I had the luck to briefly test Lost Lumina, an upcoming board game from Dranda Games, at the UK Games Expo, and the experience left me eager for more. With a tiny board, a handful of meeples, and a grip of combat cards, it scratched the same itch for me as strategy epics like Game of Thrones or Dune, despite games playing out in ten to twenty minutes.
Lost Lumina is on a fundamentally smaller scale than those colossal strategy board games, but it has one very similar system – combat resolution. Whenever you march your troops – adorable little woodland critter meeples with a big Root vibe – into enemy territory, you and your opponent will secretly choose a hero card from your hand, adding their martial strength and a special ability into the combat.
It’s a tight little bluffing game, which forces you to consider whether you have any chance of winning the combat, whether you should save a leader for later, and second-guessing what heroes your opponent might have access to.
I love the Game of Thrones board game, but I very, very rarely get it to the table. If you can find a full six players willing to play two games pretty close together – one to learn it, one to really play it – then it’s one of the best board game experiences you’re ever likely to have. Those circumstances are pretty darn rare. Lost Lumina plucks out a small – but very fun – system from that much larger game, and makes it the focus of a pocket sized experience.
It also reminds me of another game I really like, Air, Land, and Sea. Lost Lumina starts with both players drafting their ten hero cards. You’ll draw two from a main deck, select one, and hand the other to your opponent. By the end of the process you’ll know half of the heroes your opponent has access to, giving you imperfect information about what strategies they might be able to employ, similar to Air, Land, and Sea’s shared deck.
With a playtime between ten and thirty minutes (not accounting for catastrophic misplays that could end the game in a couple of turns), you can easily get familiar with the game, learning the heroes, and predicting what your opponent might bring to battle. In Air, Land, and Sea that familiarity with the deck and what your opponent may have in hand really adds to the bluffing game, and I hope Lost Lumina will prove the same over multiple playthroughs.
I didn’t play anywhere near enough of Lost Lumina to call this a review – it was a cursory playtest, enough to get me excited. If you’ve played the original German edition, Lost Lights, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the official Wargamer Discord community!
The Wargamer crew tested a wide selection of other board games at the UK Games Expo – keep an eye out for our coverage of Star Wars: Battle of Hoth, which particularly impressed us. If you want to find a great game for two players that’s available already, we have a handy guide to couples board games.
Source: Wargamer
