We take the engine and we control the world. It’s time we take the engine.”
Race across the frozen wasteland with your Last Aurora rules and reference!
This year, while on holiday, it was 2am and I couldn’t sleep. Browsing Boardgameggek on my iPhone, I discovered Last Aurora and bought it on impulse. In the morning, I hoped I hadn’t wasted my money. But then it arrived, I played it, and to my great relief, I loved it!
Another game from Pendragon Studios distributed by Ares Games (see The Thing: The Boardgame), Last Aurora is primarily a race from one end of a board to the other between your convoys of nuclear winter survivors, each trying to reach the icebreaker ship Aurora and a last chance for survival. But there’s much more to it than that. As you race, you build a tableau of cards in front of you representing your convoy and the resources it carries. Wonderful artwork brings this ragtag selection of trucks, trailer, weapons and storage units – and the survivors riding on them – to life, and as you travel you fight enemy gangs, plunder locations for resources, and expand your convoy to increase your chances of survival.
The game has a wonderful Mad-Max-on-ice feel, and the encounters and location really bring it to life. The decisions are interesting and make you feel like you’re really managing a convoy of survivors and their precious resources. And all this works through some straightforward and easy to remember systems.
I’m very glad I bought this one on impulse that sleepless night, and it isn’t long before I grabbed the two expansions, Project Athena and Frozen Steel, which not only expand the game, but this interesting post-apocalyptic world. This is one of these games that you can confidently put on the table knowing you’re going to have a fun experience. Highly recommended.