Merchants of the Dark Road Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Merchants of the Dark Road, a pick up and deliver board game published by Elf Creek Games. In Merchants of the Dark Road, players are trying to earn the most points by delivering goods down the road.

This is a guest post from Dawn Hilbert.
I saw the deluxe version of Merchants of the Dark Road at Origins this year, but you never know whether you’ll play a game enough to justify the extra cost. After looking with longing at the dual-layer player board—a wagon—metal coins and screen-printed player tokens, I eventually bought the basic game, tucked away on a bottom shelf at the back of the booth.

After a few plays, I have decided Merchants has quite a bit of replay value, especially if you can get 3 or 4 players to the table. The various mechanics aren’t complex in themselves, but devising a strategy to make good use of them can be difficult.

The game uses dice in several creative ways, primarily to serve as worker placement tokens and to pay for movement on the road that circles the capital city of Lumi.

Merchants of the Dark Road is an economic game set in a medieval fantasy world, designed by Brian Suhre and published by Elf Creek Games. The art by Andrew Bosley stands out on the main board, which is dark and moody, reflecting the lantern-lit winter world of Lumi. Merchants plays 2-4 players (best with 3-4) and takes about 2 hours to play.

The game is played in 13 rounds, using fewer dice each round, so that your plays are somewhat limited by the time you reach the final three rounds.

You play a merchant with a wagon and steed. You’ll be picking up commissions, goods, and people (heroes) in the capital city of Lumi, and then delivering them to the outlying towns.

When you travel to an outlying town, you can