Review: Air, Land & Sea
By Flawless Cowboy
Set the scene: *Low stakes Air,Land, and Sea game*
Flawless: “I dunno partner, you may have me dead to rights here”
Saloon Patron: “This will be the easiest 300 Space credits I have ever made! Now “Cowboy”, Why don’t you flip that card over on land for me”
Flawless: “Easy now hombre, you sure about that?”
Saloon Patron: “I know your tell! Flip it over!”
*flips card to battleship*
Flawless: “Well now, that’s where I put that. Thanks partner, you just won me the game.”
Saloon Patron:”Daggumit! Ah well, a deals a deal”
Flawless: “It’s all in the wrist. Why don’t ya keep half partner, no hard feelings’”
Overview:
In Air, Land, and Sea (ALS for short) you and an opponent will be fighting over the three battlefields, called theaters, of world war two. Players use cards from a shared deck, taking turns placing one of their six starting cards into one of the three theaters, Some cards are only allowed to be played in a specific theater and others must be played either face down or face up. Not all the cards from the deck will be handed out to each player, so it’s a mystery what your opponent has in hand and what was left out of this round. At any time during the round you may concede and, depending on how many cards are left in hand, dictate how many points your opponent receives for their victory. Once a player reaches enough victory points, they win! Rounds last about 5 minutes.
A nice spread of all the stuff you get in the box!
Component Quality:
The game comes with cardboard tokens that represent victory points scored and they do the job perfectly, no complaints there. The cards are nice, but I would still sleeve them. I know I know, I am a bit of a nut about that, but the cards are going to get shuffled and handled quite a bit. The cards denoting the theaters are well made as well. One side simply shows what the battlefield is, but the reverse side list’s all possible cards that could show up from that theater.
The box stores everything nicely, although my one small nitpick is I wish the box designers had cut out finger holds on the top of the box so you could open it up easier. Right now it involves a lot of shaking to get the top separated from the bottom. Not a deal breaker by any means, just an odd omission.
Everything fits in the box quite nicely!
Inclusion and special needs:
If you can hold cards you are all set here. Some reading is required as well, so if you are playing with younger players who have a hard time with that it may be an issue. That said, I feel like even if you watered this game all the way down and just played cards face up with no powers, you could still have some fun with it. Not the reason I would buy the game, but it’s an option for sure.
Gameplay
Setting up the game is fast and easy. Shuffle the combat deck, then deal each player six cards. Set the rest of the deck face down next to the theater row. Next, shuffle the three theater cards and lay them out in a row. Lastly, randomly give a supreme commander card to each player and put the pile of victory tokens in reach of both players.
On your turn you can do one of two things. The first action available, and the one you will take most of the time, is to play a card. You may choose to play a card for its face up value, getting the immediate power/abilities of a card to that location. Or, you may decide to play the card face down. All face down cards have two value unless otherwise increased or decreased by another card’s ability. Playing a card face down may seem like a strange play, but some card abilities let you flip your, or your opponents, cards faceup, leading to some unique potential plays. For example, normally a card can only be played to its matching theater. But playing a card face down to a different theater, and later flipping it faceup with a card ability, allows players to construct complex combinations from an otherwise limited cardpool.
The second action you can take is to withdraw from the battle. When looking at the current state of the battlefield and the card left in your hand, you can decide that the round is unwinnable, and are able to concede before the round ends. The Supreme Commander card you possess will dictate how many points your opponent receives when they win the round. The first player Supreme Commander card has the added bonus of winning ties, but the second player provides opponents less victory points when you concede early. Player strategies will often vary from round to round depending on which Supreme Commander card they currently have.
After a round has finished, all combat cards are re-shuffled up and players receive a new hand of six cards. The theater cards are moved, with the cards advancing clockwise and the rightmost card moving to the leftmost position. This provides a fresh set of possible card combinations each round. Finally, the player's trade their Supreme Commander cards, and the next round begins. If a player has accumulated twelve victory points at the end of any round, they are the winner!
Some very cool art!
Fun Factor:
For such a small box game, there is a lot of depth here, more than you would think from a game of just 18 cards. Do you look at your hand and see a bunch of losing cards and just fold, or do you try and play cagey and make your opponent think twice. The “fight for the three territory” system is a popular one right now (Marvel: Snap comes to mind) but it’s popular for a reason. It creates an uneven number of victory positions for the players to fight for and strategize against.
Since the rounds are over quickly, losing a round is not as back breaking as it might be in similar games. Have a bad hand? Just fold, concede a few victory points and restart with a new set of cards. Get beat with a good combo you didn’t see coming at the end? Good news! It’s time to get a new hand anyways. It might seem at first that the First Player Supreme Commander's tie-breaking ability is a little too strong at first, but it puts the pressure on them to try and win. After playing a few rounds I understood the design choice.
One card that can feel both overpowered and unfun is the Air Five card. It states that “If any player plays a face down card, destroy that card”. It’s incredibly strong if played early and can completely negate the strategy of many hands. That and itself is fine, but the “face down” mechanism is both an important and fun part of the game, and often players felt that the card took the wind from the game if it was seen multiple times.
The theme could really be anything one it, but I think the World War Two theme they chose was a good idea. My father doesn't really have an interest in 99% of board games out there, but he will play things that are World War Two. I was able to talk him into playing this and we had a really good time, and that really means a lot to me.
Love a good clutch shot!
Does the Cowboy recommend this game:
Well partner I sure do. It’s a game that's small enough to travel easily, can be taught quickly, and has enough depth to keep players coming back for more. It’s hard to find two player games that you want to keep coming back to, but this one keep drawin’ me back.
Clem: “How were the saloon games Flawless?”
Flawless: “ah well you know how it goes clem, true skill always prevails in these kinds of games”
Clem: “You had a few lucky hands didn’t you?”
Flawless:” Well, that helps too”.
Almost forgot! YeeHaw!!
Final Verdict
✅ Easy to learn
✅ Fast to play
✅ Deeper than you think
✅ Low cost
✅ Very replayable
❌ Theme may not be for everyone
Air, Land, and Sea was purchased at GenCon. No review copy was given.
