Derek 'Dez' Maggs 
In Posthuman Saga, you’ll venture into a weird and wonderful world, where unknown threats await you at every turn. As you’ve journeyed far from home, living off the land & finding out so much about yourself & the land around you. It comes a time when you can explore no more & must journey home. As there is no place like home!
Game Setup
Common Setup
Follow the normal setup procedures for a game of Posthuman Saga, with a few modifications:
- Place the journey board in the center of the table.
- Organize the landmark deck and the mission progress deck according to their card backs, in ascending numerical order (i.e., the lowest-numbered card on top).
- Shuffle the enemy decks, mutant boss deck, mutation decks, weapon decks, equipment deck, and follower deck.
- Take a number of morning tokens from each player (4P: 2each, 3P: 3 each, 2P: 3 each). Add enough blank tokens so that there are 16 total. On the round track, place blank tokens on spaces #1 and #16, then shuffle the other 14 tokens and randomly distribute them to spaces #2 – #15, face down.
- Shuffle the terrain tiles and split them into several stacks. Place the stacks off to the side of the board, face down.
- Place all scavenge site tokens into the scavenge site token bag and all story tokens into the story token bag. Draw a number of terrain tiles from the stack (4P: 4 terrain tiles, 3P: 3 terrain tiles, 2P: 3 terrain tiles). Place them in the map queue in the center of the journey board, face up.
- Then draw an equal number of scavenge site tokens and place one next to each terrain tile in the map queue, face up. For each player, choose three landmark tokens at random and, without viewing them, place them face down in three zones of their quadrant
- Shuffle the event deck and place it in the matching space on the board, face down.
- Choose a random recon objective card for the current player count and place it in the matching space on the board.
- Choose the mission scorecard for the current player count and place it in the matching space on the board.
- Take one character token from each player. Distribute them randomly to the spaces on the player order track.
Follow the normal setup procedures above for a game of Posthuman Saga, with the following changes and modifications:
- The Journey Home changes the way players score VPs and what they work towards in the game. The standard mission cards and mission scorecards are not used to put these aside. Instead, you will use the following new decks to score VPs: Explorer cards, Story-mission cards and Unlock cards.
- Explorer card decks B and C as well as the Unlock cards should be left in sequential order, with their backs facing up. These will be drawn when instructed. Explorer card deck A (the ones without a number on the back) is shuffled and a number of cards are placed face-up on the side of the board depending on the number of players:
- 2players – 3 cards
- 3players – 4 cards
- 4players – 4 cards
The remaining cards are placed face-up in a deck so that players can see the card coming up next.
- Replace the recon objective cards in the base game with the recon objective cards of the expansion.
Game Objectives:
The player with the most victory points (VP)at the end of the game wins. There are five ways to score…
- Completing Your Mission Objective – At the start of the game, each player receives a mission objective card, which shows two missions that must be completed sequentially.
- Completing Your Side Mission – To complete aside mission, which will be indicated on a mission progress card, you must trek in terrain that contains a specific scavenge sit
- Completing the Recon Objective – At the start of the game, a recon objective card6is randomly chosen and placed on the journey board.
- Defeating a Mutant Boss
- Spending XP
Game Play
Before the first game, one player should read the introductory story of the storybook.
Round Summary
Each round has three phases:
Morning Phase
- Each player must eat food or suffer fatigue
- Resolve a story encounter (if applicable).
- Resolve any broadcast or event.
Day Phase
- Each player secretly selects an action.
- Camp – When you camp, place your camp token on the terrain you occupy.
- Forage – When you forage, you move or march, then you take the standard loot from the terrain you occupy
- Trek – When you trek, you move or march, then you must resolve a combat encounter
- Map – When you map, you recover two broadcast tokens-OR-refresh the map queue. To refresh the map queue, discard all-terrain then scavenge sites from the queue
- Resolve actions in player order.
Night Phase
- Each player may spend XP to learn skills.
- Refresh the map queue.
Observe the normal rules for a game of Posthuman Saga, with the following changes and modifications:
- Explorer Cards – Players score VPs by completing the exact pattern (in any orientation) of terrains on the Explorer cards along with any icons on them.
- Follow-Up Missions – Most story missions provide further missions to follow if the player wants. These can be done at any time and are optional. If the indicated condition is completed the player scores the VPs indicated on the card. Some story missions end here, others lead to a third mission.
- Cartographer cards – If, by the end of the game you have tiles in the spaces indicated by black squares on the Cartographer card, you score 3VP. The player can have more tiles of course, as long as the pattern is completed.
- Enemies and Mutations – After the Mutants Encroaching! event (round 7), you will draw from the level 2 enemy deck to resolve encounters and from the major mutation deck when you suffer a mutation.
End of the Game
The game ends when the last round is over. There is no early game end trigger.
Final Scoring At the end of the game, players add the following to the victory points (VP) they have already scored:
- one VP for every mission token they have placed that corresponds to an incomplete mission
- one VP for every five XP remaining
The player with the most total victory points wins!
First Thoughts
When Mighty Boards first reached out to me about reviewing Posthuman Saga: Journey Home, I was excited. As I love post-apocalyptic survival gam…….. actually I like post-apocalyptic survival video games. I’ve never played a board game that has been able to capture the survival elements of my favorite video games.
So, I was nervous, as will Posthuman Saga: Journey Home be the survival game homecoming I’ve always wanted, or will this game struggle to survive?
Gameplay
I had the game pre-setup as I wanted to play both Posthuman Saga first & then add the expansion. Plus the board presence on the table is impressive, and I wanted that wow factor when the players walked it.
I’ve never played Posthuman Saga, but heard good things about it. So, I have come across several games where the base game is great & the expansion adds nothing or very little.
So halfway through Posthuman Saga, I have to admit, the rumors are true. I have never played a game that embodies the survival video games I love to play in my free time. I loved it and so did my playgroup….. which at the same time worried me a little bit. What could Posthuman Saga: Journey Home at to an already great game? The answer is, a lot!
Posthuman Saga: Journey Home gives the game depth, more complexity & makes this feel more like the euro game. It doesn’t feel any longer than the original game, which is weird. But it really makes you think, plan & screw over your friends. The follow-up missions are great, as they add to the already great story and continue it on…. But only if you want or dare to continue on. Then add in the Explorer Cards that almost force your hands to try & make the sequences & giving you a limited time to it all these things. This seems stressful enough, but you have to do all this while trying to keep yourself alive. It is intense!
Art
The board presence of Posthuman Saga: Journey Home is amazing. On the table, it commands the area. You could not walk past a table with this set up without stopping and wanting to know to see what this is.
You need to check out this video, and tell me you’re not impressed?
Final Thoughts
Posthuman Saga: Journey Home is not the game I expected it to be, but it is the game I’ve always wanted!
It blends complex, in-depth gameplay, with beautifully designed components, & set in a stunningly designed world that plays like one of my favorite styles of video games. If you’ve played Posthuman Saga you need this expansion, you’ve never played it. Add it to your Christmas list, your birthday list, any list you can. Just get it as you need this in your collection!
Check out Mighty Boards’ Posthuman Saga: Journey Home Kickstarter here… especially if, like me, you can wait until Christmas or your birthday!
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