Radlands Review – A Neon-Soaked Duel at Terminal Velocity

When all that’s left is an empty wasteland, it’s kill or be killed fighting for what water remains. That’s all the story you get, and need, in Radlands. A head-to-head card game whose theme is heavily inspired by wasteland apocalypse tales such as Borderlands, and Mad Max Fury Road.

You’ll spend your turns playing people on the battlefield, setting up events, or using actions. All to protect your base from the raiding parties of the player sitting across from you.

However, you’ll need to use the most precious of resources: water.

Each turn you’ll get three water tokens to spend in any way you like, to destroy your enemy’s three bases and protect your own.

During play, Radlands feels like you and your opponent are freefalling from an aeroplane, fighting over the final parachute. It’s chaotic and unstable and the end game rushes towards you at terminal velocity.

With few exceptions, every card played shoves you towards the end game. From sacrificing your bases to massive unrecoverable attacks. With limited chances to heal and recover, the saying holds: offence is your best defence.

Theme and Mechanics Collide

Even before you open the Radlands box you’ll notice the striking artwork and how it captures the vibe of a wasteland apocalypse. The use of fluoro colours against the white background of the cards and box makes the artwork pop and pulls you kicking and screaming into its world of dust and insanity.

The mechanics also capture the craziness making Radlands so exciting to play. Each card is so powerful and wild that it exudes the same chaotic energy as the artwork.

Yet despite the chaos and the quick turns, Radlands feels as though it’s always in slow motion. With only three water tokens and one card, you’re severely limited in what you can achieve each turn.

For instance, all of the big attacks within the game whether it’s the Bombardment event which damages all of your opponent’s bases, or Molgur Stang who can destroy an enemy camp for one water, take multiple turns to set up and play.

But this philosophy also infects the smaller attacks as well. With only a few cards in the shared deck activating immediately when played. Everything else requires several turns to become ready.

While this doesn’t give you immediate feedback, or allow you to combo cards together effectively. It does give you time to react to whatever your opponent plays.

Even if sometimes you might not be able to.

What stops Radlands from grinding to a halt is how exceptionally fun this tete-a-tete is. Where you’ll play what you think is a winning move, only to be rebuffed before you can pull it off. Then your opponent does the same to you.

This exciting back and forth is full of ah ha! and oh sugar moments that keep you invested until someone’s bases explode.

All Your Base Are Belong to Us

Ultimately, the base cards – and there is a whole deck of them – will keep you coming back to Radlands. You draft three of these at the start of the game, and they provide you with abilities you can call on at any time.

These abilities are so wildly different that they change your style of gameplay and determine the way the game ebbs and flows. For example, in one game I had so many people in play you’d think I was filming the second season of Entourage. While in the next, I had one person all game and relied on event cards to do the required damage.

Working out synergistic combinations, playing them out and learning from them is as addictive as it is rewarding.

However, the real beauty of Radlands is how despite the chaotic powers in play, or the variety of bases you can draft, everything feels more or less balanced. It feels like your choices are determining the victor rather than the card draw. Creating a game that you’ll want to return to again, and again, and again!