Inis is an area control and card drafting game set in a world of Celtic Legends.
It’s also a game about sneaking your way to victory conditions, negotiating yourself out of damaging fights and doing your best to overcome what the world throws at you.
The Inis and Outs
You control a group of clans, each of which is represented by a miniature on the board. There’s three main victory conditions that you’ll be going after: having at least one clan in six locations, having one clan in a location with six sanctuary buildings and finally being the chieftan (majority control) in areas with six opposing clans.
Every round in Inis has two distinct parts. The assembly phase, where you’ll be picking out the actions which you’ll take that turn and the seasons phase, where you make your moves on the board. Once every player has performed their moves, the round ends, the new Bren is picked and the drafting begins again.
Players then take turn drafting from an action deck. These cards control all the basic decisions you make in the game, from placing new clans, to moving clans across the world, to picking up new cards.
These action cards are going to inform your strategy for the round. Some of them let you place new units on the board in areas you control. Others let you perform the vital manoeuvres you’ll need to gain a victory condition. Some cards let you send an emissary to a neighbouring area, walking between rival clans with a message of peace, others allow you to come crashing into an area, weapons raised, forcing other clans into a tense fight.