Kemet Is A Knife Fight In A Lift And I Mean That As A Compliment

One review described this as a knife fight with four other people in a lift, and I haven’t found a better one line summary since. Everything is within striking distance of everything else on this map, which means the conservative dudes-on-a-map instinct that works in most area control games just gets you eaten alive here.

My copy is the multilingual first edition, secondhand, minor box wear, and it came with a small manufacturing quirk, one extra action token instead of a prayer point marker in the red player’s set. Doesn’t affect anything, I never bothered contacting anyone about it, but it’s the kind of detail that makes a used copy feel like it has a little history to it. The power up tile system is the actual engine of the game, buying combat and movement upgrades that let every player evolve toward a genuinely different army by the end, and building that engine turn over turn is addictive in a way pure combat games usually aren’t for me.

Storage is the one real complaint I’ve got, the tiles and tokens for five factions worth of upgrades sprawl fast and the stock insert isn’t built for it, I ended up bagging things by faction just to keep setup under ten minutes. Combat resolves with battle cards rather than dice, which several reviewers pointed out keeps outcomes more predictable than a straight roll off, and I appreciate that, losing a fight here feels like a read you got wrong, not bad luck.

Four stars. Best at three or four players where the aggression has somewhere to go, a little too claustrophobic and swingy at two for my taste, which is unusual for me to say about anything on this list.