Rumble Nation

Rumble Nation is a game from Japan by Yogi Shinichi. It is an area majority game. It simple and short, and very clever too. The game is about preparing for war. What you do is just deploying troops. The war only happens at the end of the game. The war is actually the end game scoring. 

There are 11 regions in this stylised map of medieval Japan. During game setup, chips numbered 2 to 12 are randomly placed. These are the point values, the region numbering, and also the sequence in which battles will be fought. The battle winner claims the chip. In 3 or 4 player games, the second placed player claims a chip which is half the region value. 

Every player has the same number of soldiers. The game is played until everyone has placed all their soldiers. On your turn, you roll three dice. You have to add two of them to determine where you will place soldiers (i.e. region number), and the third die determines how many soldiers you will place (between 1 to 3, because you half the die value). So there is some luck in terms of where you are able to place soldiers, but you do have some options. Also you have one chance to reroll if you absolutely hate your first roll. If you are first to use up your soldiers, you claim the most powerful sword, which is a tiebreaker during battles. The earlier you finish deployment, the stronger you are in tiebreaking. 

When the deployment ends and the war starts, battles are resolved based on simple majority. What's special is whenever you win a battle, if you have soldiers in any adjacent regions where battle hasn't started, they all get reinforcements. This can help you win those later battles. Although the earlier regions are not worth much, they may give you valuable reinforcements to help you win those later and more valuable regions. There can be chain reactions too. 

Once per game instead of using dice to deploy soldiers, you may claim and use one of the tactic cards in the game. These are randomly set up at the start of the game and they are visible to all. These cards let you manipulate soldiers in various ways. Some let you move enemy soldiers too. 

During the game you will be playing out the war in your mind many times. If I deploy here and I win this battle, I will get more troops there and there, and this will help me win those battles too. The map is open information so you can do all these calculations in your head. There is some tension in how quickly you want to use up your soldiers. I feel generally it is advantageous to see where others commit their forces before you deploy yours, so that you can concede where you can't win and utilise your soldiers better. Yet, the tiebreaker advantage when you finish deployment early can be crucial. What a juicy dilemma! 

You don't have direct control over where you get to place troops. Sometimes you have no good options. The die roll may force you to place too many soldiers somewhere you are already certain to win. This means wasting your soldiers. Generally I find you have interesting decisions to make. I think it is a nice balance. You have some but not too many options that would give you analysis paralysis. There are only so three ways you can group two out of three dice. 

Rumble Nation is a delight to play. It is the kind of game that puts Japanese designs on the map. Minimalistic but smart. The game is doing well. It has gone through several editions. Battles are deterministic, so that aspect may feel a little dry. However your deployment is dependent on die rolls. Although this is a perfect information game, it doesn't feel like the typical abstract game due to the uncertainty in the dice. You will be holding your breath too when your opponents roll their dice.