Should you buy Here to Slay? A Cinematic Review.

- Yes! I hope you enjoyed that cinematic showcase on Here to Slay that I spent weeks, and weeks, and weeks filming and planning and shooting, and everything on, but I am going to have a full, complete break-down on how I edited that video from step-1 to step-1,000, right after this video, so please make sure you subscribe to the channel so you don't miss out on that one.

So Here to Slay is a card game where you have three action points to spend on your turn. You'll be using those points to draw cards, to play heroes, items, magic cards, and then rolling dice to use a hero's effect. You can also use your action points to attack monsters, and to replenish your hand entirely.

The goal of this game is to be the first to slay three monsters, or have a first party of six different heroes on your team. Now, let's go ahead and set the timeline, as per ush, and start off first, with the artwork. Now the artwork is very cool. It's a great balance between those that like cute and cuddly and those that like the whole tough, renegade, semi-hardcore feel of art combined.

You have a cat, with a menacing looking glowing eyes, dual-wielding swords. Enough said. Now I also love how everything is color coordinated, so satisfying. You have matching patterns and colors, and literally designs across standees to meeples to play mats, everything is strictly coordinated, and I love that, there's nothing to complain about the artwork.

Now next up, are components. If you were to strip down everything to it's core, it's ultimately a card game. You literally only need a couple decks of cards in order to play. Now, material-wise of the cards, it's okay, it's not like a premium, super thick material, but it's not super thin and flimsy either, it's a good mix in-between.

These cards, however, do not shuffle well, so I do recommend card sleeves. If you don't get the custom ones that they have, that they offer, then at least get some of your own. These are standard card sleeves, but you do have, of course, the standard cards that have different dimensions that I'll also list, right here.

So at least at the very minimum, get a stand deck of playing card sleeves, those I highly recommend for sure. Why? Because they're the main components, and ultimately, they will make your life much easier as you're shuffling and playing around with the game.

Now, the kick-starter version that I do have does come with a mini dice tower. This is, however, the first one I've seen without a base. I mean I understand why it doesn't have a base, because your dice aren't really going to roll off, like, it's going to be sitting on the table.

So it has one level to it, and it's nice, and it gets the job done. The dice, however, are really nice, these actually feel like custom, unique dice. The one symbol on it, I thought it was actually a special, unique symbol, but it is just representing a one.

But overall, these actually feel like custom, unique dice. They have a nice solid feel to it, it's not hollow, and they look good. I also wanted to quickly mention the box because they do have a magnetized box covers and that's always nice to have as well.

And lastly, are the acrylic standees. Now, I've mentioned this many times across several videos by now, and these are the very first acrylic standees, or standees in general that I absolutely love. I've raved about these standees across several platforms and content by now, but I mention this because, for me, personally, I don't like standees.

Just seeing standees for a board game, they normally kind of just turn me away from the game itself unless they have options for miniatures instead. But normally, I don't like standees. These however, are the very first standees that I do love, actually.

The material is a full-on acrylic premium material. It's very nice and thick, and it's a great balance between miniatures and plastic standees. So these are definitely the first ones that I do enjoy. Now, the meeples are also super cool and they are custom shaped, tailored to each type of hero and color coded.

Love that. But the problem is, they don't have any kind of integration to the game. The standees and the meeples are purely, for looks. Now, I'll be honest, I did semi-blindly back the game because it looks so good, and the mechanics look pretty fun, but what I was reading from the kick-starting campaign page, but getting it and playing the game, I realized that both the standees and the meeples serve no purpose.

So if I were to go back, I probably wouldn't have gotten the standees or the meeples, they do look nice, and if you do want those kind of meeples to be used in other games as well, then that's definitely an option for you, but for me personally, I think I'd be okay with just the cards.

Now the standees will literally sit on top of your play mat and that's their only function, and you are supposed to use your meeples as just markers so if you have a thief in your party, I guess you can put a meeple here, that way everyone can see vertically, I guess, that you have a thief in your party.

