SIEGE OF VALERIA (2022)

PLAYERS	TIME	DESIGNER	PUBLISHER
1	30 mins	Glenn Flaherty	Daily Magic Games

In SIEGE OF VALERIA you’re defending the city walls against an army of invading evil monsters and their mighty Siege Engines.

Each enemy card on the battlefield has a value and you must use your red Soldier dice and blue Holy dice to take them out.

Thankfully you have more tricks up your sleeves. Heroes can be recruited and give special abilities. And each enemy troop card you take out will give you a specific one time ability too.

So, SIEGE OF VALERIA is a sort of tower defence game. The enemy move forward, wave after wave, and you must chip away and take them out before they deal any damage.

It’s almost a fantasy version of ‘Plants vs Zombies’.

And I really like it. From the components and artwork (more Valeria means more Mico), to the tactical use of Troop abilities to make each dice in your arsenal count. I enjoy it each time I play.

It’s no push over. Sure, the random set up can sometimes make a game a breeze. But I’ve had several games where the right (wrong?) combination of Siege Engines and Event cards have seen my good dice roll get decimated and completely cripple that round.

I can see the game getting repetitive for some people after a while and maybe they’ll lose interest. I’m lucky that my brain likes doing tasks over and over and I enjoy each game as if it was the first.

And I’m going to get stuck into the Campaign expansion soon that sees you playing three games back to back.

I don’t play many solo games, and those that I do are usually small and short (A GENTLE RAIN or ORCHARD for example). But I’ve found SIEGE OF VALERIA being my first pick off the shelf every time I want to play a game and no one is around.

If you want a nice 30min solo game that makes you think about your moves and looks nice all set up, this is a great choice.