I’ll confess it was a little surprising to unfurl Moytura’s board and see such a literal depiction of Ireland. After the suffocating hoplite melee of Iliad, the checkerboard Mount Olympus of Ichor, and the abstract leylines of Azure, here the membrane between the real and the mythological seems especially thin. Designed by one of the busiest partnerships in the industry, David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin, and fiercely illustrated by A. Giroux and Harry Conway, Moytura loosely retells the Maighe Tuireadh’s ancient clash between men and monsters to decide the fate of pre-Christian Ireland. As an installment in this particular series, it’s something of an odd duck. I’d even go as far as to play loose with some definitions and label it a light wargame.

A light wargame with heaps of monsters, that is. Right from the get-go, Moytura portrays its conflict as a desperate struggle for survival. And let me tell you, the main attraction is all those baddies.

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