Harrow County: The Game Of Gothic Conflict Board Game Review

Harrow County

WBG Score: 8/10

Player Count: 1-3 (4 with expansion)

You’ll like this if you like: Smallworld, Mountains out of Molehills, The comic.

Published by: Off the Page Games

Designed by: Jay Cormier, Shad

This is a free review copy. See our review policy here.

Harrow County is the latest graphic novel to be adapted from the pages to the table by publisher Off the Page, who specialise in finding intriguing stories within the wonderful world of comics and turning them into captivating board games. They did a wonderful job with Mind MGMT, which you can read more about here. I described it as "genre-defining moment in the board game hobby," due to its clever fusion of mechanics. Harrow County has similar ambitions, bringing together route building, king of the hill, and wonderfully thematic chit-pull system within a deeply absorbing and asymmetric world. Especially if you are a fan of the boos. But, does this make for a fun game? Let's get it to the table and find out.

How To Set Up Harrow County

There are two ways to play this game: the full game or a reduced rules version. The rulebook previously split the game into chapters and taught players across five separate versions, but this has since been updated to just two, making it a lot easier to digest. The lite version is fine, but it is a little simple and can be over pretty quickly. The full game is what I will explain here and can be used from game one if you choose. I really see no reason why you cannot just go straight into the full version from your first game. I would say it is mid-weight at most. I feel the split rule book now is only there as they used to have the five-chapter system. Going from five to one maybe felt too extreme. And the five-chapter system was there initially to link to the fact this originated from a graphic novel. And Off The Page as a publisher wants to make the process of learning their games easy. All of this makes sense. But ultimately, this is not a hard game to learn or teach, so perhaps just one version is all you need? Anyway...

Place the main board in the centre of the table. You can play on either side; it is just some minor variation. Ideally, place it so that the hexes with the home bases are close to the two players. Although, of course, you can play this with three or four players. I will focus on the two-player rules here. The three player version is excellent though, and the expansion offers the chance for four.

Each player then takes one of the two main boards for either the Family or the Protectors. Although one can play as Kammi instead. Place this in front of you along with the Haints (little plastic ghoulie things). Now, each player pick as a character to play as there. There are a number of choices for each, that affect your legendary power. Make your choice and take the player board and standee associated with this. Now take the Legend ability track associated with your chosen player colour, pick a side (your choice) and place this underneath your player character.

The players using the Family or Protectors, now place their standee on their chosen start hex on the main board along with three of their Haints. If you have chosen to play as Kammi, place the Goblin Legend Token matching your Character Board and the Kammi Legend Token onto two separate hexes behind your Home Hex. then add three Haints onto either your home Hex, the hex occupied by Kammi, or the Hex occupied by your Goblin.

Each player now takes their deck of cards for their faction. The Tactics cards for the Protectors, the Upgrade cards for the Family, and the Goblin cards for Kammi. Shuffle the decks, draw three for your hand, and leave the rest in your play area. Each player will have small coloured cubes, their strength cubes. Take three of each colour (for the players in the game) and place these in the battleground tray. Place this next to the box, which will sit upright as part of the game's components. On the top and front of the box, there are two holes. On the top hole, place the funnel, and on the front hole, this is where the battleground tray needs to be placed, facing outwards from the box. This is now your cube tower! Cool, huh!

Now place the scoreboard onto the table, fixing it to the Mason jar board. Place the scoreboard with the main side facing up. Each player now adds their Mason jars onto the board. It doesn't matter where you place them, but make sure both players align their jars to match each other's placement. Each player takes one wild token, leaving the rest in a central reserve. The Family will also take the storm tokens adding to their personal reserve. The family will take the blue bag and add four advance tokens, two spawn, and two strengthen tokens into this bag. They will also take the upgrade tokens and add them to their player area.

Anyone playing as Kammi will now take the Action Grid and place it face up in front of them. Take two advance, spawn, and strengthen tokens and place them randomly onto this grid. Then take one Advance token and place it to the left of the Action Grid on the table. Then, (and again, only if Kammi is in the game) the other player will take three Doll tokens and secretly place one face down on each of the hexes behind your Home Hex. One token is a Doll, the other two are decoy skulls. The player playing as Kammi can now move their Haints and Legend standee to be on their home space or the hexes containing a Doll token.

