Ah, Greece! As far as musicals about high-school romances go, it’s not one of them. In fact, it is a country on “the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula in Southeastern Europe.” But in Warriors of Athena, you go deeper still, right into Mythic Greece for some cooperative fantasy skirmishing by Joseph A. McCullough.
Listen to the Fortified Niche episode.
In Warriors of Athena, each player controls a scion of a Greek god (or another supernatural being) and a human. These Herculean hybrids are tapped by Athena to be her secret XCOM, battling all sorts of magical threats. Each hero can also have a coterie of mortal companions: humans, animals, and also satyrs/fauns or centaurs.
This is another Joseph A. McCollough game, and it predictably runs on simple opposed D20 rolls. Even character stats are just modifiers to results. Unfortunately, usual damage mechanics are also in attendance: the difference between a successful attack and failed defense rolls, minus the armor, is dealt straight to HP. Keep rolling high to instagib mythic bees!
The turn sequence allows heroes to act first, then monsters, then any hero minions. There are some caveats to this: a hero may activate some buddies in the heroic phase! The amount of hired help you’re allowed to take, and the proportion that you can hero-phase-activate, depends on player numbers: having more goobers is meant to compensate for lacking in superhuman aid.
Now, one of the things that are meant to separate actual Warriors of Athena from shlubs that bet on the wrong end of monolatry is powers. Each demi-god starts with a handful, freely chosen from a list. They can be cast at an appropriate time, but you pay for you successful casts in strain (blood (HP)). Dying a little to use abilities isn’t great, but on the other hand, in a game as swingy as this, one or two HP doesn’t matter too much. On the third hand, which I was given due to my divine lineage, we also struggled to remember that we had those powers at all; while useful in either boosting or negating, they’re not exciting conceptually, and quite often situational.
This lack of excitement permeates all aspects of character-related stuff. The large tables for rolling godly lineage don’t produce anything that distinct. The equipment section is barren – anything remotely fun hides in the magical item section, gated by campaign progression. The problem with powers I already mentioned. And the NPC companions are unpleasantly indistinct, quite often differentiated by the most minimal differences in statlines or equipment. And if you’re looking at running this as a campaign, be prepared for the longest of grinds, as XP trickles in slowly and power slower yet.
Warriors of Athena is most certainly a game that can be played. Unfortunately, the rules can’t cash the cheques written by the excellent Hazem Ameen art or the concept that reminds us foggies of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys or Xena: Warrior Princess. Will it find its acolytes? I for one doubt that it’s going to get the welcoming and half a dozen expansions that Silver Bayonet did. On the other hand, this podcast encompass fully 50% of all people who didn’t enjoy Silver Bayonet, so what do we really know?