Vengeance is as Close to Kill Bill: The Board Game as You Can Get Without Killing Bill

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Whether it’s John WickOldboy, The Boondock Saints or  Kill Billrighteous vengeance and awesome action go together like a pair of pistols being fired while jumping through the air in slow motion. Mighty Boards, the publisher of the Kickstarter hit Posthuman, currently has a game up on Kickstarter that brings the same bloody satisfaction to your tabletop. Vengeance has raised over $95,000 on a $50,000 goal and it’s easy to see why—it translates the classic tropes of these films into a game where you compete with your friends to see who can get the best revenge against scummy villains that deserve what’s coming to them.

The Wronging

At the beginning of the game, players choose the character they will be playing. Some of them are normal people. Some of them have shady pasts that require atonement. Everyone drafts cards during the first phase of the game called The Wronging where the gang leaders do awful things to the players. The cards describe the vicious wounds, like separated shoulders and cut-off pinky fingers which characters will deal with during the rest of the game. Players also keep a hand of cards that they can play during the game which cause additional damage to themselves—as the gang leaders rough them up for snooping around—but make these enemies worth more Vengeance Points at the end of the game.

The Montage

This part of the game reflects the protagonist’s recovery, training, and reconnaissance to see where the bad guys are hanging out. Players have to balance removing damage with getting cool abilities they can use in fights (and equipment that can turn the tide, like a trusty katana). They also have to be aware the clock is ticking. Learning kung fu and healing broken bones takes time. Your Speed total determines in what order players act in the next round. Two or more players might be gunning for a specific boss, and that boss might be dead by the time the player with the lowest speed gets to the scene.

The Fight

Here’s where the bad guys go down. The board is set up with a number of miniatures representing the main bad guy and their flunkies. Each player rolls the fight dice and goes to town on the bad guys, hopefully unleashing a ton of damage without any unlucky rolls that allow the bad guys to hit back. Items and techniques picked up in the previous round allow the players to manipulate their rolls to make them more brutally efficient. Even so, players have to make some hard choices. Is it better to clear out the faceless goons for points or should they make a beeline for the boss to make sure they claim them before anyone else does? As the game wears on, damage to the player’s mind, body, and skill accumulates and makes later rounds that much tougher.

The Kickstarter runs through October 5th, with stretch goals unlocking more minis, more heroes and more vice dens for the players to smash up.

What’s your favorite revenge movie? Tell us in the comments!

Image credit: Mighty Games

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