Initially a fan project turned print and play designed by father and daughter duo, Hoby and Vienna Chou, My Little Scythe, is a family friendly, kids focused spin-off from the beloved Scythe from Stonemaier Games. Here at The Fandomentals, we’re always looking for games that are enjoyed by a wide audience, and I got a chance to try the game and focus on the solo play, since most of the time we review the multi-player version of a game.
What’s in the box?
My Little Scythe has one of the best inserts that I’ve seen, designed by Noah Adelman of Game Trayz and made to hold all the items in the game and has space for future expansions, which is rare to see. Plus it came with a sheet explaining what belongs where in the insert, and the insert itself has notations too!
It comes with the main board (which is very large, so you’ll need space to play), 7 pairs of seeker sibling miniatures (and a painting guide!), 1 setup tile that populates the map each game, 16 power up tiles to help improve actions, 2 pie fight dials, 6 player mats, 8 personality cards, 28 trophy tiles (4 of each player color), 7 each of action, friendship, and pie tokens in the 7 colors. There are also 7 base camp tiles, 5 dice for locating gems, apples, and quests, 30 magic spell cards, 12 quest cards, and 24 each of apples and magic gems, and 12 quest tokens.
Finally, for solo play there are 21 Automountie cards and a solo play rulebook, but you can use any of the other colors for Automountie while playing.
How’s it play?
Inspired by Scythe and featuring similar mechanisms, My Little Scythe uses area control, dice rolling, pick up and deliver, and a battle mechanic. You can learn more about the multi-player game in Brody’s review.
The board is set up with the set up tile that tells the player where to place the beginning gems and apples. On the board, there are tracks for pies (attack), and friendship, a space for the magic cards, quest cards, trophy trackers, and the powerup tiles.
As the player, you’ll set up your player mat with your trophies, a personality card, and spell card. Automountie does not get these pieces, but does start off with their friendship token at 5 (where it stays the entire game), and pie token starts on 0 for the very easy level difficulty.
In the Kingdom of Pomme, 7 animal kingdoms send two of their seeker siblings to participate in the Harvest Tournament with the aim of earning 4 trophies first. There are eight trophy goals. They are reaching 8 on player track, gaining one of each of the power up tiles, gains 3 or more spells at a time, resolves 2 quests successfully, delivers 4 apples to Castle Everfree, or delivers 4 gems to Castle Everfree, and wins a pie fight, or reaches 8 pies on the pie track.
The human player will choose actions and keep track of which action they’re doing by placing their pawn on the mat since you can’t take the same action twice in a row. Players move around the board (up to 2 spaces or only 1 space when transporting gems/apples), seek to generate gems, apples, and quest tokens on the map, or make pies, magic spell cards, or power ups using their gems and apples in hand.
Automountie however, does not move one or two spaces. Instead, on her turn, she checks for a trophy (needs tokens as required for her difficulty level to earn a trophy) and if she does, she skips the rest of the turn. If she can’t trophy, she takes the top card from the Automountie deck and gains pies as listed on the card, seeks as listed on the card, or moves.
If the seek card has tokens placed on the player’s seeker, she does not gain friendship. For movement, the primary seeker (alphabetical order) and secondary seeker (reverse alphabetical) must move based on the movement diagram, and moves as far along its chosen path as possible to gain tokens, except off the board, onto Castle Everfree, or onto an opponent seeker if she has less than 3 pies.
Gameplay continues until either Automountie or the player earns their 4th trophy and enters the Grand Finale. Whoever does not have four trophies, has one final turn, and then the player with the 4 trophies wins!
The verdict?
My Little Scythe is a hefty game in that it has a lot of components, but they were all designed with a lot of care. The miniatures are so cool and have a lot of personality. I do not think I will try to paint them, because if I mess up, I’ll be sad forever, but the painting guide is super nifty.
The gems and apples not being basic chitboard is lovely, and all the cards themselves are of great quality. Being able to just lift the insert out of the box and set up with most things going on the board itself, is also a plus, because I hate it when games take forever to set up. I want to play!
Playing solo is fun, though depending on the difficulty level, Automountie can feel a bit overpowered since she gets to look for trophies just by having tokens!
But for someone who is probably never going to play actual Scythe, and having something at home to play solo while I watch TV, this is a great family weight game, and I know I’m going to be conscripting my younger cousins to play with me soon!
You can grab My Little Scythe directly from Stonemaier Games for $49.
Images and review copy courtesy of Stonemaier Games
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