State of Play: Banish the Snakes (yes, also not a wargame…)

 
 

Wednesday night saw the opportunity to get a relatively new game to the table. I ordered Banish the Snakes (GMT Games, 2023) at the very last minute to make the cost of overseas shipping for The Russian Campaign (GMT, 2023) worthwhile. I'd been intrigued by the prospect of the game since it was launched on P500 a couple of years ago, but thought it would be more of a curiosity than a game I’d be inclined to play a lot. And, to be honest, I thought the theme would be a hard sell for nearly everyone I regularly sit down at the table with. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me, and that amazing Terry Leeds board sealed the deal for me.

I’ve now played Banish the Snakes twice; the first – the weekend before – was a solo run-through with three saints, and due to time limitations I didn’t see the game to its conclusion, but the ten or so rounds I played through gave me a good feel for the play of the game.

A tough audience

The Wednesday game fielded five saints, including powerhouses Patrick and Palladius, I was going to sit out and run the game, but B convinced me to join in the fun.  We played the standard game. The first round revealed some particularly recalcitrant druids, and Strathclyde fell within a handful of rounds. Things looked bleak at times, but never truly dire. Even with the toppling within a round of nearly every freshly converted king, the players would rally, optimise their plus-modifiers, and overcome the next challenge.

Not all co-ops fall into this pattern. The Grizzled (Sweet Games/CMON, 2015) creates a very strong shared narrative around the play of cards, but this may be an artifact of the tricks woven into the game that involve and impact the players more viscerally, like the potential for a character being struck mute with fear in a game situation driven by table conversation.

One thing I’ve noticed in my – admittedly limited – experience with co-operative board games is how at some point the play tends to devolve into a group puzzle-solving exercise. This is particularly apparent in games like Pandemic (Z-Man Games, 2008). Co-op games often seem to tend toward the puzzle-end of the game spectrum; I guess the escape room concept was the inevitable evolutionary result of this tendency (personally, not a fan). The play experience is usually still enjoyable, but some of the investment in the dressing of the game, which in a game like Banish the Snakes is a huge draw-card to play, can be lost. Personally, I think this is a shame, especially with a game so rich as this in theme and history. But I think this is really an issue for me, and people should take the joy of play where they find it.

In the end, and by the grace of God, the challenge was met and Ireland was converted by the tireless works of the Lord’s vessels. Or alternatively, the parameters of a successful completion of the tasks set by the inscrutable game designers against our puzzle-masters were met. A victory for logic and good planning.