Review of the card game Kacíř: Zkáza Roanoke

There was a time when a woman interested in herbs, who didn't have much time for church and heaven forbid knew how to read, had a rough life. They'd label her a witch and send her straight to the stake. Once the church realized this was an easy way to acquire property and that people would confess to anything under torture, the witch trials were in full swing. It's a sad part of our history and a victory of faith over common sense.

The mysterious fate of the Roanoke settlement in North Carolina is also linked to witchcraft. In 1597, a group of settlers arrived on the island of the same name, eager to build a new home and live the American dream. But the island wasn't as rich in resources as they thought. Soon, their governor had to board a ship and head back to England for supplies. Unfortunately, war broke out between England and Spain in the meantime, and it took the governor three years to return to the island.

Imagine his surprise when he arrived at the original settlement site and found absolutely nothing! No buildings, no people, no bodies. It was as if the entire settlement had been swallowed by the earth. To this day, no one knows exactly what happened to the settlers. Whenever an information vacuum appears, conspiracy theories and rumors soon emerge to fill it. It's no wonder people started believing a witch had taken over the settlement and magicked everything away to hell!

This theme is explored in the new card game Kacíř: Zkáza Roanoke. Before I reveal what it's like and how it plays, I have to mention the theme, which works perfectly here. There are board games that can be slapped onto anything. They're just a system with some pictures added, and that's it. Not here. Kacíř is wonderfully connected to its theme. Throughout the game, you'll know exactly what you're doing and how the individual elements fit into the aforementioned story. Beautiful! The game won me over quickly just with this.

What's it all about?

Kacíř: Zkáza Roanoke is a card duel game – designed for two players. But definitely don't expect another Magic: The Gathering derivative. It's also a heavily asymmetrical game; each side has different cards, mechanics, and goals. The base of the Roanoke settlement consists of nine settler cards, each offering different actions. Players visit the settlers, use actions to play cards, draw new ones, or gain resources.

The player acting as the witch must possess one of the settlers and complete a ritual with them to win the game instantly. The witch hunter player must prevent the ritual and figure out which settler is possessed. The trick, of course, is that the possessed settler is secret, so the hunter must gradually eliminate all the innocent ones, while the witch must play in a way that doesn't draw attention to herself early on and instead diverts focus elsewhere. For the hunter, there is an obviously tempting option to send all the settlers to the stake one by one and see what happens. However, there are significant penalties for doing so.

How do you play Kacíř?

Both players have three actions per turn. The witch uses them to collect secrecy tokens from individual settlers, and once she has enough, she can trigger the ritual on a pre-selected person to win the game. Meanwhile, she casts spells and curses, brews potions, and generally tries to make life as difficult as possible for the hunter.

The hunter also visits settlers but tries to extract information from them. He collects clue tokens. When he has enough, he can heat up the poor soul by the fireplace or clear them of suspicion, increasing his chances of finding the witch. The hunter uses location, ally, or investigation cards that grant him additional actions, bonuses, or make life significantly harder for the witch.

I've verified firsthand that learning the game takes a few minutes, and you can finish a round of the base game in under an hour. Scenarios, which you can add to the game, throw a wrench in the works. They often bend certain rules and contribute to replayability. A slightly experienced player will understand everything immediately after reading the rules or watching a video tutorial. At the same time, the game is pleasantly complex and tactical. Both sides are beautifully balanced, and it's often unclear for a long time how the game will turn out.

What about expansions?

At the moment, you can get five different expansions for Kacíř. They bring new cards and options for both sides. The exception is the Za palisádami expansion, which, if not for the missing tokens and board, could easily be called a standalone game because it brings a new set of settlers and complete card sets for both players. It also introduces a new blight mechanic, which significantly multiplies tactical options.

The Palisades, as the name suggests, move the game slightly outside the settlement itself, and the hunter's playstyle changes even more. I also felt that the expansion extends the playtime. The games are longer, and players sweat more, but the feeling of victory is all the better for it.

A heretic is someone who doesn't try this game

Card duel games are my favorite genre. It's not that I don't have enough friends, but it's regularly easier to meet someone for a beer in a pair than to round up a whole group. Over my years of active board gaming service, I've tried everything I could get my hands on. Kacíř started standing out among them very quickly. It's actually a much bigger game than it seems when you lay it out on the table. While playing, you feel more like you're playing a "big game".

It's tense, you can always try new tactics and build new decks from the expansions. The art and production are top-notch; as I mentioned at the beginning, the game has an amazing and wonderfully functioning theme that is deeply intertwined with all the mechanics. The board game Kacíř: Zkáza Roanoke is a very nice surprise this year that no lover of two-player games should overlook.

author Karel Krajča