Last year at SPIEL 22, Tribes of the Wind was available to play from the French publisher La Boîte de Jeu. The release followed a few weeks later. The popular card game with a post-apocalyptic theme has now been released by Huch! also in German. We were able to take a closer look at the game and tell you whether we had fun rebuilding the contaminated world.
After centuries of exploitation of nature, humanity has created a new form of environmental destruction that is spreading across the entire planet and destroying all forms of life. Small groups of people survived in small forests that remained intact. They sought shelter in high-altitude tree houses. They called themselves Tribes of the Wind and flew from place to place. They use their elemental magic to combat environmental destruction, create new worlds and build new villages in the forest canopy.
Essentially a card game
Tribes of the Wind is a card game with hand management and tile laying mechanics in which our goal is to rid the world around us of pollution, create new forests and build 5 villages to secure the future of humanity. To do this we have to carry out one of three actions every round. We can play an element card, place a temple or build a village.
Let's play an element card, so we use the effect of this card. Each card has a requirement to use the effect. These are linked to the cards that you or the two players on your left and right have. At any time we have 5 cards with element symbols on the card holder. This is important so that you can always see which elements the opposing players have. In summary, a requirement can be that you have to have more cards of an element than one neighbor or both neighbors. The card holder helps to keep track of things.
Playing cards is the main action of Tribes of the Wind. Depending on the element, we receive the resource water (Water), can create forests in the form of forest tiles (Earth), clean our surroundings (Fire) and move our wind riders over the forest tiles (Wind). All elements for progressing in the game are connected to each other. So you first need fire to remove the pollution, then water to be able to create forest tiles and last but not least wind to let the wind riders move over the forest tiles so that they can build villages.
Build temples and villages
A Place temple us by discarding three cards from our card holder and ignoring the effects of the cards. We can then place one of 4 temples on a forest tile and activate the associated bonus. Temples are also important for fulfilling village card objectives, among other things. These give us important victory points at the end if the condition of the card has been fulfilled.
Place villages We, on the other hand, with the help of the wind riders. We can send these from forest tile to forest tile via the world map using element cards. As soon as we have equipped the 2 - 4 fields of a forest tile with enough wind riders, we can decide to create a village. To do this, we remove the wind riders from the fields and put them back in the capital (the starting point). Additionally, the construction of the village creates additional pollution in the fields around it. The tile’s bonuses are then activated. These can either prevent previous pollution, move a wind rider to any forest tile, or serve as a portal or shortcut for the wind riders in future turns.
After the village and all bonuses have been implemented, you draw a village card from the display. These are divided into two pages, which either - as described above - specify a goal or activate an immediate bonus. We have to choose one of the two sides here. While the first can give us important victory points if we complete it, the second gives us direct support in the fight for victory.
The game ends as soon as someone has built 5 villages. This person receives an end-of-game tile. The round is then played to an end and a final round is played. We now get points through the end of the game tile, each tree house, 3 - 4 temples built, the number of terrain spaces with pollution, each forest tile and the completed village cards.
Asymmetry by leaders
Each tribe comes with its own leader, which brings a bit of asymmetry into play. If we complete one of our leader's two tasks, we get to choose one of our four leader cards. These provide us with permanent bonuses. These bonuses, whenever the condition is met, give us additional effects when we activate an action, more resources or lower costs for actions.
Information about Tribes of the Wind
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| Number of players: 2 – 5 Age: from 10 years Playing time: 40 - 90 minutes Difficulty: easier connoisseur game Long-term motivation: medium Classification: placement game, hand management Author: Joachim Thôme Illustrations: Vincent Dutrait Publisher: Huch!, La Boîte de Jeu Official Website: Link Year of publication: 2023 Language: German Cost: 49,99 Euro |
Conclusion
Tribes of the Wind is essentially a simple game with a lot of depth. Still... In the first few games we had to constantly refer to the rule book. Not because the rulebook is poorly written, but because the game unfortunately doesn't come with an overview of the card symbols. The game is completely language-neutral, but the symbols are difficult to understand at first glance because there are so many of them. Meanwhile, Yikes! but also an overview was submitted later, which is available on the publisher page can be downloaded and this hurdle is curbed a little.
Otherwise, we don't really have much bad to say about Tribes of the Wind. The game also works very well with two people (here the card display is taken over by the second neighbor) and if you want, you can really ponder things here, but you can also just start playing. Comparing our neighbors' card symbols to activate effects and influencing our playing board was a lot of fun. We can also well imagine that the game is well suited for both frequent and casual gamers. For the latter, Tribes of the Wind might even be a good step into the world of connoisseur games.
Vincent Dutrait's illustrations are beautiful and have a nice idea. Often the same illustrations were used, but supplemented with new elements, so that there is a lot of variety in the cards. The game material is solid - the wooden wind riders, villages and temples are particularly great.
In summary, Tribes of the Wind is a rock-solid game that doesn't completely reinvent the wheel, but combines its ideas well. The simplicity coupled with the depth of the game was a lot of fun for us and will definitely make the game return to the table a few more times.
| Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
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YIKES! Tribes of The Wind strategy game, for 2 to 5 players * | 43,75 EUR |
* = affiliate link. If you purchase via one of the links, we receive a portion of the purchase price as a commission. There are no additional costs for you, but you can support our portal by doing so. Last updated on September 15.01.2025, XNUMX / Affiliate links / Images from the Amazon Product Advertising API. Images from Amazon PA API.
