Kingdom Rush: Elemental Uprising Review

You have no doubt heard the saying, “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone,” right? A lost love, a great job, heck even that one sweet car you shouldn’t have traded. But of course, “Hindsight is 20/20.” But what’s the opposite of all that? You don’t know what you need until you finally get it? Hindsight doesn’t always inform foresight? I’m not terribly sure, but one thing I do know – someone definitely dropped the ball by not telling me how good Kingdom Rush is.

Kingdom Rush: Elemental Uprising is a large box cooperative scenario-based adventure game featuring a modular board, variable player powers, pattern building, tile placement, and some cool little minis (and an extra-large rulebook over 60 pages in length). In it, players are all heroes attempting to protect the kingdom from waves of baddies coming to their gates. As the game is cooperative, all players are feverishly utilizing their special powers and access to troops’ weapons to clear tiles worth of nasties. If the good guys can fend off the invaders successfully, they will win the game!

DISCLAIMER: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. This is a retail copy of the game, so what you see in these photos is exactly what would be received in your box. I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rulebook, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy online or from your FLGS.  -T

Setting up the game will take a little time and effort, but consult the rulebook for each scenario’s setup. This review is highlighting the introductory scenario and setup on the table should look similar to the photo below.

As mentioned earlier, the rulebook for this game is over 60 pages. That means I simply cannot and will not be explaining them all here. In fact, for a great tutorial I suggest watching the same video I watched to help learn: Shaggy from Totally Tabled.

What I will say is simply that the game is played over a series rounds, each of which is completed via six phases: Spawn New Hordes, Play Tower and Hero Cards, Destroy Horde Trays, Advance Horde Trays, Pick Up Tower and Hero Cards, and Buy Towers and Mods.

You will notice in the photos below that the thick green plastic trays contain cards featuring cartoon art of bad guys, collectively called, “Horde Trays.” The first phase of the game is seed the board with more hordes. Depending on the number of horde spawn stacks, one tray per stack will be added to the board each new round. This presents the player(s) with new opportunities to mash up the bads. The second phase is to play the cards belonging to the players and their weapons (hero and tower cards). These cards provide areas of effect to be placed onto the Horde Trays to cover up bad guys. Some powers provide a 1×1 square of damage, while others provide different polyomino shapes or even have players place meeples on the board to fight the bads.

Once all the icons on a Horde Tray for the bad guys are covered up by damage and meeples the players will remove the trays in this phase. Immediately afterward, the next phase is to advance the Horde Trays that still show enemy portraits. They will move a space closer to the kingdom. Should a Horde Tray reach the kingdom gates, the gates will lose hearts (HP) equal to the number of enemies still showing on its card.

All hero and tower cards used during the round are picked up by the players in the next phase, and then a market phase is completed. This allows players to upgrade their tower cards or improve them by purchasing and adding modifications. These could allow more damage, or different ways to damage, benefiting all players. If the game is not won or lost by this time the game will continue with a new round. Once the players have won or lost, the host of the game night is due one beverage per other player for allowing them to be part of their conquest. Obviously, per the rulebook.

Components. If you know us or Lucky Duck Games by now, you KNOW that this game is extremely well produced. Everything, from the cardboard, to the plastics, to the minis, and even the transparent card topper thingies are just of the utmost quality. The one gripe I have about this game’s components is really the insert. While this insert is incredibly well thought out, it leaves so many components forced to fall just wherever they can fit. And when the rulebook shows FOUR PAGES of components, and most of them are small cardboard damage counter chits, I have found myself just shoving them so very unlovingly into spare space in the insert. I have seen other people use fishing tackle boxes or Plano boxes to store the chits, and while, to me, they are not my favorite things to use (just a very non-elegant solution), they may just be the only alternative available. BUT! Aside from that gripe, the components are stellar.

When we were in our infancy as a review group, we decided that we wanted to be different. This is why at the very top of all of our reviews we show our ratings for the game. It bothers us to have to read through pages of texts or watch 10 minutes of a playthrough to get the reviewers’ final words, and with that in mind, you will notice that Kingdom Rush: Elemental Uprising has received our highest rating and a prestigious award from us: The Golden Feather Award. This is only given to those special games that very well could earn a seat in our Top 10 Games of All Time, and this one is very deserving of this.

I very much enjoy the crunchiness of considering all avenues of damage dealing and puzzliness presented here. Trying to figure out where to place my hero meeple or soldier towers to maximize damage is so fun to me. Couple that with the ability to customize my weapons by upgrading or adding modifications just brings me back to my MMORPG years, or even my D&D sessions I currently play. Customization is nearly ALWAYS going to score big points with me, as it brings the excitement of leveling up your characters in other games (you know, the BEST part of playing those style games). Choosing to bring the perfect hero to a given scenario, or just trying out as many heroes as you can to really learn what they can do and how best you might be able to use them in the future. All of this just excites me to play this over and over and over. And if you don’t get that feeling from a game, why have it in the first place?

Speaking of, I have recently had an epiphany regarding my game collection. I have decided to only keep games in my collection that I absolutely ADORE. This means I have auctioned off or traded away a good number of games from my collection (over 200 now), but I don’t think I will ever part with Kingdom Rush: Elemental Uprising. Giving me a solo mode ability, or small group playthroughs is almost a necessity for me nowadays. This provides that, and gives me several different scenarios to play through on both sides of that coin. It also doesn’t hurt that the game just looks FANTASTIC on the table. If you are also looking for something that could result in a sort of lifestyle game, with so many options available, I would highly recommend Kingdom Rush: Elemental Uprising. Currently there are three boxed expansions for this, and its predecessor Kingdom Rush: Rift in Time has several as well. I am seriously considering picking up the expansions and maybe even the original version base game just to intermix everything and just have a blast. Come join me sometime and let’s get our defense on!