Stats:
No. of players: 2-4
Amount of time to play: 60-90 min
Age requirements: 12+
Set-up time: 5-10 minutes

Hordes: High Command is a deck-building game set in the Iron Kingdoms. It is compatible with War Machine: High Command too.

Hordes: High Command Rules Description:

If you have tried War Machine: High Command than you know how to play Hordes: High Command. The two games share the exact same rules and you could almost Hordes as a stand-alone expansion.

If you do not know how to play High Command you can read an overview of the rules in my War Machine: High Command review. This post will talk more about the differences and specifics of the Hordes set and how they play together.

There are four new factions introduced in Hordes: High Command, Trollbloods, Circle Orboros, Skorne and Legion of Everblight. Each has their own detachments plays differently from the others.

Trollbloods units can be expensive and are good to gain locations in the mid-game. Some of the units allow you to bank cards. This can make up for their cost and even help you have some big turns with lots of cards and resources.

Circle Oboros units have good mobility and high attack values. Their health is a bit low but they can make an early game surge and then pester opponents to hang on for the win.

Skorne units rely on each other and in some ways their opponents too. They gain bonuses based on the other units or number of opponents at their location. If you can manage to get the right units against the right enemies you can gain an advantage over your opponents.

Legion of Everblight units are very flexible. Many of them have the Blight Gift ability. This lets you deploy or rush them with War, Command or a combination of the two. These cards also gain power when you play Blighted Mutation resource card. They are cheap to rush and with careful planning can quickly grab you a location or two.

Quick Review of Hordes High Command:

Hordes High Command brings some fun new factions to the series. It does not require you to learn new rules and may be played with the War Machine version of the game. That said it requires a little figuring out on your part.

The trick to combining both games is the locations. Both sets have four faction-specific locations so you might just want to play with the factions you have in your game. Also Hordes locations use the term warbeast while similar War Machine units are called warjacks. This is easily remedied by making these two terms interchangeable.

The components in this game are very nice just like the rest in the series and the rulebook is almost exactly the same as the one War Machine: High Command.

If you have War Machine: High command and you are looking to add some more factions to the game Hordes is the way to go. If you don’t have either High Command game, pick up Hordes. It feels more balanced and I just like fantasy beasts more than steampunk robots. If your preference is the opposite of mine then act accordingly.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 4 out of 6
Luck 4 out of 6
Player Interaction 4 out of 6
Replay Value 5 out of 6
Complexity 4 out of 6
Fun 5 out of 6
Overall 5 out of 6