or spend those either to build new pyramid levels or buy new power tiles. To buy these, you must control a pyramid of the same color that has to be at least the same level as the tile you want to buy.
Together with battling and controlling temples, these power tiles can be crucial on your path to victory, as they grant you things like special abilities, creatures to accompany your troops, and even points.
The battle is card driven and there’s no luck involved, for me certainly a big plus as this game forces players to engage in battle, take over each other’s pyramids and temples, and those temporary points that come with them.
The production quality is top notch, with beautiful artwork and miniatures that make the game look great on the table. Definitely recommended if you’re looking for an aggressive game with loads of direct player interaction, low luck and deep strategy.
