Mantic Talk Mechanics Of The Umbrella Academy Board Game

February 22, 2022 by brennon

Mantic Games has dived into a little preview of the new Kickstarter board game, The Umbrella Academy. Designed alongside the folks from River Horse Games, this one is a neat card game with a few twists.

The Umbrella Academy: The Board Game // Mantic Games

The Umbrella Academy: The Board Game is a cooperative one-to-five player card game. The core of the game are those card game mechanics but you will also use the miniatures as nice "board game pieces" when moving around to different locations. You can paint them up if you like (I know you will!), or just keep them in grey plastic if you like.

The Umbrella Academy Miniatures // Mantic Games

The Skill Cards that you use are able to activate the different special abilities of your heroes. The core game comes with Spaceboy, Rumor, Seance, Kraken and Number Five. Depending on the number of players and the characters you've chosen will then affect the cards (and the number of them) that you use during your games. There are also ways to play the game solo as well!

Each of your heroes then go up against three different Super-Villains from the core game. These include Hazel and Cha Cha, The Orchestra Verdammten and The White Violin. These characters come with their own missions to complete and a set of hazards that you'll have to tackle.

Gameplay then revolves around playing skill cards and moving around the board, using your abilities to defeat and avoid the different hazards. You can also come into conflict with your friends but it all focuses on a big fight with the Super-Villain that you've chosen.

It all sounds pretty interesting and I like that it isn't a big sprawling miniatures game this time around. I think the more condensed card game nature of this feels like it works really well, especially for a slightly more niche property like The Umbrella Academy.

Are you tempted to check this out over on Kickstarter?