Guardians of Haversack Board Game Review

The Kingdom of Haversack has been covered in a terrible curse by a mighty sorceress and it is the job of the players and their Guardians to explore the land and work to lift the curse. In Guardians of Haversack, players will be traversing the world defeating monsters, discovering treasure, rebuilding villages, and capturing fairies, all of which will earn them victory points. This bag building game will have you adding more Guardians to your Expedition Bag to improve the work you can do around Haversack. The concept and ideas here are really great, and I love the theme, but how does it play? Let’s take a look!

Right away, Guardians of Haversack interests me because of simultaneous play. There are 5 phases in the game, and while each does need to be completed in full before moving onto the next, there are no player turns. Each player performs their various actions all at the same time, moving from 1. Scout to 5. End of the Round. Nothing here is overly complicated, and teaching the game to others is quite easy thanks to a fairly good and concise rulebook. We had a few questions that were mostly answered, but we found this was probably due to the rulebook seeming very condensed for easy teaching. 

Each player has their own Kingdom board in front of them, and will change that adventure board as the game goes on. During the Scout phase, for example, players will be revealing cards from decks and placing various creatures on specific places on their boards. Each player will do this. Over the course of the game, players will fill their bag with better and better Guardians, so that during the Guardian phases, when they will pull all Guardians from the bag one at a time, they will have more movement and better abilities to use. 

What I enjoy about this bag building experience is that you get to pull everything from your bag. The reality here is that instead of worrying about busting or “going out”, you are instead worrying about whether you will get Guardian C before Guardian A, since in that order, you will get to do way more actions. As with all bag building games, there is a science to what you place in your bag, and making sure that what you have access to works well together.

Creating a nice balance is a requirement to do well, While any Guardian can move into a space with a fairy, only Warrior Guardians can move into spaces with monsters. That being said, some Guardians will capture fairy’s more efficiently! Aside from the Warrior Guardians players will be able to add Guides, Huntress’, Priestess’, Druid’s and Thieves. Each provides a unique benefit, and deciding how you want to play will determine how you build your bag.

What I love is that there is built in variance for the game. There might not be as much variance as other titles, but each Guardian has two sides – a Day side and a Night Side. Which side you use for each game is decided before the game begins, but they are pretty different from each other so it would make subsequent games feel unique in a small way!

Players will be working to gain Glory in the Kingdom of Haversack, and that comes from a variety of different sources. Again, this encourages players to diversify their bag building to amass as many points as possible. Glory comes from captured fairies, defeating monsters, chests, villages built, and more. After nearly a half dozen plays, we have yet to find a specific strategy that works better than others, which to me means the game is fairly balanced.

This is a very rules light experience, and while the game says it’s for players 10+, I think a slightly younger audience could enjoy this experience as well. Rules light doesn’t mean strategy light, and I still believe there is a good amount of choice here for players to make. There will be too much randomness for some people, but that’s true of most bag building experiences.

Overall, with so little online about Guardians of Haversack, I was curious to see how it would play and whether it would be good. It’s not the best game I’ve played, and nor the best bag building game. Yet, there was still something here that was pretty charming and very enjoyable when tabled with my 10 year old son.