Now had I known that, I probably would've just gotten the cards with the card sleeves. Now that leads me next, to gameplay. I really wish the standees and the meeples could be incorporated into the game somehow. And what I was thinking, hear me out here.

What I was thinking was, to have one main board, of course the board would have to be way bigger, because the standees are so huge, but I would have one main board, and maybe every player starts out in like a different corner and you have to work your way, in order to slay certain monsters.

For example, let's say you have the Titan Wyvern, maybe you have to work your way by like rolling dice to get to a volcano in order for you to attack the Titan Wyvern. And of course there would be obstacles for you to navigate through the different terrain in order for you to get to the Titan Wyvern, or all the other monsters in their home locations.

A volcano, a ice mountain, a swamp, like I would be okay if it even had a classic board game feel, that nostalgia, where you just, as you're going to each space, something happens to you and your character, a good thing or bad thing, or just a neutral space.

So that's one way I was thinking of incorporating the acrylic standees, but for the meeples, I was thinking about some sort of territory control, kind of like Small World. That would be a real fun way to incorporate both, so somehow, maybe having just a general map for you to play with a standee and with a meeple, on top of playing with all the cards, I think that would make this game so much more fun.

And, you wouldn't even have to change the game, really, I think you would just have to add on a game board, and there you go, you have integration of both the standees and the meeples. That'd be a great idea for an expansion. But, with that said, that's the only thing I have to complain about.

Bottom line, this game is incredibly fun. It's highly re-playable, it is hands-down, one of the most fun card games that I've played in quite some time. What I love most about it, especially, is the play interaction, the challenge cards. For example, let's say you want to play a hero, someone else plays a challenge card, you win that challenge, and then as you go on to attack a monster someone modifies your dice roll, so there's this constant play interaction going back and forth between you and every other player.

I love the secrecy of not knowing who has what card, and I love hesitating before playing an action, especially around the end of the game, when everyone has around two monsters slayed, and around, you know four to five heroes in their party, that tension and the anxiety just increases, in a good way, and it really keeps you guessing on whether or not you should play certain things in your turn, and who's going to affect your turn with modifiers and magic cards and all this, there's just so much going on during your turn and I love it.

Essentially, it's like this rat race where everyone's kind of gnawing and crawling at each other and kind of pushing each other away, trying to get to the top. Now to add on to that, each game that I've played feels pretty balanced, sometimes I feel like I'm right there, and I'm right about to win, but then all the sudden I get knocked down a couple pegs, and then the next player creeps up right behind me and then I spend, you know three action points to get a brand new hand, and then the turn after that I have to use all these modifiers and challenge cards on this person, which knocks them down, then I go back up, so this constant bickering back and forth is what makes this game incredibly fun.

And with that in mind, I cannot wait to introduce this game to a bunch of my friends once we can all get together. It would 100% make a great gateway game for those that are looking to get into the hobby. On top of that, it is super fast to learn, you can learn it in less than ten minutes.

Actually, you can learn it in seven minutes, according to this tutorial over here. But there really is an easy learning curve for new players, and a solid amount of depth for seasoned players. Like I said, it's highly re-playable, you don't usually want to play just one game, you want to play like two or three games at once because every monster set is going to be different from every game.

You can play with different player powers because you have asymmetrical player powers. And the winning conditions, even though there are only two, it makes you kind of strategize, you don't have to necessarily go one way the whole game you can always switch and pivot and go towards another strategy.

You can go towards two monsters, but if that becomes too hectic with everyone kind of targeting the next monster, then you can slowly recruit more heroes for your party. Overall, each time I play this game, I had a good time. So I highly recommend this card game, it's light, but very entertaining.

It is great for introducing new players to the hobby, and is one of those games where you kind of just want to play again and again, you can't play it just once, which is always a nice feeling to have, until you're up until 4 a.m. because one more round was three hours ago, and now instead of best out of three, it became best out of five, which became best out of seven? And those are my thoughts on Here to Slay, so if you played Here to Slay, let me know what your thoughts are down in the comments below, if you had any questions about the game.