Inis - the boardgame

From Matagot games, the French company who have also released the games Captain Sonar and Kemet amongst others, comes Inis, which I think is fabulous for a whole number of reasons. For starters, it is inspired by Irish legends and myth. The art is beautiful being illustrated by Jim Fitzpatrick and Dimitri Bielak. Here's the cover by Jim Fitzpatrick

Now if you grew up in Ireland, there is a fair chance you'd have encountered his work before. Check out his website here. There is amazing artwork on it but lets get back to the game.

The board consists of these unusual shaped pieces which you see on the left hand side

That the back in the picture, the other side will have plains, mines marsh etc. They are cut so they do fit together To set up I place a number of them down equal to the number of players. Additional land tiles are introduced via the Exploration action card so the "board" will expand as the game goes on.

Other action cards allow you to generate more clans, attack, trade and build sanctuaries etc

There are multiple ways to win the game which makes it very interesting to me. You also have to declare that you attempting to satisfy one of the winning conditions by playing your Pretender token. If successful you are proclaimed Ard-Rí (High King). To win 6 is key

6 Territories

6 Sancturies in their Territories

Be Chieftain over 6 or more Clans (i.e. outnumber them in each Territory

Advantage and Epic Tale Card spice up the game with different effects

Again artwork is amazing and the card are inspired by Celtic Myth

In a nutshell, it looks and plays great, definitely worth tracking down. It doesn't have brilliant distribution in the UK so if you see it I suggest snapping it up. Many thanks again to G.I. Games for holding it for me.