Maul Peak Review: Asymmetric Battles of Heroes vs. Guardian

One player takes on the role of the guardian, a huge monster determined to destroy the Grizzar people. The other player will control a band of heroic Grizzars, working together to take down the terrifying beast.

Published by Pencil First Games, Maul Peak is a two-player game with a 40-minute play time. A sequel to Skull Hollow, the game is both a standalone and can be combined with its predecessor.

Gameplay

In this two-player game, one player takes on the guardian role and one player takes on the role of the heroes. Players alternate taking turns until one or the other side has reached their win condition.

The hero starts the game with one hero summoned and the winter beast. There are several winter beasts included in the box, and the hero chooses one to play with. Each winter beast has a different special ability. There are also six heroes in total, but the others must be summoned during the game. When a hero loses all his health, that specific hero is killed and is out for the rest of the game. The guardian has a unique win condition, depending on which guardian is being played — though every guardian can also win by defeating all the heroes and the winter beast.

On a player’s turn, he has a set number of actions he can take. To take an action, a player often has to play a card. Each player has a hand of cards and most cards will show at least two actions. When a player plays a card, he chooses which of the listed actions he is performing.

The guardian player may also discard one card to draw two, and the hero player may discard a card to gain a rage token or draw a card. On his turn, the guardian player may spend a power token to move the guardian meeple one space or to take one of his actions. Meanwhile, the hero may spend rage tokens to either use the winter beast’s ability, to summon another hero, or to use the climb ability. Using rage or power tokens does not count towards a player’s number of actions.

At the end of a player’s turn, he draws up to his hand limit, and any power or rage tokens he gained during that turn are moved into that player’s bank, ready to be spent. In other words, rage and power gained on a turn cannot be spent until the player’s next turn.

There are two boards used during the game. There is the main board on which the heroes and guardian will move. Then there is the guardian board. This represents the guardian and is divided into several sections. In order to attack the guardian, a hero meeple must be on the same space as the guardian on the main board and use a leap action — that hero then moves onto one of the lower sections of the guardian board. In order to move up the guardian, the hero must continue to use the leap action to move to adjacent spaces on the guardian board. The hero may also use one rage to move an extra space.

When attacking a location on the guardian, that specific location takes damage. Each location is connected to one of the guardian’s actions. If a space on his board is completely destroyed, he cannot use that action unless he manages to heal. If the hero player manages to destroy all the spaces on the guardian, he wins the game.

Review

Maul Peak is such a creatively thematic game. Asymmetric roles can be hard to pull off and ensure both sides feel fun and unique, but Maul Peak accomplishes it well. The guardian is powerful and large and starts out more powerful and slowly gets its abilities chipped away, while the hero player must work fast to bring out all his characters and grow stronger as more of them are summoned to the table

The idea of leaping onto the guardian and scurrying around to attack the different parts of him is such a clever idea and is a great meeting of mechanic and component, as the hero meeples transition between the map board and the guardian’s board.

Different win conditions for the different guardians also ensure variety as people become more familiar with the game. The guardian is probably the easier role to win with, but both sides felt like they had a fighting chance if you knew how to use their abilities and powers well.

In general, this isn’t an easy game to learn. There are a lot of little details, and we found ourselves re-checking the rules frequently while playing. This made the initial couple of games go very slowly, but the core idea of the game is so enjoyable that we were willing to put in that extra time. However, it's a game that may not be as fun when both players don’t have the same experience level. There is an optional variant you can add if one player is a lot newer to the game than the other, but it’s still going to be difficult to really make up for that player imbalance.

In terms of components, this is a gorgeous game. The meeples and art design are detailed and intricate. Even the way the game is stored has been carefully thought out, with tuck boxes for the hero and each guardian, making it quite easy to set up and take down again.

Overall, Maul Peak is a very competitive game, which is not going to sit well for everyone. But if you enjoy tense, one-on-one battles and don't mind a learning curve, this is a creative game that’s really fun to explore and improve at, and beautifully produced.

Pros: Really well and thoughtfully put together, both roles feel unique and enjoyable, very thematic

Cons: Will be too competitive for some players, a bit of a learning curve

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