Fantasia

Fantasia comes with 49 plastic playing pieces (flat squares of varying size, all about 2mm thick), a mounted map 16"x18" (40x46 cm), and 4 pages of illustrated rules. Each side, red and blue, have 21 pieces with simple illustrations to distinguish them: one sorcerer, three wizards, three hunters, three warriors, five archers, and six soldiers. In addition there are seven yellow pieces representing treasure to be captured. The board is a hexagon of hexagons (think Settlers, but it's not geomorphic). Each edge of the entire hexagon is made up of six smaller hexagons. These are in three colors: red, blue, and yellow, such that no two hexes of the same color border each other. Two of the corners have castles printed in them. Players take turns moving one piece at a time. Each of the pieces moves and captures differently. Basic chess-like rules apply: one piece per space, you can't move through a piece (though there are some knight-like pieces that can jump), land on a piece to capture it, promotion of the lesser pieces if the reach the opposite side, etc. There are five different victory conditions given in the rules. Players must decide on victory conditions before beginning the game. They can be combined, such as "Sudden Death" (capture the opponent's sorcerer) and "Castle Occupation" (just what you think it means). The treasure pieces aren't used unless one or both of the treasure victory conditions are in play. That's basically it. The pieces are rather bland, but the board is a must for abstract game designers who think in primary colors ...