Stats:
No. of players: 3-5
Amount of time to play: 150-180 min
Age requirements: 13+
Set-up time: 10-15 min

Level 7 Invasion is a sci-fi themed, semi-cooperative board game. Each player takes on the role of a coalition and must work together to defend Earth from an alien invasion.

Level 7 Invasion Rules Description:

Level 7 Invasion continues the story from the earlier games in the series. Aliens, called Hydra, are invading the Earth to eliminate the Ghin. The citizens of Earth are caught in the crossfire and must fight to survive.

You can win this game by finishing the Cronos Project. This takes at least seven rounds, must be preformed in a set order and costs you resources. You lose if a coalition falls that has not completed its part in the Cronos Project, the territory with the Cronos standee is overrun, every coalition falls or if all the Devastation Cards have been drawn.

A round in Level 7 Invasion is divided into three phases, the development phase, warfare phase and maintenance phase. These phases are further divided into five steps.

In the development phase you can get some help from Ghin Mercenaries and then deploy your units to the board. You can also research new technologies to help you fight and defend your coalition from the aliens. This is also the phase in which you may complete the different phases of the Cronos Project. Cronos must be in the coalition that is working on the current phase of his project. At the end of this phase you collect resources which consist of money, food minerals and oil and are different for each coalition. You can also trade with one other coalition in this phase. It is necessary for coalitions to trade if you want to win the game.

The warfare phase starts by letting you move your units and Cronos around the board. Next you draw event cards. Each event card has two events on it and each player gets a card and decides which to resolve. These cards also spawn more aliens onto the board. Each region can only hold so many aliens and they go into adjacent regions once a region is full. If any of your units now share a region with aliens you fight. Combat is resolved by determining the attacker and defender based on their power, and rolling a die. A plus result removes a defender, a minus result removes an attacker and an equal sign removes one from each side. The die is weighted toward the attacker. If you are able to remove enough invaders from a region it becomes overrun. Once overrun it does not produce as many resources. The warfare phase ends with invaders moving to adjacent regions if they exceed the limit allowed there.

The last phase each round is the maintenance phase. You determine the first player for the next round based on the coalition Cronos is in. Then each coalition that has any aliens in their borders increases their terror level. The higher a coalition’s terror level the less resources they produce. Each coalition has a military-industrial complex. It represents a coalition’s workforce and production facilities. Ii determines how much food you need to feed your coalition and if it is reduced to zero your coalition falls. The last step in this phase is to replace any drop ships with alien miniatures and place new drop ships based on the drop ship card you draw. In the next round aliens will spawn where drop ships are.

Before you start the next round you check victory conditions. If neither the aliens nor the players have won you play another round. If the players win only those still in the game are winners. Players that lose their coalition do not join in the win.

Quick Review of Level 7 Invasion:

Level 7 Invasion is an immersive, semi-cooperative game. You feel like you must defend the Earth from impending doom. Though it’s a bit long and a little complex this game is a lot of fun.

The components for this game are fantastic. The graphic design is great and the miniatures look nice too. The rules are really well done and you can learn the game while you read them. There is even a very informative tutorial video here that teaches a good portion of the game.

I really like how each coalition plays a bit differently. They gain different amounts of different resources, have different military-industrial complex and terror level values and really play differently from one another.

The event cards are resolved in a way that removes an alpha player controlling the action. Only you see your event card and you are not allowed to talk about it. This and the die-rolling keep one player from taking over all the action.

There are a couple neutral things about the game that are just good to know. It is huge. Yes it looks impressive on the table but you will need a big one to fit all the things need to play this game. Also it says 3 to 5 players but if you have less than five one person plays more than one coalition. It is not too big a deal but again worth noting. Lastly the game says semi-cooperative, but you really should just play this a straight up cooperative board game. Especially when playing with less than five players (see my last point).

The only things I am not wild about are the play time and replay value. For what it is the game is a bit long. The time will fly and you’ll enjoy it but you still need to block off at least two and a half hours to play it. And even though there is a good bit of variety in the way things unfold from game to game, you always complete the Cronos Project in the same order. It would have been nice to have to option for some coalitions be more involved in the process later into the game.

Level 7 Invasion is a fun board game. I really enjoy its theme and it really draws you into the game. It is not nearly as complex as it seems at first glance either. After a turn or two you will rarely need the rules. And if you do there is a handy index on the back of them to help you find what you’re looking for. If you have enjoyed the other games in the series pick this up. If you are not sure give it a try, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

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