I will start with the short review: This game is a delight, and you should absolutely have it in your collection. Now, for something a little more in-depth.



I play a lot of board games with a lot of different people. While my fiance and I regularly play together, we always seem to be teaching a new group of people a game. Sometimes this can be exhausting as you tell people for the umpteenth time that the resources in Catan are gathered when the dice are rolled. Different groups have different desires for complexity, and many of them want cooperation without the "alpha gamer" telling them what to do.



Enter, The Grizzled. This game's theme is not light, you play as French soldiers fighting in the trenches of the Great War. The core mechanic of the game is set-avoidance. Each player takes a turn placing a card from their hand in the center of the table (no-man's-land). These cards have symbols for different threats present in WWI, and once three of them show up, you fail the mission. This is a really easy core mechanic for new-players to understand, but it provides enough meat for euro-lovers to enjoy. There are other rules I wont get into too much depth here about that allow you to remove cards, and generally make your character's life more difficult. It really is wonderful, and it is a very social experience.



So, in conclusion, this game is a winner. A social game that is complex enough for board game lovers, but simple enough for new-comers. Everyone I have played it with enjoys it thoroughly, with one exception: my mother-in-law. She loves games, but doesn't like playing games with a strong story mechanic. While The Grizzled doesn't have a super strong story mechanic, it is easy to understand where she did not like the theme and some of the "hard knocks" cards. So I guess do approach with a degree of caution despite my glowing review; if someone you play with often may not like the theme, then this might not be the game for them.