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Running a horse business sounds peaceful, right? Fresh air, green fields, horses doing their thing. Then you sit down with Epona and realise you’re basically juggling staff, money, planning, and a small army of horses that all want different things. I mean… peaceful, but also not really.
In Epona you’re building your own stable business from scratch. You pick locations, hire people, add equipment, and slowly grow this little network in front of you. Everything is cards on the table, and how you place them matters more than you think. It’s not just “I have a good card”, it’s “why did I put this here three turns ago and now everything is awkward”.
And then there’s breeding. Because of course there is. At some point you realise you’re not just running a stable, you’re also managing relationships between horses. I wasn’t expecting that part of the job, honestly.
👥 1-6 players, ages 10+
⌛ Playing time: 40-70 minutes
📝 Designer: Vladimír Suchý
🎨 Artwork: Marcela Hradska, Martina Lásková, Milan Vavroň & Anna Zvočová
🏢 Publisher: Delicious Games (review copy provided)
Gameplay Overview
At its core, Epona is about building rows of cards that represent your stables. Each row starts with a stable card, and that tells you how many cards can go there and what types you need. One thing that caught us off guard early on is that there’s a difference between finishing a stable and actually completing it. You can fill all the slots and still not meet the requirements, which means you miss out on rewards. That felt a bit rough the first time it happened.
Each round follows the same three steps. First, you get cards. In the lower interaction version, you choose from a set of options that tell you what to draw and how many cards you can keep. In the higher interaction version, players are paired. One player draws cards, splits them into two groups, and the other chooses one. It sounds simple, but it leads to those moments where you try to outthink each other and it doesn’t quite go as planned.
After that, you place cards into your tableau. You add them to your stable rows, paying coins if needed and triggering bonuses. Cards don’t have to be placed next to each other, which gives you flexibility, but also makes decisions harder because there are more options to consider. Placement matters a lot here. Some cards care about what’s next to them, others about their row or column, so you’re constantly thinking about how things might work together later on.
You can also add new stable rows, although there are limits, so you have to choose when it’s worth expanding. Breeding is another option during this phase. You need a male and female horse and a stud token, and the owner of the female horse decides if it happens. If it involves another player, they need to agree too, so there’s a bit of interaction there. Matching types gives you more points, but it doesn’t always line up with what you’re trying to do.
At the end of the round, you clean up and move on. You can keep one card for the next round, which doesn’t sound like much, but sometimes it’s exactly what you need. After all rounds are done, you score everything and see how your decisions played out.
Artwork, Components, and Visual Design
The game looks nice in a very natural way. You get a lot of green landscapes, wooden elements, and detailed horse illustrations. It fits the theme well without trying too hard. The horses are varied enough that they don’t all blend together, which helps, especially since you’ll be looking at them a lot.
The iconography is clear and consistent, which is important because there’s quite a bit of information on each card. Once you get used to it, it’s easy to read, but it can feel like a lot at first. Most of the game is cards, supported by tokens and wooden cubes. There are also owner cards that give you small bonuses as you play.
For us, it’s the kind of presentation that works well for the game. It supports what you’re doing without getting in the way, but it’s not something that really stands out on its own either.
Our Experience
The first game was a bit confusing, not because the rules were hard, but because it wasn’t clear what we should focus on. You can play correctly and still end up with something that doesn’t score well, which is a bit frustrating at first.
After a couple of plays, things start to make more sense. You begin to understand how the different parts connect, and especially how important placement is. You also realise that fixing mistakes later is difficult, so early decisions matter more than you expect.
The flow of the game stays consistent throughout. Early rounds are about building a base, while later rounds are about getting as much value as possible out of what you already have. There’s often a feeling that you’re slightly behind your own plan, like you’re trying to catch up with decisions you made earlier.
Managing the stable rows is one of the more interesting parts. You’re constantly choosing between finishing a row, leaving it as it is, or starting a new one. None of these options feels clearly right, which makes the decisions more engaging.
The economy also plays a bigger role than we thought. Coins help you place cards, but they also give you flexibility when your hand isn’t great. Ignoring that part of the game doesn’t work very well.
Breeding didn’t always land for us. Sometimes it fits naturally into what you’re doing, but other times it feels like something extra that doesn’t quite pay off. It depends a lot on the situation.
Towards the end of the game, things can slow down a bit. There’s a lot to check and consider, which leads to moments where everyone is just looking at their own tableau, trying to figure out the best move. It’s not a big issue, but you do feel it.
Our Thoughts
For us, Epona feels like a game where everything works, but it doesn’t always come together in a way we enjoyed. It asks quite a bit from you, with different systems and scoring conditions to keep track of.
What stood out is how little room you have to adjust once things are in place. Once your tableau is set up in a certain way, it’s hard to adjust, which can be satisfying if things go well, but also frustrating if they don’t.
You can try different approaches because of the card variety, but the overall structure stays the same. It feels more like getting better at the same system rather than discovering something new each time.
The theme is nice and a bit different, but the gameplay itself is quite abstract. It comes across less like running a stable and more like solving a puzzle that happens to have horses on it.
Between the two variants, we preferred the one with more interaction. It created more interesting situations between players, while the lower interaction version felt more like everyone playing their own game.
In the end, Epona is a game we respect more than we love. It has a lot going on and does it well, but it didn’t fully click for us every time. Still, if you enjoy this kind of puzzle, there’s definitely something here. Just don’t expect something relaxing… it can feel more like fixing small problems you created earlier than smoothly building something.
📝 We received a copy of the game from Delicious Games.
