From the void between dimensions, an ancient cosmic entity emerged—corrupting, consuming, and devouring all in its path. In the wake of the cataclysm known as Voidfall, the admirals of the fallen galactic empire, the Domineum, forged a desperate contingency plan. To preserve the legacy of the human civilization from the Voidborn threat, a former imperial flagship, the Revenant, was retrofitted to carry vast databanks containing the accumulated knowledge of humanity and escape the fallen empire. Now, bearing humanity’s last hope and escorted by the ships of the Domineum’s last Great Houses, you must guide the fleet to safety beyond the known galaxy, balance fragile alliances, and secure not only the survival of humankind—but also your own political destiny.

Revenant is a standalone, competitive worker placement game of shifting allegiances, set in the Voidfall universe. Players take on the role of rival admirals coordinating the defense of a fleeing starfleet, and competing to earn influence with the factions that stand to survive the journey.

Across four rounds, players assign crew to ships throughout the fleet, from which they will fight corrupted ships, explore planets in search of resources, upgrade their ship and crew, deploy new vessels, and more. Each ship is affiliated with one of the Great Houses, and each time you assign crew there, you gain influence with that House.

The journey won’t be an easy one. The Voidborn’s corrupted forces will continuously attack the fleet, dealing damage to various ships at the end of every round. You can take your part in protecting the fleet by destroying enemy ships, repairing friendly vessels or maneuvering them to safe areas, or ultimately activating the Revenant’s hyperdrive to jump to a safer sector. Regardless of your efforts, there will be casualties – you have to make sure that the Houses you have influence in are protected above others.

Revenant spices up the resource management and engine-building of a mid-weight euro with dynamic tactical challenges, constant player interaction, and shifting allegiances.

Review:

I’m not going to sugar coat things here, set up takes a while. There is a lot of stuff to put out on the table, from filling up the main board with ships, both those you can use and the Voidborn ones. You then need to set up the rest of the main play area with 3 more boards which are used to track how each player is doing during the game.

There are quite a few tokens and resources to put out as well, and you will be wise to keep these in small token trays or similar so as not to unduly clutter up the play surface as if you’re playing a 4 player game, REVENANT is going to take up a lot of table space.

Once you’ve done setting up the main and side boards you must then set up your own play area and boards, and this again takes a while to do, because as you start to play more games of REVENANT you are encouraged to make certain choices like sides of certain boards as they have unique icons on them, but for your first game you are simply asked to choose randomly and play with what you have.

The rules are extensive and at first glance look quite daunting, but as with all Mindclash Games they are very well laid out and well thought out, and they have again sorted out playthrough / instructional videos to show you how the game plays and rules work, which if you watch at the same time as having the rulebook to hand greatly helps in the understanding of how the game will play out, turn by turn.

This isn’t going to be an easy game to teach, and any teach in person will take some time, so I would greatly encourage anyone running a game to get the other players to watch one or more of the tutorial videos available as this can be done prior to the game taking place, and maybe send them a copy, or link to a copy of the main rulebook.

I watched the excellent video of Paul Grogan from Gaming Rules before playing, and it really did help to clarify how things worked during the game, and the actions you can take.

There is also a QR code link to a DIZED tutorial that will teach you while you play, located on the second page of the main rulebook.

The game of REVENANT is set in the Voidfall universe, in space, where you are the Admiral in the fleet with a Captain and two cadets and you use your actions each turn to try and gain influence with one or more of the seven houses, which in turns gets you Prestige. 

Houses with high power reward you more, as the power of each house is multiplied by your influence with them. Part of this Influence is public and is known to other players but you also acquire hidden influence to surprise your opponents. Additional Prestige comes from completing your secret agendas, training your Captain and cadets, upgrading your Frigate or cleansing the fleet and your Crew of Corruption.

A game of REVENANT lasts for four cycles, and each cycle consists of five phases, namely;

1. Action Phase; Players resolve actions by boarding ships with members of their Crew. The majority of the game is spent in this phase.

1. Recall Phase; Various components are reset and the turn order is updated.

1. Skirmish Phase; The Voidborn attack, damaging and potentially destroying ships.

1. Rift Phase; New Voidborn ships appear to threaten the fleet.

1. Hyperjump Phase; If the players have decided to charge up the hyperdrive of the Revenant ship, the fleet now escapes to the next star system.

You track the current phase with the Phase marker on the sequence board.

The Rift phase and the Hyperjump phase are mutually exclusive. In every Cycle only one of them will be resolved, depending on which of them is covered by the Phase Skip Token of that cycle.

After the Skirmish Phase of the 4th cycle, you skip both the Rift and Hyperjump phase and proceed directly to Final Scoring.

A players turn takes the form of 5 steps, namely;

Board a ship on the main board with one of your crew, by moving the crew member from your board to an unoccupied space on a ship of your choice. You can also board your own Frigate, but you can never board a Frigate of another player.

Depending on the ship type(s) you have boarded this turn you gain Influence, for example;

If you board a House ship (Arkship, Fighter or Dropship) you gain Influence with the affiliated house and you advance 1 step on the track of the house of the ship where you sent your crew member.

If you sent a crew member to the REVENANT ship then you advance 1 step on a track of your choice on the influence board.

If you sent a crew member to your own Frigate then you gain 1 new hidden influence card.

Unless something says it is mandatory you can skip or ignore any effect when you resolve the effects of the ship you have boarded. Some effects are tied to a cost, which you must pay first if you wish to resolve that effect, and there is a list of these effects in the rulebook.

If your current crew member is on a ship with a Corruption marker, or if you resolved a corrupted planet effect this turn then you gain 1 Corruption, and this is placed onto your player board in an empty corruption slot.

Lastly, you resolve one of the five bonus actions available to you, as listed on your Frigate board, and you can’t choose one of the actions if it has a Corruption marker on it.

Again, as with other Mindclash Games, the production of the components and the artwork are of the utmost highest quality, be it the edition with the fleet miniatures, or that with the cardboard ships. Whichever version you choose, I’m sure you will be very pleased with it and the way Mindclash has ensured how it will look and impress on your table.

The rulebooks are also as per usual with Mindclash Games full of pictures and diagrams of how the rules work and plenty of gameplay examples which both aid in the learning of the game, and whilst playing.

Due to wanting to get this review sorted as quickly as possible after it arrived, as I have a holiday pending, I am writing this review after my first solo game (which I lost on the easy level ☺), and I am looking forward to playing this again multiple times in the solo mode before getting it to the table as a multi player game.

The game played very smooth once you got the hang of the action phase, and what taking these actions meant for you and your Influence / Prestige scores.

Along with the main game, my copy came with the Reason & Faith expansion booklet, containing 2 separate modules that once you are familiar with how the base game works you can add one of these to the base game, but you are recommended not to add both at the same time.

REVENANT for me isn’t a game for new or casual gamers, but is more suitable for those that are quite experienced, or are looking to take the step up to a more complex but ultimately more rewarding gaming experience.

In conclusion, for me this is another winner from the folks at Mindclash Games, and I thank both them and EVERYTHING BOARD GAMES for selecting me to receive a copy of the game, and entrust me with doing a review for it, as I have done for other games of theirs like Anachrony (my number 1 game of all time) and Perseverance, both of which can also be found on the EBG site.

Please feel free to check out both the Mindclash Games and BoardGameGeek websites for more info, where I believe you can download the rules and other docs to read to see if this is a game you would like to both play and own.

For me, it’s another excellent addition to my collection, and one I hope to be playing in the years to come.

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