Septima Review

The Septima, the leader of all witches, is retiring and must choose her successor, so brew your potions and save your fellow witches from the dreaded witch trials to prove yourself worthy.  Which witch will become the witchiest witch and witch which won’t?

1-4 Players 50-100 Minutes Age 12+

Designer: Robin Hegedűs

Artists: Barbara Bernát, Villő Farkas

Publisher: Mindclash Games

A Person Is Either With This Court Or He Must Be Counted Against It, There Be No Road Between

Septima, by Mindclash Games, is a 1-4 player action selection game featuring simultaneous play. As benevolent witches in the small forest hamlet of Noctenburg, players must move about the surrounding forest, collecting ingredients for their brews and concocting remedies for the many ailments plaguing the residents of the town. Only by selflessly aiding the townsfolk and saving their fellow witches from the unjust witch trials can the players expand their covens and prove themselves worthy successors to the retiring Septima, who will declare one of the players as the new leader of all witch-kind.  Players enjoy the fruits of their labours by way of wisdom points and at the end of the game, the player with the most wisdom becomes the new Septima, thereby, winning the game.

By adding the Shapeshifting and Omens expansion, witches can use animal forms to perform special abilities, such as avoiding suspicion, or collecting extra ingredients and be faced with added events in the form of omens, both dark and light, that could hinder or enhance their chances for success.

Septima brings the many varied themes of witchcraft to the forefront, covering a lot of ground while placing a positive spin on a historically misunderstood and villainized group.  By encouraging players to act in the best interests of Noctenburg, the witches here are presented as promoters of health and well-being to a small community, using their knowledge of nature, herbology and pharmacology to brew potions to cure the sick and heal the wounded.  But not everyone is so well-intentioned. Witch hunters prowl the forest, looking for witches to bring to trial, believing them to be the source of Noctenburg’s woes.

Therefore, it is up to the players to aid these innocent witches by influencing the trials and seeding the court with sympathetic folk who can tip the scales of justice in their favour.  If players succeed in saving an accused, that witch may join their coven, failure, means that particular witch is never seen or heard from again.  The stakes are high and a careful balance must be maintained between doing good in the community and avoiding the suspicions of the unenlightened.

You Have Made Your Magic Now

What I enjoy most about Septima is its sense of theme and its simultaneous play.  Players each have an identical hand of action cards and each turn, they secretly choose one of those cards to play that round.  These cards can allow them to take actions such as moving, collecting ingredients and brewing potions to name a few.  Should two or more players play the same card on the same turn, they gain an added benefit such as a stronger version of that action or some other boon.  However, combining their efforts this way attracts a lot of unwanted attention, raising each witch’s suspicion track which can, in turn, translate to less favourable outcomes for any resulting witch trials.

Due to its action selection mechanic, Septima is a game with almost no downtime, meaning every player can remain engaged and part of the action throughout the whole game.  While it’s a competitive game at its core, Septima encourages and rewards witches for working together towards the common good while checking this with the Hunters and the Witch trials.  There’s a lot to do and only so much time to do it.  The game takes place over four rounds, each round representing a season, while this places a ticking clock in play, it encourages players to gauge their strategies accordingly.

Septima provides several options that can be tailored to suit your game group’s vibe.  There’s a standard and an advanced version of the game each using one side of the double-sided board. The advanced side uses the ritual board, giving players more options for taking actions, brewing potions and gaining rewards utilising specific spaces along the track.

Additionally, with the Shapshifting and Omens expansion players can further expand their witchy abilities to include shapeshifting into one of two different animals during gameplay, each with a unique ability.  Furthermore, each player's colour comes with different animals so players can choose a different colour each time they play to experience the race of abilities.

Omens on the other hand provide either a boon or a curse by having players draw an Omen card at the start of each season with the event depending on the number of sympathetic vs. hostile townsfolk currently assigned to the town hall for the trials.  If the friendly citizens are in the majority, the omen will be favourable, otherwise the opposite is true.

Players who opt to witch solo can do so by playing against the Black Widow, the game’s solo stand-in. In addition to having to contend with the hunters, the Black Widow commands several spiders who will track the witches through the forest and attempt to undermine their efforts to help the goodly folk of Noctenburg.  The solo game provides a solid experience and allows players to follow most of the standard gameplay elements.  This is a big plus for me as I dislike solo games that strip down the main game experience to shoehorn in a lacklustre solo version.  I found Septima’s solo game to be challenging and deep and ultimately, very satisfying, to the point where if I find myself in the mood for a game and there’s no one around, I’d have no hesitation in playing against the Black Widow.

I Never Knew What Pretence Salem Was

So far it all sounds pretty solid, so what’s the catch? Well, the game can run a little long at times, depending on player count.  even with the simultaneous actions, time spent administering tasks and following through with said actions adds up. It’s not a bit problem as plenty is going on at any given time to keep players engaged, so players are seldom sitting around waiting for another player to take their turn as is so often the case in other mid to heavy-weight games.

The game does have a variable level of complexity based on which version is played, standard or advanced and this is further added to by the Shapeshifting and Omens modules which can be added separately or together.  While I’d hesitate to call Septima a complex game overall, it does have the potential to become complex with these additional elements, so check with your gaming group to see what kind of experience they’re up for before you get it to the table.

The only other issues I ran into was that there were occasionally turns where I didn’t feel like I’d achieved anything or had to do something I didn’t want to do as I’d already spent the more desirable actions.  Nothing new there really, plenty of games have similar issues, I’m just saying, that Septima can do at times as well.

More Weight

Depending on whether you get the retail or deluxe version, Septima’s components will vary slightly, but both versions are of excellent quality in keeping with Mindclash Games’ premium productions.  My experience was with the deluxe version so that is the version I’ll be speaking about here.

Featuring linen finish cards, solid wooden and metal tokens and the gorgeous potion tray, the art style of Septima reminded me of childhood storybooks, there’s a seriousness to the representations coupled with mysticism and a sense of comfort all at the same time. Each witch looks distinctive and before long players will have even learned to refer to them by their names.  The main play area of the game board is circular and suspended within a field of stars, the influence of the moon is suggested here as the lunar cycles are at the heart of the round structure.

The decks of cards are each gorgeously illustrated with artwork that could be taken from a set of tarots and the potion tray provides a useful place to store the potion market as well as being a wonderful centrepiece.  Silkscreen wooden tokens, resources and meeples round out the proceedings along with hefty metal wisdom tokens in the shape of the sun, moon and stars for the 10, 5 and 1 denominations respectively.  Everything about this production shows the care and detail that went into Septima and its one collectors would be proud to have on their shelves, or better yet, adorning their tables.

I Quit This Court

A highly interactive, strategic game with a wide range of point-scoring options and varying paths to victory. The simultaneous play means there is very little if any, real downtime.  Septima is a rewarding experience with enough crunch and variability to keep players entertained across repeated play-throughs.  With the added expansions, this improves even further and fleshes out the witchcraft theme, making this game a concoction of satisfying elements.  If you have an evening set aside, and your group appreciates the heavier end of the medium-weight spectrum for their games, then Septima is highly recommended. Also, witch of you noticed the deliberate witchy word twist in the introduction? Or the other one you just read?

Thanks for joining me again this week, I hope you found this review of Septima informative. There are several witchcraft-related games nowadays, do you have a particular favourite? Is Septima a game you’d be keen to play?  Let me know in the comments below, or I invite you to join our amazing Above Board community on our Facebook group here.  Until next time, take care.