I recently purchased the Age of War dice game published by Fantasy Flight Games. The theme of this game is nearly identical to a recent Netflix documentary, Age of Samurai: Battle for Japan. I’ll provide an overview of this new dice game base on the conflicts of feudal Japan.

OVERVIEW
Age of War is a quick-playing game for 2-6 players by renowned game designer Reiner Knizia. If the subject matter is of interest to you, this small-box game from Fantasy Flight Games may very well be a good addition to your collection. Though simple and relatively short in nature, this dice chucker offers some strategic decisions and player interaction that other similar games may not.

“In Age of War, two to six players assume the role of daimyos trying to conquer castles and unite the warring clans of feudal Japan. The player with most points at the end of the game wins.” [from rules sheet] The game comes with printed rules, a custom set of 7 dice and 14 unique cards. The goal of the game is to roll the dice matching battle lines on a castle card to conquer it. Successfully collecting a card places it in your playing area, adding it to your faction. Castle cards in your area, however, are susceptible to being conquered by an opponent. Once you have conquered all the castles of a particular clan (color), you “lock in” the combined Clan value for your points. Once all 14 castle cards have been conquered, the game immediately ends and the victory point values for each player’s conquered castle cards and clans are calculated. The player with the most points wins.

An interesting note about the Age of War is that its theme just so happens to align perfectly with the recent Netflix documentary Age of Samurai: Battle for Japan. Around the same time I began watching this series with my son, Luke, I noticed a recent advertisement for this new Fantasy Flight game. The imagery and theme coincided so well, I was intrigued. I ordered the game shortly thereafter and recently received. Luke and I chose to watch our next episode of the TV series followed by playing the game. It was a nice combination. Many of the historical facts, names and icons of clans, etc… are included accurately in the game. This further enhanced my enjoyment and added thematic elements that might not have been as prominent if not for the Netflix program.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Normally I prefer longer, more involved games, however, for a shorter/quicker dice game, Age of War is very satisfying. I get theme, enhanced by the Netflix documentary, as well as a challenging dice battle game that works well as a short, casual, travel game, or as a quick play after watching episodes of the show. The simple rules paired with the quality Fantasy Flight components make this an easy choice for me. See below for the game’s official Fantasy Flight page and the Netflix links.

Game on!