Take Part in a Cozy, Two-Player Foody Dice Battle in Foodfighters

The veggies and the meats are going to war! With crackers, beans, spoons, and pans, they’re ready to fight.

In Foodfighters by Kids Table Board Games (KTBG), one player chooses the veggie team and the other the meat. Be the first to defeat three matching units to win the game.

Gameplay

Each player takes the nine tiles showing the fighters on their team. Each team has three different types of units, and each unit is shown thinking about one of the three types of fighters on the opposing team. You shuffle your tiles and lay them out face-up in a three-by-three grid, with the front row directly in front of the front row of your opponent. Bean tokens and the bonus die are placed in the communal pantry area, while each player has two spoons, a pan, and three cracker tokens placed on their side of the pantry along with their team’s three unique ability cards.

There are three phases on your turn. During the first phase you choose to either roll, swap, or attack. When you roll, you roll two dice and collect the number of beans shown on the dice. If you roll a green splat, reroll until you roll a bean. If you swap, you earn one bean from the pantry, and then may move one of your fighters. You may either swap any two of your fighters on the board, or may move any of your tiles to an empty space in its row.

When you attack, you select which of your fighters is attacking and which enemy tile it is attacking. Your fighter can only attack an enemy unit of the type it is thinking about and that it is adjacent to, either diagonally or vertically. You then roll the two dice and if you roll a splat, you’ve scored a hit and place the defeated tile in your score pile. If you only rolled beans you miss but get to collect the beans you rolled.

During the second phase of your turn you may spend your beans to buy something. You may either pay to use the bonus die (in which case you will be rolling three dice next turn) or pay for one of the items on your side of the pantry. Pans can be equipped to one of your units, which allows it to attack any enemy type that is within range (you discard the pan after that unit successfully scores a hit against a target). Spoons increase a unit’s range, enabling it to attack from back rows. Crackers act as shields: when a unit with a cracker is hit the cracker is discarded rather than the unit (unless the attacker managed to roll two splats in the attack). Spoons, pans, and the bonus die are returned to the pantry after use (though you may not re-buy an item you just used earlier on the turn) but crackers are discarded from the game.

Each team also has three unique ability cards, which you can buy. Some ability cards are one-time uses and then discarded from the game, some are returned to the pantry after use, while others remain active for the rest of the game.

During the final phase of your turn, your opponent must fill any gaps in his grid by moving tiles forward (if there are any units in rows behind the gap).

The first player who manages to defeat three matching unit types, wins the game.

Review

Foodfighters is an extremely light little game that’s great for playing with children or newcomers to the hobby. It’s very accessible, has simple rules, but with some light tactical choices as you move your units with an eye on which tiles can attack who and which unit types you and your opponent have already captured.

The management of beans and items, and the abilities you can purchase also adds an extra layer to the game, particularly the one-time use powers and items, as you need to choose carefully when to deploy them. We also really enjoyed the fact that each team has their own unique abilities, which mixes up the gameplay.

There’s a really fun quality to the artwork, and the components are all well made, with nice sturdy tiles for the units and wooden tokens for the beans and equipment. The game also includes stickers which allow you to customize the teams if you choose and draft the powers as you compile the teams which is a neat way to customize the game.

Foodfighters does have a lot of luck, and while there’s some light strategy and planning involved, if the dice are against you there’s not really any way to mitigate that. Consequently, it’s not going to be for everyone and it’s going to be a bit too light even for some casual game fans.

But if you enjoy the luck, Foodfighters is a very relaxing, low-key, competitive game for two players. It plays fast, is satisfying, and has just enough extra elements added to the dice mechanics to make the battle feel like one worth fighting.

Pros: High quality components, light and easy, good for kids and adults

Cons: Quite luck heavy

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.