Designer:  Eric M. Lang (Arcadia Quest, Arcadia Quest: Inferno, Blood Rage, Chaos in the Old World, Cthulhu: Death May Die, A Game of Thrones: The Card Game, A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Second Edition, The Godfather: Corleone’s Empire, Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation, Marvel Dice Masters: Avengers vs. X-Men, Marvel Dice Masters: Uncanny X-Men, The Others, Quarriors!, Rising Sun, Star Wars: The Card Game, Warhammer 40,000: Conquest, Warhammer: Invasion, XCOM: The Board Game)

Artist:  Adrian Smith (Blood Rage, Conan, Cthulhu: Death May Die, Magic: The Gathering, The Others, Rising Sun, Space Hulk Third Edition, Warhammer: Invasion)

Publisher:  CMON Limited (Arcadia Quest, Arcadia Quest: Inferno, Blue Moon City, Council of 4, Cthulhu: Death May Die, Dragon Castle, Ethnos, Gizmos, The Godfather: Corleone’s Empire, The Grizzled, Lorenzo il Magnifico, Massive Darkness, Modern Art, Newton, Railroad Ink: Blazing Red Edition, Railroad Ink: Deep Blue Edition, Rising Sun, Unfair, Zombicide, Zombicide: Green Horde)

Genre/Mechanisms:  area control/influence, grid movement, hand management, miniatures, variable player powers

Funding Status:  At the time of this posting, Ankh: Gods of Egypt is already fully-funded. Pledges currently total more than 7.5x the initial funding goal with 4 days left to go on the campaign.

Player Count:  2-5

Solo Mode:  no

Complexity:  medium-light

Risk:  HIGH (due to their recent financial audit)

What It’s About:  “A competitive game in which players assume the roles of ancient Egyptian gods, fighting against inexorable oblivion as history advances towards monotheism.  Using unique powers and mythical guardians, each god must gain followers, have monuments built in their honor, and inspire warriors to fight for their beliefs. Only devotion can sustain you for eternity. Only one god can remain.”

How It Works: “Each player controls an ancient Egyptian god, and their goal is to gather enough Devotion to become the only god of Egypt. Devotion is gained by gathering Followers, sacrificing them to build Monuments or increase a god’s Ankh powers, and engaging in conflicts with the others gods for dominion over the kingdom. As time advances, Monuments may become associated with different Gods. Mythical Guardians will join the conflict, regions of Egypt will be redivided by camel caravans, two gods may even merge into a new divine being, but only one (or perhaps none) will rise in the end as the only God of Egypt.”

“Ankh is played in turns. During their turn, a player performs 1 or 2 actions. Sometimes a player’s action will also trigger an event. After fully resolving the player’s actions and the event, the current player’s turn ends and the next player in clockwise order takes their turn.”

There are 4 actions a player can choose from on their turn: Move Figures, Summon Figure, Gain Followers, and Unlock Ankh Power.

“Positioning your figures correctly is vital if you are going to take full advantage of each region. Many situations in the game require figures to be adjacent to another figure or Monument. Other times, it can be very advantageous to occupy a space simply so that none of your opponents may do so. When performing the Move Figures action, the player may move each of their figures on the board up to 3 spaces (0, 1, 2 or 3 spaces).”

“The gods wield immense power, but even they need support from Warriors and Guardians to spread their domain across the land. The Summon Figure action allows a player to choose 1 figure from their pool (Warrior or Guardian) and place it on the game board.”

“Every divine being needs Followers to do their bidding. Followers are key to building new Monuments to honor the gods and for unlocking Ankh powers. When performing a Gain Followers action, the player gains a number of Followers equal to the number of Monuments (either theirs or neutral) they have any figures adjacent to. They take that number of Follower tokens from the general supply and add them to you pool.”

“A player’s God dashboard shows all of the possible Ankh powers available. Ankh powers can only be used after they have been unlocked by performing the Unlock Ankh Power action. Ankh powers are divided into 3 levels and displayed on the God dashboard in 3 columns. At most, each god may have 2 Ankh powers unlocked in each level.”

Ankh comes with different scenarios (estimated at 3-4 per player count), and many of them may have rules tweaks, but in general, the game ends when one of 3 conditions is met: “a player wins immediately when their Ankh token reaches the top space of the Devotion track, a player wins immediately if they are the only god left in play after the fourth Conflict event (if no gods are left in play at this stage, the game ends in a draw and Egypt becomes atheist), or if neither of the previous conditions are met, the game is won by the player with the most Devotion after the last Event on the track is resolved.”

Comparisons:  The other 2 games in this unofficial trilogy from Eric Lang and CMON include Blood Rage and Rising Sun. Each of them plays differently, and this is not a case of each game using the same game system with a few different rules tweaks from game to game. Still, they are all essentially entries in the “dudes on a map” genre. Some other well-regarded games in that genre include Clash of Cultures; Heroes of Land, Air & Sea; Inis; Kemet; Lords of Hellas; and Scythe.

What Should I Pledge?:
$100 Faithful Pledge: includes a copy of Ankh: Gods of Egypt with all applicable stretch goals.

Add-Ons:
$50 Pantheon Expansion: includes 5 God figures, 30 Warrior figures, 20 counter bases, 80 Ankh tokens, 30 Battle cards, 5 God dashboards, and 5 Joined God dashboards.
$45 Pharaoh Expansion: includes 1 Golden Pharaoh figure, 30 Priest figures, 1 Palace dashboard, 40 Political cards, 5 Sphinx tokens, 4 Sphinx cards, and 1 Scenario booklet.
$35 Guardians Set: includes 11 Guardian figures and 5 Guardian cards.
$30 Playmat: 3mm thickness with stitched edges.
$25 Art book

KS Exclusives
The playmat and art book are KS-Exclusives, full stop. But everything from the core box to each of the expansions is full of KS-exclusive figures and components. If this is a game you want, know that the retail version will only include an incredibly stripped-down version of the game, and you’ll hit yourself for not picking it up in full here.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S. (and assuming you’re not interested in the art book), you’re looking at $100 for the Faithful pledge, $95 for the Pantheon and Pharaoh Expansions, $35 for the Guardians Set, $30 for the Playmat, and an estimated $30 in shipping (CMON only gives a shipping estimate for the base game, which is $15 and doesn’t include the shipping costs for the expansions and playmat), for an estimated total of $290.

Ankh: Gods of Egypt completes its Kickstarter on Monday, May 4th and tentatively ships in May 2021.