How many times have you almost been in a fight? How many times have you talked a big game only to realize, yeah, it’s probably smarter to sit back and let someone else take the hits? Scythe is all about that moment; the tension before the clash, the slow buildup where everyone is flexing just enough power to scare off rivals. Despite the war machines that are front and centre in players hands, Scythe isn’t just about throwing punches. It’s a game about power, efficiency, and a dance of anticipation where actual combat is rare, but impactful.
Scythe is a beautiful game. It was the first time I had ever seen a dual layered player board, something that just seems so obvious and prolific in today’s world. Each faction has four mechs plus a hero and animal companion, represented with unique sculpts. The world building and art by Jakub Rozalski draws on 1920 era industrial revolution motifs, with hulking behemoths in the background. It’s immediately arresting and sets up an atmosphere that makes you feel like you’re on the doorstep of a great conflict.
The gameplay hinges on a unique action-selection system. Each player gets a personal action board with four sections, each section links a pair of actions. On your turn, you choose a quadrant, pay any visible costs, and carry out the top action. Then, if you can, you also pay for the bottom action for an extra benefit. Turns are quick and efficient, hopping from one player to the next until someone manages to place their sixth achievement star, and immediately end the game.
Scythe‘s top row actions are deceptively straightforward. Move, produce, trade, and bolster. Moving lets you expand your influence across the map, dragging along your loyal workers to work the fields. Producing generates resources based on your where and how many workers you have on a location. Bolstering raises your strength or gives you power cards, and trading lets you spawn any two resources for a coin. But it’s the bottom row actions and being able to exploit the timing is where the strategic depth really lies. Each bottom action costs resources, and different player boards mix up which actions and benefits are linked together, making every faction’s strategy feel unique.
These bottom actions are what really get your engine running. Upgrading moves a cube from the top row to the bottom, making a main action better and making a bottom action cheaper. Enlisting gives you benefits when your neighbours take specific bottom row actions, deploying drops those hulking mechs onto the table, plus unlocking asymmetric abilities for all your plastic figures, and building creates structures that produce persistent benefits, not to mention may be worth points at the end of the game.
All of these actions build towards earning coins, which are the measure of victory in Scythe. Though you might not notice it at first, coins are critical. And everything you do in the game, from piles of resources you’ve amassed, to all the territory you control, converts into coins based on your popularity at the end fo the game. Placing six stars ends the game, but it’s not a strict “race.” players who are beloved by the populace will get far more coins from the same accomplishments, turning what may seem like a run away leader game into a narrowly close end result.
Scythe isn’t a typical war game. It’s more a cold war game, a palpable tension where strength is a resource, just as important as oil or food. Combat is rare in this game, and its real benefit is really limited by a star cap, so strong players aren’t encouraged to just beat down on weaker players indefinitely. When combat does finally occur, it’s a high-stakes gamble. Each player commits strength and power cards secretly, then both strengths are revealed simultaneously. The winner takes control of the contested hex, and gets to place a star, if they haven’t hit that cap. Both players lose all the strength and cards they committed to the fight, however. One time, I made the mistake of going all-in against Clare, only for him to one-up me with a power card, leaving his sum a single point above mine. With my strength utterly depleted, the other players descended on my mechs, pummelling me for easy stars, and leaving me destitute and licking my wounds at home base.
Scythe manages to build a sense of threat. As players expand and build themselves up on the power track, they’re hesitant to get into fights. Many games see a couple of players pushing toward the top of the strength track, throwing fights to conserve their power. But once they max it out, suddenly they have all this strength to burn.
As much as I’ve talked about warfare, winning Scythe isn’t about being the strongest. Victory comes from resource management and having efficient productions, being able to optimize every turn. Every action has a milestone to earn at its end, whether it’s enlisting, upgrading, or building structures and mechs. Like many action efficiency games, the more you play, the more you see the nuances. It was only on my third or fourth game that I really started to understand how to link actions into something that resembled efficiency. After every game, I’d find myself mulling over every decision and thinking about how I could have shaved off a few turns here, or accelerated my engine just a bit faster. It’s the kind of system that digs into your brain and stays there, whispering, “next time…”
Scythe is a special package. It offers a unique blend of cold war tension and engine building bliss. It’s not for everyone, as evidenced by half my game group ‘being done with it’ after 15 plays. But my other friend and I are 20 plays deep, and are looking to embark on some of the fan made campaigns soon. There is so much game to plumb here, from the faction’s starting positions to which action board pair best with each faction, to even just learning how to use each faction abilities themselves! Learning when to push forward and when to back off, there is a tonne of nuance here. Scythe is a masterpiece in my opinion, and a game that I would happily play, any time, anywhere.
