Grand National Derby begat Titan: The Arena which begat Colossal Arena which begat Galaxy: The Dark Age which has now begat Equinox (Book of Knizia 12:3).
Yes, Reiner Knizia is famous for updating and reimplementing his designs into new versions and his original Grand National Derby has spawned its fair share of new games, the latest being Equinox.
What started as a horse race, became a battle of monsters or alien races and is now forest creatures which, while mostly depicted as docile are still battling to the end to see who can become the champion.
How to Play
Eight of the fourteen creatures, each with a different power, are chosen for battle in each game and are laid out across the top of the table. Down the side are a series of round cards from one to five, forming a 5 x 8 grid.
Each player receives five betting tokens and eight cards from the draw pile. The majority of these cards depict one of the eight creatures along with a number from 0 to 10; however, you might also draw one of the eleven Chameleon cards or three tree cards which have special powers.
In the first round, players may choose to place one secret bet by taking a creature card from their hand, putting it face down on the table in front of them and placing a betting token on top of it. For the rest of the game, that bet stays hidden.
A player may, instead, choose to make a public bet by putting a betting token in an creature’s space in the current row. They then play one of the cards from their hand, putting a matching card under the specific creature in the grid and, yes, you can play over an existing card that is already there. They also may choose not to bet and only play a card.
Two types of special cards can also be played. A Chameleon card can be placed under ANY creature and counts as if it were the species in the column. The number on the Chameleon counts the same but any special abilities do not “go off”.
A tree card grants the player a one time special power such as forcing the revealing of a secret bet and taking any card in play back into your hand.
Speaking of special powers, each of the creatures also has one. When you bet on a creature, you become its “controller” which allows you to use their special power if you (and only you) place a matching card in their column. These special abilities run from stopping another player from using half their cards the next turn to returning a betting token to your hand (especially handy if that creature has been eliminated).
Play continues until every space in the row is taken up by a played card at which time the numbers on each are examined and the creature (or creatures) with the lowest numbers are eliminated from the game. For all future rounds, their space in the row is filled with a disappearance card.
This continues for a total of five rounds, playing on each successive row on the grid.
Only creatures that remain in play at the end of the five rounds produce scores based on any betting tokens that were placed on them. A secret bet scores five points, bets in the first play row get four points and so on down to the final round where zero points are scored (so use up those betting tokens before that last round).
Strategy
You need to assess your original hand of cards and rely on your strongest creature(s), or on some plain dumb luck, to determine if you should make a secret bet and who it should be on. Because the value of bets go down with each successive round, it is sometimes good to get a variety of bets down on the table fairly early in the game although saving one or two for later isn’t a bad idea as the remaining field thins.
The real strategy, though, comes in each row of play. The playing of the creature cards of different strengths, along with Chameleons, can turn into a cat-and-mouse game. You opponent will be trying to make any creature on which you bet have the lowest number so they are eliminated which leads you to the decision of playing a high card of that species to counteract you opponent’s play, or drop an even lower number on one of their bets.
The tension is at its highest when there is only one space left in a row. Placing a card their will force the end of the round so do you try to manipulate one of your’s or your opponent’s creatures farther or do you strike and close things off. Of course, those decisions totally depend on what you are holding.
In Conclusion
As I’m reviewing this via the Board Game Arena implementation, I can’t address the quality of the components of the physical game. The BGA version runs smoothly with an almost intuitive interface. The only criticism I have is that the procedure for making a secret bet (clicking on a creature in your hand before hitting bet) is not well documented. I played my entire first game without figuring that part out.
As a game, this can be quite intense, especially at two players. Equinox does play up to five which becomes quite a bit more of a party atmosphere as you lose that tight control with four cards getting put down between each of your plays. In fact, in later rounds, you may only get to play one card in a round, so make it count.
Let’s face it, whether you like the concept of the game or not, you have to admit that there is SOMETHING there as the title has gone through so many changes and endured with each one.
The BGA implementation went from Beta into general release on October 19, 2022.
Score: 8 out of 10