Now, the Protectors place one Townsfolk meeple on each of the four Terrain spaces on their side of the Scoreboard, and the Family does the same with the buildings on their side. Then finally, shuffle the nine bonus tiles and each player in turn flips one over, placing it into the leftmost empty space on the Mason jar board. If the first player token comes up, that player will be the first player. If not, once the four spaces are full, keep drawing in turn until one player claims the first player token for that round. Keep the remaining tiles face down next to the Mason jar board to use later. You are now ready to play!

How To Play Harrow County

Playing the game is a lot simpler than setting it up!

The game runs in three main phases, but only really one has any meat. Let's get into it.

First, players playing against the Family or Protectors will place their Townsfolk meeples or Buildings onto the map. One piece each round. And they must be placed onto a terrain matching the terrain they were originally on, on the Mason jar board. Ideally, you want to put this as far away from your opponent as possible to make it hard for them to get to it. If you are up against Kammi, do nothing! That's phase one done. When all pieces are on the board this phase is skipped.

Phase two is where the real strategy of the game exists. Players will now take turns, starting with the first player, to pick one of the four available Mason jars on their side of the Mason board. The first time each player picks one of the four unique actions, they can also take the bonus action in the middle. This bonus action can be carried out before or after the main one, but not during. The four main actions allow you to move your character on the board, spawn new Haints to your home space or the hex where your leader is, take a wild action, or fight.

Moving is simple. You can move any number of units from one hex to another for one movement. You can drop units off as you go, move just one, or all of them. Your choice. Movement onto mountains costs one extra hex. Movement onto storm spaces also has an increased cost. The Family can place paths to reduce movement costs. The Protectors can place storms to increase their opponents' movement costs.

Adding Haunts can be done either on the home hex or on the space where your Leader is currently present. You cannot have more than four units on one hex at a time, and units from opposing sides cannot share the same hex.

The wild action means you take a wild token and add it to your collection, and then carry out one action of any type, based on the number of wild tokens you have. You don’t discard them when you use them. As such, your wild actions will increase in power by one each time you take this action. The more you do it, the more powerful it becomes.

Fighting is a little more complicated, but in short, you can target any enemy unit one or two spaces away, three when on the mountain space. This is done by adding all cubes currently in the battleground tray into the top of the box and dropping them into the cube tower. The player with the most units in battle gets to add one extra cube before this happens. You also get one bonus action to move, spawn, or add an extra cube before or after you start a fight. When the cubes are dropped, not all come out. Some will get stuck, some will knock loose cubes previously caught up. The outcome is never certain. The player with the most cubes wins the fight. If you have more cubes and at least two in total, you can discard these cubes to remove a Haint from the board and gain a point. It only takes one cube if your enemy is in the Brambles. If you have cubes remaining after this and there are still Haints in the target hex, you can do this for a second time. If an enemy has a leader and a hint, you must target the hint first. If there are no hints, you can move the leader to another space and attack a hint on another. Removing a Haint will score you one point.

When you fight for a second time in the game, you need two Haints for a point, then three. Move the slider on your score tracker to keep a record of this. You can move this marker back with one of the bonus tiles though, a very powerful action to have, considering the game ends when you gain seven or more points! So, on occasions, you can gain one point for killing a single Haint two times in consecutive turns!

The other way to score points is based on which character you are playing. The Family is looking to connect their home hex with the blue buildings using their storm tokens. At the end of each round or using their Legendary power, they can place one more storm token onto the board. Creating continuous paths of storm tokens not only slows down the movement of the other players but also gains them two points at the end of each round for each destroyed building. The protectors do the same, but with the Townspeople meeple placed on the board. They can create a path using the path tokens, Haints, or Leader. The path tokens are gained when they pick up the Legendary tokens on the board and can be placed near the Leader to help reduce the requirement for movement to get around the board, whilst being a part of their safe paths for the Townspeople. Any connected path leading a Towns person back to the Protectors home Hex scores them two points at the end of the round.

