In a world of humans, orcs, guardians and the undead, there has always been peace. Until a certain incident occurred. What exactly that is, I like to leave to the imagination. Perhaps one person looked at the other’s girlfriend just a little too long or rumours were spread (which came true), in any case, a serious war has ensued and the various tribes in Zaberias are fighting for supremacy.
First, let me talk briefly about the ‘box’ the game comes in. There isn’t one. Not that it is immediately missed as each tribe has its own game board in which all characters, buildings and coins are ‘printed’. This keeps everything together and makes it easy to get everything out.
The game boards have to be pushed together to create the world. With two and four players, a world is created that fits together perfectly, with three players this isn’t the case, but it comes very close. Each player starts with five coins and a wooden building. Buildings can be upgraded to metal and gold buildings. The building type indicates which characters can be bought. For example, characters in the wooden layer can only be bought if there is a wooden building. With metal and gold buildings, however, characters from a weaker layer can be bought.
Coins are earned at the beginning of a turn by counting how many buildings the player has and how much these buildings yield. When a player is ready for a bit of action, the characters come into play. Each character can take a certain number of steps per turn. These may only be straight steps unless there is a path. Some characters can move through water or fly over buildings. Furthermore, it shows how strong a character is and how many dice it fights with. Finally, a character may have a special ability. That attribute is shown on the back.
To fight another character or a building, the character must be next to it, unless the character can fight at a distance. For a fight, the strengths of the characters as well as the result of rolling the allowed dice count. The winner stays on the playing field, the loser is kicked off, but can be acquired again later. It is also possible to attack and defend together. Buildings only have dice to defend with.
Then there are three special squares on the playing field: (1) the portal, which allows the player to move to another portal, (2) the star, which improves the strengths of all the player’s characters by one point, and (3) the gold mine, which earns the player an extra coin at the beginning of the turn. Note that a character must therefore be on the star or gold mine to benefit from it.
When a player loses his last building, that player is permanently defeated. The last remaining tribe is the winner and will reign in Zaberias forever.
Zaberias bears some resemblance to the classic Risks game in that it involves saving, attacking and conquering. The interesting thing about the game is that it seems suitable for several age groups. In fact, the game presents itself as an educational game for children. However, that doesn’t mean it would lack tactics for adults. Quite the contrary, in fact. By thinking steps ahead and sometimes saving rather than attacking head-on, a player can later emerge victorious. This tactical element definitely makes it highly recommended. The theme and artwork of the characters are also well conceived and offers room for expansions in the future. To be continued, no doubt!
