Kamigami Battles: Children of Danu
Japanime Games
2-6 Players
Playtime: 45-60 Minutes
Kamigami Battles is a deckbuilding game for 2-5 players. The game features gods and other mighty figures from various pantheons. Children of Danu is an expansion that utilizes tons of gods and mythological beings from Celtic mythology. This expansion adds six gods, nine warriors, one disciple and one temple to the experience.
Children of Danu doesn’t change much of the core gameplay that is established in Battle of the Nine Realms and River of Souls. Unlike the Tanto Cuore expansions, most of the novel gameplay mechanics are in the form of new card abilities. In fact, the box doesn’t come with rules at all, so if someone already knows how to play Kamigami Battles, they will be just fine picking up the expansion and playing immediately.
One of the first things players will notice when playing Children of Danu is how much more interactive the cards are. Almost every new god has a way to negatively influence your opponents and their decks. Only a few have signature abilities that buffs their owner. Even the ones that do help their owner often have aggressive plays that follow them. For example, Lugh Lamfada has one ability that copies the ability from another God. Her other ability activates when her player takes damage, allowing for her to counter with an attack if the right offensive card is played.
The new warriors bring a lot of new elements to the table too. Quite a few of them utilize reveal effects, which activate when the card is revealed in the shop. When the card with a reveal ability is drawn and placed into the shop, the ability is activated. For example, Leprechaun gives the turn player extra faith points to spend. Bannan Sidhe forces all players to perform Adjudication and banish any warriors that are revealed.
These effects add an extra element to the game, but a lot of it feels like its a lot of luck at times. It’s hard to say that this is detrimental to the experience since that all depends on the table. The reveal effects do slow the game down just a bit as their effects resolve, but it doesn’t necessarily feel like a bad thing, especially when they benefit certain players.
As an expansion, Children of Danu doesn’t change too much, but the new gods and warriors are fun to use when integrated with the base game. Adding the new cards is easy: 6 red warriors and 3 of each other color are added to the deck. Then, one of each disciple level is added. The lone disciple in Children of Danu is a Druid, a level 2 card that can generate faith and banish cards for perks via adjudication.
Like usual, all of the cards have a nice anime style. The amount of fanservice hasn’t changed much. If anyone doesn’t want to see tons of cleavage and ridiculous poses that emphasize assets, they won’t get much of the game’s presentation. Still, there is a lot to be said about how well Kamigami Battles uses its theme. The Leprechaun is a lucky find. Selkie gives the players a draw engine, almost as if she is searching for something. Not every card’s ability is easy to attach to the lore, but for the most part, it’s there.
If players are looking for entirely new experiences while playing Kamigami Battles, Children of Danu might not be for them. If players just want to enhance the gameplay with some new effects and add more variety, Children of Danu is a great pickup with some fun new characters.
