What started as a fan project has morphed into a print-and-play project designed by father-daughter duo Hoby and Vienna Chou. My little sickleis a spin-off of the hugely popular family-friendly children’s series. Scythe It’s by Stonemaier Games. At Fandomentals, we’re always looking for games that can be enjoyed by a wide range of audiences. While we almost always review the multiplayer versions of games, I had the opportunity to try out this game and focus on solo play.
What’s in the box?
My little sickle This is one of the best inserts I’ve seen, designed by Noah Adelman of Game Trayz and made to hold all of your in-game items. and There’s space for future expansion, which is unusual, plus it comes with a sheet that explains what goes where on the insert, and the insert itself is also annotated.
It comes with a main board (which is very large so you’ll need space to play), seven sets of Seeker Brothers miniatures (plus a painting guide), one set-up tile to fill the map for each game, 16 power-up tiles to improve your actions, two pie fight dials, six player mats, eight personality cards, 28 trophy tiles (four for each player’s color), seven action tokens, friendship tokens and pie tokens in each of the seven colors, as well as seven base camp tiles, five dice for finding gems, apples and quests, 30 magic spell cards, 12 quest cards, 24 apples and 24 magic gems and 12 quest tokens.
Finally, there are 21 Automountie cards for solo play and a solo play rulebook, although you can also use other Automountie colours while playing.
How is it when you play it?
Inspired by Scythe With a similar mechanism, My little sickle It uses area control, dice rolls, pickup and delivery, and combat mechanics. For more details on multiplayer gameplay, check out Brody’s review.
The board features setup tiles that show players where to place their initial gems and apples. The board also has spaces for pie (attack) and friendship tracks, spell cards, quest cards, a trophy tracker, and power-up tiles.
Players set up their player mats with trophies, personality cards, and spell cards – Automounties don’t get these pieces, but they start with 5 friendship tokens (and stay at that value throughout the game), and on the very easy level of difficulty they start with 0 pie tokens.
In Pom Kingdom, the seven animal kingdoms send two seeker brothers into a harvesting tournament to be the first to win four trophies. There are eight trophy goals: reach eight on the player track, get one power-up tile each, get three or more spells at once, successfully solve two quests, deliver four apples to Everfree Castle, deliver four gems to Everfree Castle, win the pie fight, or get eight pies on the pie track.
Human players choose an action, place their pieces on the mat to keep track of which action they’re taking, as they can’t take the same action twice in a row. Players move around the board (up to two spaces, or only one space if transporting gems/apples), generating gems, apples, and quest tokens on the map, or using gems and apples in their hand to create pies, magic spell cards, and power-ups.
However, the Automountie does not move one or two spaces. Instead, on its turn it checks for a trophy (winning a trophy costs tokens depending on the difficulty level) and if it wins, it skips the rest of its turn. If it does not win a trophy, it takes the top card of the Automountie deck and either wins the pie listed on the card, or seeks or moves listed on the card.
If a Seek Card has a token placed on a player’s Seeker, that Seeker does not gain Friendship. For movement, Primary Seekers (in alphabetical order) and Secondary Seekers (in reverse alphabetical order) must move based on their Movement Diagram and move as far as possible along their chosen path to gain tokens, except off the board, on Everfree Castle, or on their opponent’s Seeker if they have less than three tiles.
Gameplay continues until an Automountie or player wins their fourth trophy and advances to the Grand Finale. Any player who has not won four trophies takes one final turn, and the player with four trophies wins.
What’s the verdict?
My little sickle It’s a heavy game in that there are a lot of parts, but they’re all very carefully designed. The miniatures are Very cool It’s full of character. I don’t think I’d ever draw it myself because I’d be sad if I messed it up, but the paint guide is super useful.
It’s nice that the gems and apples aren’t just a basic chit board and the cards themselves are all great quality. Another plus is that you can just take the inserts out of the box and set most of the stuff on the board itself. I hate taking so long to set up a game and I just want to play!
Playing solo is fun, but depending on the difficulty level, Automountie can feel a bit too powerful, as all you need to do is have the tokens and hunt for trophies.
But for those who probably never play the actual game ScytheThis is a great weight game for the whole family to play together, as you can play alone at home while watching TV. I think I’ll be inviting my younger cousins to join me in the fun soon.
You can grab My little sickle Direct Stonemayer Games $49.
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Images and review copy courtesy of Stonemaier Games
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