Storm Raiders Board Game Review

Big, grandiose games are not something we review often at GamesReviews.com because they take so much effort to get tabled, and require a decent player count to fairly review the product. We get a lot of these types of games into the office, but not all of them make it to the review stage. When one does make it, you know we are working with something that’s a bit better than everything else. Storm Raiders is that game, and although it wasn’t a hit for everyone, it was hard to find players who down right hated the game all together. Let’s dive into Storm Raiders and see what it’s all about.

In Storm Raiders, players will be moving around a central map with their various vehicles, collecting items and delivering them to strongholds. Each player has their own personal dashboard with their three vehicles, and on their turn, players will draft dice from the centre of the board and assign them to vehicles to rest and repair. This happens in clockwise order until all but one die has been drafted – the final die has a use, as it will dictate the movement of the storm.

This is where I want to start – it’s not uncommon for drafting games to leave a card or die leftover after everyone has chosen. First and foremost, it provides choice, so that whomever is choosing last isn’t stuck with a single option, and has at least a little bit of agency over their decisions and strategies. Often, though, these additional dice/cards are simply thrown back into a bag or a deck and serve no purpose. Here, that’s different. Not only does the last player to select a die get some options, they can also use this as an opportunity to have a little impact over the storm movement, which is a lot more important than you might think. It takes the idea of drafting and gives a pretty decent benefit to the person choosing last.

With a quick overview, you might not think the game is all that difficult. Use dice to move vehicles, pick up stuff, and return to deliver it. But then all the little intricate things come up that make you really think. Dice, when placed on vehicles, allow you to move over last or through the air a number of spaces – the value of the die needs to match or exceed the value of the routes you are traveling through. So 3-pips allows you to travel over a 1-pip route and 2-pip route. There is a catch – dice allocated to your player boards NEED to increase in value from left to right, so planning routes is crucial to making sure you can continue to take subsequent actions when necessary.

Not enough choice and depth? OK let’s bump it up a notch. When you take resources with a specific vehicle, you need to check whether that vehicle will take damage. Using specific dice or taking specific resources might cause damage to happen to your vehicle. The more damage you take, the less spots you have available for dice, the less distance you can travel before needing to rest and refresh. So what are the benefits?

As you move throughout the world collecting and delivering goods, yes you will take damage, but you’ll also obtain crew cards, earn medals, and even upgrade your vehicles and limit the potential for damage. All of these score you points at the end of the game relative to the three dials associated with crew, upgrades, and medals at the top of your board. Earn the most points, and you win!

Thematically, I think the game is outstanding. If you enjoy this idea of vehicles traveling across a somewhat deserted wasteland, avoiding storms and collecting materials, then this is probably the game for you! I think the ability to upgrade your vehicles to deal with the harsh storm conditions is a great touch, and while those upgrades don’t feel as amazing as you might like – you are simply reducing the potential for damage – they are still a worthwhile path to victory.

I think the Crew Cards are where you can get some flexibility and cool unique bonuses. Again, the idea of having crew and allowing them to provide you benefits as you travel is a fantastic feature in this game, and depending on who you recruit over the game, can make one game feel slightly different than the next.

Ultimately, this is a game that I enjoy very much but was a bit less attractive to some in my gaming group. Some felt the experience was too simple from one game to the next. If this is one of 10 games in your entire collection I  could see this being a problem, but based on the number of games we own and play each year, this will likely become a 1-2 times per year experience for us, so variability in the gameplay isn’t as necessary. While I personally recommend it, it might be worth getting the opinions of others before making the plunge!