Stats:
No. of players: 2-6
Amount of time to play: 30 min per player
Age requirements: 14+
Set-up time: 10 min

Exile Sun is a space conquest game. You represent the leader of an exiled group. You must defeat your opponents to bring unity to the region.

Exile Sun Rules Description:

Exile Sun is played over a certain number of turns depending on the number of players, length of game desired and your actions. Each turn you move your ships and then may move the timer pawn forward or backward. Once this pawn has circled the track a certain number of times the game is over.

To begin you have a few ships, fleets, technology and a private agenda card. Then you start the game with a Supply Phase. In this phase you add ships to be built, build and deploy new ships and research new technology. You do this secretly by placing supply points on this four areas. If you have put the most or second-most points into a specific area you get a bonus related to that area. Supply points are gained and spent when choosing turn order which is picked in reverse VP order. The Supply happens every time the timer pawn passes start.

On your turn you move your ships and then move the timer pawn. Each faction has a different number of move actions. Depending on the terrain your ship will move a different number of hexes per move action. You can move through friendly fleets but not end a move action on them. You can end on an enemy fleet. Next you can move the timer pawn one space forward or back on the timer track. This track has two spaces labeled Battle. If the pawn lands on one of these spaces any fleets that share a space battle.

The Battle Event requires you and your opponent to place ships equal to the size of your fleet in the battle. Then you add the power of your fleet and secretly assign it to attack specific ships in their fleet or defend specific ships in your fleet. Once ready you compare attack and defend values. Every point of attack over your defend value damages one area of your ship. Different ships can take a different amount of hits, but each hit reduces that ships power for the next round of battle. Battles last until one side has all their ships destroyed.

At the end of the battle phase you check to see if you have completed any of your private or the public agendas. These will score you VPs. After all battles are resolved play continues in clockwise order.

After you have played the required number of cycles the game ends. The player with the most VPs wins the game.

Quick Review of Exile Sun:

Exile Sun has a unique and fun combat system. You must outwit your opponent and try to stay a step ahead of them to eliminate their ships. All the while you must try to finish agendas to get extra VPs that can mean the difference between a win or a loss.

The components for the game are very nice. The cards, tiles and art are all high quality. The rules are an easy read and simple enough to follow. The ship miniatures look good and work well for stacking when fleets are in the same space. The slider command card is nice but can be hard to manipulate if you have big hands.

The combat system in Exile Sun is really fun and unique. You secretly allocate your points to attack and defense. This sets up a fun battle of wits as you try to outthink your opponent. Where they will allocate their points? How can you get a hit in on them? These decisions are meaningful and battles are tense and exciting.

The way ships circulate through the decks is cool too. You have a design deck and a build deck. At the start of the game the ships in your design deck are better. During the Supply Phase you can use supply points to advance your design of ships. This adds your more powerful ships to your build deck. You get ships from your build deck into your hand by spending supply points to build.

There are a couple things I wish were different about the game though. First, as interesting as the combat is, the rest of the game is not as exciting. Also the combat is less interesting for those not involved and battles can take a while to resolve.

Exile Sun is a space conquest game with a really fun combat system. And though it is not perfect it is still fun. I look forward to more games from this designer and would even like to see this combat system incorporated into other games. If you like space themed games you should try this one out.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 4 out of 6
Luck 2 out of 6
Player Interaction 4 out of 6
Replay Value 4 out of 6
Complexity 4 out of 6
Fun 4 out of 6
Overall 4 out of 6