Charlie Theel
United States
St. Louis
Missouri
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Any game that has miniature plastic Glocks and duffle bags stuffed with contraband has a place on my gaming table. For the more discriminating gamer, you can rejoice for the beauty here is much farther than skin deep. Like Gale Force Nine’s previous release Spartacus, this is not exactly a solid game wrapped in gorgeous theme, rather, this is an exceptional one. This design team has once again pistol-whipped my expectations and rode across their remains with a steel black Harley.
So you’re not a Sons of Anarchy fan because it’s not as refined as Downton Abbey or mentally engaging as True Detective? Fine, but don’t let your high horse carry you past this game. If you have any passing appreciation for gang warfare, gun running, or good old fashioned Ameritrash violence you will enjoy this experience. Desperation and risk are at play much more so than any specific characters from the show. Fans of SOA will appreciate small thematic touches in how the Anarchy cards play out and clever mechanical implementations such as having one of your guys “take the fall” when the Heat’s on you, but overall these are not integral to the title.
One of the greatest tricks the designers are able to pull is hoodwinking thematic-only gamers into playing what is a Euro game at heart. Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem is very much a worker placement game, albeit one with rich theme and vibrant conflict. It does feel like a very successful hybrid of thematic and Euro elements as you’re placing gang members on the board to exploit locations but can block opponents and even Throw Down to engage in what can amount to a quite brutal all out brawl. The integration of both styles of game design feels very solid and well developed as GF9 is able to pull off the sometimes difficult task of hybridization. Everything here flows naturally and runs smooth like a purring engine.
Each player will control members of one of the prominent gangs appearing on the Sons of Anarchy TV show. You have the title crew SAMCRO, The Mayans, The One Niners, and The Lin Syndicate. You can play the Unleaded Rules where everyone is on equal footing, but you will really want to dive into the High Octane rules in which each club has their own special abilities and starting resources. Each MC is pretty unique and the unique powers associated with them are effective without being too game breaking. The abilities also offer a touch of flavor that does a great job in representing tendencies we see on the show, such as SAMCRO excelling at the gun trade. All of these club special rules can be mitigated by your opponents actively working against you and attempting to prevent your natural talents from reaping a hefty reward and balance seems to be superb.
SAMCRO and the Mayans trading words, fists, and subsequently bullets.
The two types of “Dudes” that make up your gang are weaker Prospects and stronger Members. They both can exploit (use) a location but only Members can start a Throw Down (fight) and they also confer a higher bonus when doing so. You take turns with each player performing a single action, typically moving all of your Dudes from one location to another, exploiting a location, starting a Throw Down, or recruiting additional Prospects/Members. The core system is pretty simple and at its bare bones it’s a worker placement game where you move between positions on the tiles to activate locations where no one else is at. A single Dude from an opponent’s club will cause a location to be contested and you will not be able to exploit it until you either beat him down or convince the enemy to leave.
Members convey a greater bonus than Prospects. Both pale in comparison to carrying a piece.
Convincing, blackmailing, muscling, and threatening the other players is not only something I love more than Whiskey, but it’s also a huge element of this game. This backstabbing and intrigue element is a large factor in what makes Spartacus one of my top games, and I was ecstatic to find it baked into this design. The rulebook offers encouragement for players to make deals based on promises, money, contraband, and guns but nothing is binding. Screw or be screwed as fate and your fellow deadbeats at the table decide.
In addition to the Euro-like worker placement mechanism, the game is all about resource conversion. We’re not talking about turning a red cube into an orange cube, no, we’re talking about exploiting locations to buy guns/drugs, and then selling them at other locations for the almighty dollar. Sometimes you will be able to trade guns and contraband for each other and there is a touch of economic maximization here, but it’s not particularly overwhelming and never takes away from the aggressive hard-nosed aspects of the game.
Whoever has the most money at the end of the 6th turn wins, so you must participate and thrive in the underhanded business side of the game to come out on top. The resources are interesting as well because while contraband is solely good for acquiring money, guns can also be used to add to your total strength in a fight and they are worth more than even a Member in that regard. So you have this struggle of deciding how many guns to throw into a scrap as you weigh the benefit of winning versus the fact that you’re burning cash to do so. That’s an excellent decision point that always causes agony.
Fat stacks of skrilla.
Committing guns to the Throw Down is one of two instances where blind bidding rears its intriguing head. Guns are tossed into the fight when both players conceal how many they wish to add and then simultaneously reveal. They add to your strength in a Throw Down as well as place your rival’s Dudes in the hospital. They also raise your Heat which represents the 5-0 putting pressure on your motorcycle club.
The second instance of blind bidding is the Black Market phase at the end of the turn. Players take up a number of their contraband pieces into their closed fists and again, simultaneously reveal. If the total number of contraband trafficked is low, each piece sold is worth more. This opens things up for total screwage and negotiation as you try to get other players to promise to only toss in one or two bags so that you each get more money, but then Ben decides to give you the finger and throw in 3 just so he can laugh in your face. There are a couple of clues you can sniff out to get an idea of how much your enemies can contribute to the Black Market, as the amount of contraband they can traffic is inversely related to the amount of Heat they possess. Being perceptive of who has grabbed contraband on recent turns is also a necessary observation you will want to be aware of.
It’s pretty obvious that I am a huge fan of this game. You have strong-armed negotiating, smooth mechanics, and miles of flavor which all come together to organically create lasting memories of heightened emotionally invested gameplay. One of the title’s greatest strengths is also the variety found within. You reveal Anarchy cards each round which can provide effects, limitations, and additional temporary locations – but the best part is that you utilize less than half of the included cards each play. You also only see 6 of the 19 random locations in each game. This is astounding as the game state and strategy must be assessed completely fresh with each play. The replayability and discovery is certainly here in copious amounts.
Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem is among the upper echelon of releases in the past few years. It is too busy doing everything right to do anything wrong. Any time I can tell someone “Move your gutless puke off the Adult Video Emporium or I’m going to block your coke operation at the Cut and Bag” I can’t help but smile. Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem, above all else, makes me smile.
This review was originally written for 2d6.org. To view other reviews written by Charlie Theel head here
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Ian Allen
United States
Madison
Alabama
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All in favor of my opponents meeting Mr. Mayhem???.... BAM... motion passed ...
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