‘Mythic Battles: Pantheon’ Board Game Review
Even though 2017 may not seem that long ago, it’s a huge amount of time in terms of board game development and popularity. With that in mind, it’s incredible to think that the original Mythic Battles: Pantheon was one of the first games to achieve over a million dollars on Kickstarter, and now, several reprints and at least one major rules revision later, it remains among the most revered skirmish games ever made.
Mythic Battles: Pantheon is a two (arguably one, but more on that later) to four player miniatures game which comes with a ton of miniatures in the core box, and even more in the Pandora’s Box expansion – which is regularly bundled with the core game and contains all the Stretch Goals from the original Kickstarter. Between these two boxes, players will have something like forty or fifty units (comprising of Titans, Gods, Monsters, Heroes and regular cannon fodder) and well over a hundred miniatures split across them.
There are several preset scenarios in the manual that re-tell famous moments in Greek mythology, but in addition to these, the core experience is based on a drafting system that gets deeper and deeper the more you play. In this mode, each player begins with a set number of points (usually eighteen in a two player game) and recruits units up to that value. Any force must be led by a Titan or a God (at around six points) but can then consist of any combination of monsters, heroes and regular units. Monsters and heroes cost anything from two to six points, whilst all regular units cost a single point.
In the end, a force will consist of a roster something along the lines of – Zeus, Heracles, Leonidas, Cerberus, a unit of Spartans and a unit of Hoplites. When a unit is recruited, the player takes a card to demonstrate its damage, reach, power, range and durability, as well as any special abilities it might have. They’ll also take the activation cards for each unit and then a number of what are called Art of War cards based on the number of symbols on their God and any heroes or monsters that might have them. This combination of activation and Art of War cards will form a deck that the player will draw from throughout the game.
With their team drafted and their cards at the ready, the players will then deploy any regular units onto the board – reserving gods, monsters and heroes until they have a card to activate them – which is an important factor, because you’ll need to bear in mind that one of your limited number of activation cards is always needed to actually get one of the more important units onto the board. Because it might feel a little limiting to have turns where you simply put a piece on the board, spend a card and then pass, players may also use their Art of War cards to activate an extra unit – in this case, they’ll spend the Art of War card and the activation card for the second unit, and then that unit can take action.
Once a unit is on the board, if an activation card is used, that unit will be able to any two simple actions – including walking, attacking, claiming (an omphalos, which I’ll explain in a bit) climbing or possibly using a special ability where it is listed as an action. Players can also use their unit to take a complex activation (which is technically what deployment is) but they’ll only be able to do one thing with that unit. For example, a unit that runs (by moving their walk distance plus one space) has taken a complex action, and can do no more with that particular activation card.
The object of the game in this common skirmish mode is to either defeat the opposing God, or to absorb a total of four of the omphalos that I mentioned earlier. Either outcome is typically possible, and what makes Mythic Battles: Pantheon so exciting (aside from the obvious) is that you can draft teams specifically focused on one objective or the other, or one with good balance. Fast, flying units with the Gem Collector ability (for example) are less able to fight, but much more capable of returning omphalos to your God for absorption. Units like Cerberus or Hydra are excellent at fighting and can use abilities like Guard to protect your God from damage.
On that note, the combat system in Mythic Battles: Pantheon is excellent. Each character has an attack and defense value, and when an attack is declared, the attacking player will roll dice equal to the attack value of their unit (for example, six.) In this case, we roll the six dice and then look at the defense value of the defending unit (let’s pretend it’s seven.) In this case, we need to beat seven to wound – but how can we do that when the dice in Mythic Battles: Pantheon range from blank (zero) to five? 7
Let’s say we roll one blank, three threes and then two fives. In this example, we would discard the blank (unless we had an ability to use them such as Mighty Throw) and then put the two fives aside. We would then seek to make another five by discarding two of the threes (each of them adding plus one to another die) and adding them to the final three to make it a five. This would give us three dice at a value of five. We then re-roll any fives and add the new value to the original roll, so in this case, because we’re trying to hit seven, we just need to roll two’s – let’s say we get two out of three, and in this example, that would deal two wounds to the defending unit.
There’s some other cool stuff about Mythic Battles: Pantheon as well. Firstly, normal units (represented by two to six individual models) simply take one wound per model, so if such a unit takes two wounds then two models are removed. For heroes, gods, monsters and titans, their stats are represented by a card that includes two slashes into which a plastic slider fits – and in most cases as a unit like this takes wounds, its statistics will change. Some units get more reckless (and therefore dangerous, but vulnerable) as they take wounds, whilst others simply get weaker.
It’s the variety of units, boards and possibilities that really makes Mythic Battles: Pantheon stand out. Once players understand the different abilities and capabilities of each unit, the possibilities that different combinations can unlock becomes vast. Hades – as the god of death – gains a bonus when units are defeated, so using him with a hero or monster that heals wouldn’t make sense. Then again, using weak but powerful glass cannon units supported by one or more healers could be quite interesting – especially if you want to use a unit like the Gryphon to drop in, grab gems and get out of there without launching its own offense.
In a later review, I plan to cover some of the many expansions for Mythic Battles: Pantheon – of which there are already at least four large and four or five smaller unit-specific expansions. That said, even with the base game and the Pandora’s Box, there’s so much to play through that I doubt you’ll actually need much more. There are four Gods in the base game box and about the same number among the Stretch Goals, plus in a third box there’s even Atlas – the titan. Dedicated players have even had to grab a deluxe storage box which helps them organise their huge collection of miniatures – but even then you’ll need to keep several boxes.
Overall, I think Mythic Battles: Pantheon is a fantastic skirmish game that is limited only by the size of the boxes required to support it. The base game plus the Stretch Goals box takes up at least the space of three or even four regular-sized board games, and the more you add, the more you space you obviously will need. That said, Mythic Battles: Pantheon pays you back with a really fun, simple system that welcomes new players easily and yet allows for considerable refinement as your understanding grows. If you like miniatures games and you have a group that doesn’t mind direct confrontation, this may well be for you.
