Dune: Imperium Reviews

4.9 Rating 13 Reviews

DUNE: IMPERIUM is a game that finds inspiration in elements and characters from the Dune legacy, both the new film from Legendary Pictures and the seminal literary series from Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, and Kevin J. Anderson.

As a leader of one of the Great Houses of the Landsraad, raise your banner and marshal your forces and spies. War is coming, and at the center of the conflict is Arrakis – Dune, the desert planet.

DUNE: IMPERIUM uses deck-building to add a hidden-information angle to traditional worker placement.

You start with a unique leader card, as well as deck identical to those of your opponents. As you acquire cards and build your deck, your choices will define your strengths and weaknesses. Cards allow you to send your Agents to certain spaces on the game board, so how your deck evolves affects your strategy. You might become more powerful militarily, able to deploy more troops than your opponents. Or you might acquire cards that give you an edge with the four political factions represented in the game: the Emperor, the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit, and the Fremen.

Unlike many deck-building games, you don’t play your entire hand in one turn. Instead, you draw a hand of cards at the start of every round and alternate with other players, taking one Agent turn at a time (playing one card to send one of your Agents to the game board). When it’s your turn and you have no more Agents to place, you’ll take a Reveal turn, revealing the rest of your cards, which will provide Persuasion and Swords. Persuasion is used to acquire more cards, and Swords help your troops fight for the current round’s rewards as shown on the revealed Conflict card.

Defeat your rivals in combat, shrewdly navigate the political factions, and acquire precious The Spice Must Flow cards to lead your House to victory!

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“When I heard this game was by the creators of Clank! I had to buy it for my wife for her birthday, as she's a huge fan of that series. It hasn't disappointed! Fantastic game and well worth anyones time.”

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Posted 1 month ago

“Fantastic as all the reviews online would suggest. Fantastic balance of different mechanics to keep things difficult and interesting.”

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Posted 2 months ago

“As always Zatu came through when I was looking for this gift for my son. The game has been discontinued in some shops and I was worried I wouldn't be able to get it.”

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Posted 1 year ago

“Fantastic. Really interesting deck building mechanics and good player interaction. My favourite strategy game”

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Posted 1 year ago

“Played this game for the first time today. It was a three player game with two of us being big Dune fans. The game is so fluid and well done, we very much enjoyed it and I came away with the first victory. If you are contemplating purchasing this game I would certainly pull the trigger and if you happen to be a fan of Dune then this really is going to have that extra layer of enjoyment.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“I am very indecisive person. I like a bit of worker placement. But I also like a spot of deck-building. So I love it when games try to combine the two - which is probably why I like Arnak so much (even though it's not really about the deck-building). So the prospect of a game set in the Dune universe with both elements really appeals to me. Now I am a big fan of the classic Avalon Hill Dune game with all its duplicity and treachery, but it's pretty full-on game that really requires a thorough knowledge of Herbert's universe and doesn't play that well with fewer than (at least) 3 players. Imperium has is app-driven not only for Solo but also to include a 3rd player in 2-player games, and given that a lot of our gaming in the house is 2-player, this is certainly a bonus - even if we're not always a fan of mandatory app usage. I particularly like the deck-building side of Imperium. You could niggle and say that it's not thematically appropriate to be able to add Harkonnens and Atreides to the same deck, but I would argue that it represents the scheming nature of the setting rather well, cutting dark deals and making contacts wherever you can to bolster your house's position. More importantly, the game balances worker placement and deck-building in a way that's not always achieved by other games (vid. Arnak, again). Your cards can typically be revealed for an effect that uses one of your workers, but with only two workers, at other times they are less effective, so that's an interesting balance to strike. Equally, classic worker placement dilemmas of blocking a key development tree is here less important with the Emperor, Bene Gesserit or Fremen giving you plenty of different routes to victory. Indeed, one of the particularly satisfying elements of this game is that victory is never assured. Whilst you might achieve your objectives and get to 10 VP (the win condition) in a turn, that doesn't preclude the possibility of another player betraying you to leapfrog to victory. In a less well-designed game this could be infuriating but here it feels both thrilling and thematic. Combat, similarly, is a slow trickle of troop build-up before one great reveal at the end of rounds: there is an inherent sense of cloak-and-dagger maneuvering. As such, it looks and feels like Dune, with enhanced by tokens (for Spice and Water especially) that really feel like scarce, valuable resources. The board is, perhaps, a little sparse, and the regular wooden cubes are maybe rather generic - but the card art is great, and you're still getting plenty for your money, when you consider that Dune: Imperium is relatively cheap compared to many on the market, in what is an increasingly crowded field. It is not the massive, Machiavellian masterpiece of the classic Dune game, but neither is it a lacklustre, cynical cash-in: it's an accessible and supremely (if not necessarily that innovative) slice of modern board-gaming.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“This has to be one of the all-time greats. Balanced, intriguing, fun, not too complicated and yet really gets those brain juices flowing. You can play it without knowing anything about the Dune universe, but it shows how much care and attention went into it when you do! I feel if the package had included the Rise of Ix expansion (which feels more like a clean-up of the base game) and some better quality components, it would be an absolute 10/10. As it stands 9/10. I would always play with Ix and Immortality expansions. Both are massive improvements and offer wonderful new gameplay mechanics.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“I am yet to play this but the contents are excellent and it looks very interesting.”

1 Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago