This is a sponsored review.

Overview & How to Play

If you’ve ever heard of Neuroshima Hex, Monolith Arena is pretty much identical, but just fantasy themed.

If you haven’t, Monolith Arena is a game all about reducing your opponents’ banner to zero health. Once you’ve picked a faction with its own tile stack, just place down your banner wherever you want, and your opponent does the same.

On a turn, you’ll draw so you have 3 tiles in hand, discard one, and then decide what to do with the remaining 2, as tiles can be placed in any open space.

Battles do not happen until someone plays the Battle order tile, in which units from every single player will attack one another in initiative order. For example, all of the tiles with 3 Speed attack wherever they’re pointing at then all the 2’s attack, you get the point.

Pros

Monolith Arena is very friendly to jump in, with bright, clear tiles on a matte board and player aids. To play, all you have to do is grab your included plastic bag with tiles in them, put your health marker and banner down, and play!

When you’re in game, Monolith Arena really does stay true to its lighthearted tactical nature. You draw up to 3 tiles at the beginning of a turn, but discard one, simplifying your options. But then you can place the other 2 tiles anywhere, orienting them in any direction for bonuses or attacking, or even save them. So there’s a great compromise with that discard, to discourage analysis paralysis.

Combo this onto the multiple tile interactions on the board, from the Banners giving adjacent units perks, to some tiles having inherent movement or disabling abilities, and you have yourself a strong amount of viable moves. Units only attack certain directions, and with different types of attacks that can be both played around. Runes, on the other hand, will make your units stronger but can be destroyed if attacked.

The 4 factions all feel completely different. Starting with the blue Dragon Empire, they like to use their knights to charge and move around the map. The green Harbingers of the Forest love their ranged attacks, but have some tricks up their sleeves with the Assassin that can attack anything, or the Morlock, which suicides itself into killing any unit before battle ever begins.

Each of the factions will have a healthy blend of different orders, runes, and units that all allow counterplay of every other faction. But what’s more, all of the Banners will always give adjacency bonuses to their units, which means you can always think through your faction’s strengths.

There’s definitely luck in what you’re drawing each turn, but there’s actually a way to reduce that with the Monolith mechanic, because Monolith Arena, right. So a Monolith is a plastic tower where you hide 2 tiles under your banner before the game. On a turn, instead of playing a tile, you can just say: let me show you my Monolith, and unleash a tile from that on the board. This allows for some cool mind games, where you can put ANY two board tiles you want in your Monolith, so you can totally just load up on cool units and to call upon, or just put Runes in for a guaranteed initiative buff at a crucial moment.

Final Thoughts

These aspects add up to Monolith Arena definitely being that simple, asymmetric, and fast tactical arena deathmatch its promises to be. The learning curve is gentle due to players quickly ruling out foolish tile placements early, and there’s good replayability from mixing and matching the 4 factions. Sure, the game is technically abstract, but the units just end up being so distinct from the abilities that a good amount of theme seeps through. You got your Knights charging in if they have the space for their mounts to run around, or your Battle Platform just shooting down everything in sight.

But Monolith Arena is SO similar to Neuroshima Hex, in fact so much that if you own Neuroshima Hex, with its insane scope of expansions, there’s likely little to explore with Monolith Arena, as it would be a step backwards in factions, and the Monolith Mechanic doesn’t fundamentally change gameplay.

Plus, if you’re into 30 minute games with asymmetry and constant drawing, perhaps you already have something similar in trading card games like Magic: The Gathering. Monolith Arena doesn’t have deckbuilding outside the game, and not as nuanced units.