Ultimately you need to defend your banner, which sits atop your monolith: a stack of counters that can unfurl into three pieces across the battlefield, which is not exciting enough to have the game named after it and fundamentally misunderstands what the ‘mono’ part of the word means. When battle is declared every champion on all sides resolves its attacks in initiative order, and suddenly the arena is a lot emptier than it was before, because most champions can only take one point of damage. But arena combat between colour-based forces made of hex tiles looks very similar.Įach side is a pile of hex counters that includes champions, runes that power up champions and order tiles that let champions do things they can’t normally do like move, rotate, push an opposing unit away or declare battle. You could say it’s a fantasy reskin of Neuroshima Hex, but the box doesn’t say that, and I’ve never played Neuroshima Hex so I can’t judge for sure. Monolith Arena, by the designer of Neuroshima Hex, is very like Neuroshima Hex. You learn a new game, and halfway through the rules explanation someone says, “So it’s like Neuroshima Hex, then?” You could make it into a 1v1 Mechs vs.There are moments in a reviewer’s life where you want to punch something. Ultimately, the biggest question is: What is even the point, when it is a single-player game anyways? You add a lot of extra fiddliness to the turn-by-turn upkeep of the game, and you don't really add anything that isn't already in the video game, except that you could play without access to a power outlet.