Designer:  Jeremy Stoltzfus (Villainous Vikings, Villainous Vikings Second Edition, A War of Whispers)

Artists:  Tomasz Jedruszek (Battles of Westeros, Britannia, Citadels, Condottiere, Dominion, Dominion: Intrigue, Dominion Second Edition, Fields of Green, A Game of Thrones: The Board Game Second Edition, A Game of Thrones: The Card Game, Imperial Settlers, Magic: The Gathering, Middle-Earth Quest, Neuroshima Hex! 3.0, Pret-a-Porter, Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients, Shadows of Brimstone: Swamps of Death, Stronghold, Stronghold Second Edition), Dann May (Black Orchestra, Everdell, Nothing Personal)

Publisher:  Starling Games (Everdell, King’s Forge, A War of Whispers)

Genre/Mechanisms:  area majority/influence, betting and bluffing, expansion, hidden victory points

Funding Status:  At the time of this posting, A War of Whispers: Dark Alliance & Collector’s Edition is already fully-funded. Pledges currently total more than 6x the initial funding goal with 3 days left to go on the campaign.

Player Count:  2-4

Solo Mode:  no

Complexity:  medium-heavy

Risk:  medium-low

What It’s About:  “A game of deep strategy, hidden agendas, and shifting loyalties, where players represent secret societies betting on the results of the War of Whispers while pulling strings to rig the results and ensure their bets pay off. The Dark Alliances expansion pack allows players to plan in the shadows during other players’ turns.”

How It Works:  A War of Whispers is played over 4 Turns, with each Turn made up of 4 Phases: Deploy Agents, Empire Turns, Cleanup, and Swap.

The board is divided into 5 different sections, each with an Empire Council consisting of 4 different action spots: Sheriff, Steward, Marshal, and Chancellor. During the Deploy Agents Phase, players take turns (Retrieving and) Deploying their Agents to one of these 25 spots. These spots allow the player there to take an action or choose from one of two possible actions; with the added incentive that players can also take actions for any unoccupied spots to their left in the same Empire Council. So a player taking the rightmost spot (the Chancellor) will also be able to take the actions of the Sheriff, Steward, and Marshall… IF no other player blocks him by placing their Agent on one of those spots).

During the Empire Turns Phase, players will then execute those actions, beginning with the Bear Empire and proceeding clockwise around the board. Actions include adding Banners (influence) to an area, attacking, drawing Empire cards, and Swapping Agents.

During the Swap Phase, players may swap 2 of their unrevealed Loyalty Tokens, the hidden tokens determining each player’s victory order for the game’s factions. The caveat with this move is that any Loyalty Tokens involved in the swap must then be revealed and STAY revealed for the rest of the game. This make’s the player’s game plan public knowledge, as well as disallowing them from swapping those tokens again at any point in the future. The player has essentially locked themselves in to certain positions, and done so publicly.

During the Cleanup Phase, players discard Empire cards owned down to 5.

“The game ends after the fourth turn marker is placed at the end of the fourth round. Reveal all loyalty tokens and score them as described on page 8.  The player who scores the most points is the winner. If two players are tied for highest score then the player that swapped loyalty the least wins. If any players are still tied, the player with the most empire cards in hand wins.”

The Advanced Rules allows players to Assign Agents to a given region. The Agent then counts as a City for end-game scoring points, which should boost their points at the end of the game, unless their plan goes sideways, the territory shifts allegiance, and the Agent ends up losing the play points instead.

“The Dark Alliances expansion cards start the game in the deck with the other cards. You can use these powerful cards to help one of your fellow players…for a price.”

Comparisons:  Typical area majority games in the vein of A Game of Thrones: The Board Game see players each claiming a different faction, and then utilizing their actions to try to make their faction victorious. A War of Whispers utilizes a similar set of mechanics to Pax Pamir, where all players are playing all factions, but with different agendas. One player may want The Pale Raven to win the game and The Supplicant Spider to come in last place. A second player may want the reverse. A third player may want the same factions to come in first and last place as the second player, but have a different order ranking how they want the other factions to finish the game. Pax Pamir accomplishes this kind of gameplay largely with multi-use cards; A War of Whispers does it with worker placement/action selection.

What Should I Pledge?:
$7 Dark Alliances Expansion: a copy of the new Dark Alliances expansion.
$39 Standard Edition and Dark Alliances: a copy of the new Standard Second Edition of A War of Whispers, along with the new Dark Alliances expansion.
$59 Loyal Spymaster’s Special Deal: a copy of the Collector’s Edition of A War of Whispers, along with the new Dark Alliances expansion. To pledge at this level, you must either be a backer from the previous campaign, or provide proof of purchase of a previous Standard Edition.
$75 Collector’s Edition and Dark Alliances: a copy of the Collector’s Edition of A War of Whispers, along with the new Dark Alliances expansion.

Add-Ons:
None.

KS Exclusives
None.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S., you’re looking at $75 for the Collector’s Edition and Dark Alliances (assuming you haven’t backed the Standard Edition previously), plus your state sales tax, plus $15 in shipping for an estimated (with a state sales tax of 6%) of $95.

A War of Whispers: Dark Alliance & Collector’s Edition completes its Kickstarter on Thursday, June 4th and tentatively ships in December 2020.