In an effort to review games of all kinds and being fathers to children who love to board game, this review is a part of our series looking at games catering more towards children of all ages.  These reviews will not follow our normal rating structure but instead will be shorter, more to the point, and will feature one rating from 1 to 5.

Review

Who doesn’t love playing with clay?  There are almost limitless ways to use and mold the stuff. Everything from pulling clay teeth as a pretend dentist to making Happy Meal food to serve to your friends.  I even remember making homemade Playdoh with my grandmother as a kid.  I thought I had seen it all, but when I saw that you could make an army of clay fungus and insectoid monsters to battle it out in a kid’s boardgame, I had to check it out.  Enter Necromolds, combining fantasy turn-based strategy and moldable monsters into one hit product.

I love how this game gets the fun going as soon as set up begins.  Once the battle map is placed on the table, players take turns placing out terrain pieces that will block the line of sight during game play.  This modular type of set up is found in a lot of modern games but it is nice seeing it implemented in a game geared towards a younger crowd. 

Next up in getting the game ready to play is the fun part, molding your monster army!  Players grab up Spellbooks, that act as the monster molds, and start cranking out their army.  Different molds create different monsters so each game, your army can vary and this brings a lot of replay value to the game.  The Spellbook also gives the stats for each specific monster and will be used when battles are declared.

Once the armies are made and placed out on the board, the war can begin!  Players use command dice to control their actions, ranging from movement, performing melee or ranged attacks, or a wild that lets the player choose.  Throughout the game, die can be discarded to gain gems that will allow players to positively influence their die rolls in the future.  Combat in Necromolds reminds me of a variation of the game Risk.  The stats listed on each Spellbook, as well as any gems spent, tell the player how many die to use.  Players compare the outcome of the rolls, checking the number of both Attack symbols and Defense symbols.  Each one represents a hit and the monster with the most hits, wins the battle. 

Most games at this point would just allow the player to simply move the beaten troop from the board, but not Necromolds.  The winner of the battle gets to don one of the Caster Rings and literally smash the opponent into a puddle of goo.  Honestly, who isn’t going to enjoy this part of the game?!  Players continue to smash each other until a single monster is left.  The master of that monster is declared the winner!  The game also includes advanced rules as well as a solo mode to keep the fun alive, unlike your opponent’s monsters!

I am giving Necromolds an overall rating of 5 out of 5.  It is a creative game and I love seeing the joy on my son’s face when he gets to smash a monster.  We are both looking forward to the upcoming expansion in late 2022 that’s going to add armor and even more monsters!