Dune: Imperium

Dune Imperium is a new game based in the universe Frank Herbert created and coming back to the big screens soon. There is already one Dune game - the reprint of the well regarded older title simply named Dune, but Imperium brings a new experience to the tabletop.

Each player will take control of a leader of one of the Great Houses and use a combination of deck building and worker placement. Each player starts with a deck of cards, that they can improve during the game. These cards have a few functions. First you cannot place a worker without using a card. Each card will have one or more symbols related to areas of the board. To place a worker in one of the spots in that area you will need to play a card with a matching symbol.

Some of these cards also have bonus icons which will give you extra actions or resources. You hand limit is 5 but the most workers you will have is three so you will also have at least two cards left. Thankfully the bottom of some cards contains more actions that trigger when you reveal the rest of your hand gaining all the actions on the bottom of your unused cards. You are free too do this before you have placed workers and use all your cards for this.

During the course of a round you will be gaining resources, and also deploying troops to the conflict zone or your barracks for future conflicts. Each troop is worth two military strength and this can be improved further through unused cards.

The game play is really smooth with a bot used in two and one player games that is really easy to use. In fact one player simulates a multiplayer game really well. Dune Imperium is already being called the game of 2020 and with the smooth mix of worker placement and deck building it is easy to see why.