Scythe fans will love this sequel board game, but it has serious problems

Duel of Meloch is an ambitious crossover between Scythe and its successful sequel, Expeditions. Both are well-loved head-to-head euros from Jamey Stegmaier, but both are very distinct systems. The fact Stegmaier has combined them into such a smooth strategy game is impressive. Despite this, I’m reluctant to rate it highly – because this board game serves a very specific audience.

Duel of Meloch is a two-player game that pits a Scythe faction against an Expeditions one. These are compatible with their games of origin, which means this is technically an expansion for both titles. Things work the other way, too: Stonemaier Games encourages you to mix and match factions from both games to make the mech-battler of your dreams.

To make this work, play is mostly asymmetric. Both players share a double-sided rubber map (which, sadly feels rather unpleasant, and tends to curl at the edges), though each earns different rewards from its hexes. Both share a victory point track, but it’s double-sided, and each races to similar yet distinct victory conditions. That race is the core of Duels of Meloch. Each victory point on the track can only be earned once, so securing it blocks your opponent. The first to earn four victory points wins.

Each turn, the two players follow separate gameplay loops. Each is a simplified version of play from the original games. The Scythe player gradually sets up an immense engine by hopping from action to action on their player board. They produce resources, construct mechs, collect cards, and push their popularity and power as high as they can. All these actions can be worth VP with enough investment, but that takes time.

The Expeditions player, meanwhile, can take charge far faster. They move, activate map hexes, and play cards from their hand – or some combination of the three. While there’s less of an engine to set up, they grow in potency by collecting new worker abilities for their cards, completing quests, and building upgrades.

Some merging has occurred to keep things smooth. Scythe players can now activate map refreshes like an Expeditions player, while their rival can benefit from Scythe’s combat cards.

The combo is functional and, generally, successful. Games last just 45 minutes, and they’re as tense as they are smooth. That’s mainly thanks to the intricacies of each original system. Both are still tactical, efficient, and excellent, but they don’t interact with each other in any meaningful way.

This, too, is built into Duel of Meloch’s DNA. I lamented Scythe’s lack of player interaction in my original review, and many critics have pointed out how poorly this playstyle communicates the theme of ‘big mechs battling for control of alternate 1920s Eastern Europe’.

This disparity feels more apparent here, because this is meant to be a duel. I still think that ‘race’ is a far better descriptor. Combat is just one way to earn a victory point in Duel of Meloch, and you might be tempted to avoid it completely to pursue a less dicey goal. All other competition happens solitaire. If this is a duel, it’s side-by-side rather than head-to-head.

If you’re already a fan of the Scythe universe, you’ve already forgiven this ludonarrative dissonance. You’ll find Duel of Meloch to be a fast-paced, fun, and inventive way to re-experience your favorite games. For you, it’s the perfect warmup game, in-between session, or palette cleanser. Its replayability will keep you invested for a long, long time.

If you’re not already a Scythe convert, you’ve got far bigger problems than theme.

Duel of Meloch assumes that you’re intimately familiar with both Scythe and Expeditions. If that’s not true, things start to unravel.

The rulebook is a horrendous experience for the uninitiated. Stonemaier provides a summary of how each side plays, plus some bullet points on what’s changed. If that’s not clear enough, the publisher also recommends reading the full rulebooks for both original games online, because they’re not included in the box.

As a result, the rulebook is hard to follow. It assumes you know what specific symbols and phrases mean, even with the tweaks that make these work in two different contexts. I’d never played Expeditions before testing my review copy of Duel of Meloch, and that meant that the first two or three games were mostly spent flipping through three rulebooks, repeatedly, struggling to find the info I needed.

The assumptions Duel of Meloch makes have a wider impact on balance, too. If an expert Scythe player goes against a novice Expeditions player, they’re going to win almost every time. The same seems true in the opposite case. My win rate as the Expeditions player went up significantly once I’d finally sussed out what was going on.

Player experience swings things so dramatically that the game suggests changing its end-game conditions to be easier for the less experienced person. That’s a generous addition to the rulebook, but it shouldn’t be necessary in a balanced game.

Would I play Duel of Meloch again? Absolutely. When armed with the right know-how, it’s the kind of puzzle you delight in unpicking. I expect the expert Scythe players will love it even more than I did. I’d just love it way more if the price of entry wasn’t so damn high. I’m fond of games that reward players for becoming expert; I’m less fond of games that require this expertise to function.

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A review copy of Duel of Meloch was provided by the publisher.

Update: This article originally referred to the playmat as cloth by mistake. This has been corrected to accurately report that it’s made of all-natural rubber.

Source: Wargamer