Kammi and Hester work a little differently but I wont fully go into that here. Kammi is best used once you have played the game a few times with the Family and the Protectors. Hester is the third player, and again, best used once two players understand the way the main two factions work.

Each faction has access to the same actions as detailed above, but utilises them in a very different way. The Family will pull tokens out of the bag, based on the number shown on their player board. At the end of the round, all units on spaces with tokens can take those tokens and add them to their play area. Players can then choose to add them onto their player board or place them in the bag. You want them in the bag so you have the chance of pulling them out next round and doing them. But you want to add them to your board so that you can increase your player powers, and pull more tokens.

The Protectors work differently. All tokens they can are added to their board to build up the strength of the three main actions. They can build up the number of actions they do this way quicker, but they can only ever carry out one action in this way each round.

All players have cards dealt to them at the start of the game. The Protectors' cards allow them to take powerful additional actions such as spawning additional Haints, claiming extra tokens, or moving their Legend. The Family has upgrade cards that they can use to switch out previously gained tokens with upgraded versions that offer improved actions.

At the end of each round, any player holding the central bramble location will gain one point. All units on spaces with tokens can now take those tokens into their possession. All bonus tiles on the Mason board are replenished, the Mason jars themselves are flipped back over, the first player token is switched, and a new round begins. Unless any player has scored seven or more points at this stage, in which case the game ends.

Is It Fun? Harrow County: The Game Of Gothic Conflict Board Game Review

The lite version is too simple and too quick. But I can see why it was included to help with the learning process. However, it does seem more of a legacy effect from the original rule book being laid out in a chapter system. With that now gone, I think it would have been fine to just teach the full game and leave it at that. It is not that complicated, and the lite version is nowhere near as good an experience. I would give the lite version a 6.5 at best. I fear for some people who may play this version and then move on. Games need to grab people from the start. There is a lot of competition for people's attention out there. I would encourage any new players to Harrow County to start with the full game.

The full game is deeply thematic. It links beautifully to the core text, conveys a real sense of struggle between two battling communities, and ultimately offers a rewarding and entertaining experience. If you are a fan of the comics (as I am), you will adore this! I cannot see why this is not a must-buy for you! If you have not read the core text and are unsure, then read on.

This game does not feel as polished as Mind MGMT. The system of that game, serving you new content in between each game, felt epic. The game evolved over multiple games, and you never felt like you had covered it all. There was always more to learn, more to explore, much like reading a graphic novel over various chapters. With the initial chapter system in Harrow County, I think the designers wanted to create a similar experience with this game, but it just wasn't needed. Now they have moved to a lite and full game (which is a better decision), the sense of exploration is somewhat nullified. There still is some, of course. Multiple characters can be used, adding in Hester as a third player, using the expansion to add in a fourth, trying out different sides. There are lots of ways to play this game, but each game does generally feel 80% the same as the last. It won't have those big swings each game like Mind MGMT.

But that is fine. As this game is good.

If you enjoy path building and asymmetry, buy this game. This game does these two mechanics in a fresh, engaging, and thoroughly strategic way.

My only personal complaint is the game is fast. It can be over in 30 minutes. I feel the seven-point scoring target is too low. I wonder where that came from? I have played a few games with a higher ten-point target, and it felt right to me. The game lasted closer to 45 minutes, and I got more out of it.

The theme of this game is what stands out the most for me, though. As a fan of the comics, I have been enthralled by the entire experience. From the art, the characters, and the box being used as the tree; I have been entirely captivated by this wonderful adaptation. And then when I spotted the art on the bottom of the box, showing the Witch buried under the tree, oh my! As such, I am trying to think what this game would feel like for someone not as enthralled by the theme.

How would someone who has not read the comics feel about this? Well, everyone I played this game with fell into that category, and they seemed a lot less enthusiastic about the game than I did. They liked the tight mechanics, fast gameplay, and interesting asymmetry, but did not feel it captivated them just as it had done for me. As such, I would strongly recommend this to anyone who read and enjoyed the books. For anyone else, perhaps buy the comic first and see if you like that! Then buy this game. If the comics are not for you, maybe this game is not for you.

And have I mentioned the box is used as a cube tower?!