Leaders

Leaders is a 2 player abstract game played on a hexagonal board made of hexagonal spaces. You each start the game with just one game piece - your leader. In the first few rounds of the game you will get to recruit minions from a market of three options. Every minion in the game has a unique ability. You will eventually have four minions, after which you do not recruit any more. Your goal is to capture the opponent leader. You do this by having two of your pieces next to it, or you force it to be fully surrounded by pieces, regardless of whether your own or your opponent’s. 

Leaders wear crowns

On your turn you get to move all your pieces once. Your minions have all sorts of powers. Some can move more than just one step. Some move like rooks, moving in a straight line. Some jump over others. Some pieces can move other pieces, for example pulling or pushing them. Some pieces protect others from being manipulated. 

This is a perfect information game. You know exactly what powers your opponent has. You need to move and position your pieces to capture the opponent leader which protecting your own. In many ways this is like chess. 

Checkmate! White leader captured by black minions.

One part that’s different is you don’t capture or eliminate opponent pieces. You can’t land on other pieces. Blocking can be a very effective tactic. Some powers require line of sight. Sometimes you will find that you are blocking your own pieces. Positioning them and moving them can be frustratingly slow if you don’t plan well. 

Both the games I played were short. Han and I were new to the game, and we were not good at defense. Your game pieces have a good variety of powers (and you get to choose your combination of powers) and since you get to move all pieces on your turn as opposed to just one piece per turn, you can orchestrate powerful moves.