Australis Review
Advert: this game was gifted by Kosmos Games, this has not affected our opinion.
[Insert witty and uninformative introduction to the Board Game Review of Australis here. Or don’t bother changing this placeholder text and let the reader conjure up their own!]
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Setup
Unfold the sizeable board on the table in easy reach of all players. Give each player tokens in their colour as well as a personal player board. Place cubes and components in the correct places around the board. Then take as many dice as there are players, roll them and place them on their relevant spaces. Finally, shuffle the cards using those appropriate for your player count. After deciding who is the first player, place turtles on the track in the correct order and you are good to start playing!
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Gameplay
Points mean prizes, I mean not literal prizes, unless winning the game is a prize and then maybe. What I’m trying to say is, like many games, most points wins. You will gain points throughout the game as you play through a series of rounds.
Each round you will draft four dice in turns and carry out the action that corresponds with your draft. Either move your turtle, place a coral, take fish, draw a card, or claim the first player token.
The cards relate to the dice and offer an ongoing benefit every time a die of the colour is drafted, or help in the roll off, more about that in a moment.
After all but one dice has been drafted, you proceed through end of round scoring. Points will be awarded for coral in an area majority way, how far your turtle is along the track and fish that have been fed.
The round climaxes with a roll off, where players battle to be the last player standing. All dice with a number (i.e. red, blue and purple) get rolled by their owners. This is done over a series of rolls resulting in the die or dices with the lowest number being eliminated. Then if more than one player is left, players roll again. The winner gets the choice of two tiles, a silver and a gold and the second place roller gets the other. When these tiles run out the game is over.
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What it’s like
I am a big fan of dice drafting and Australis creates a nice tension around this. You always have options, but you want to take the optimal dice for you, before anyone else snaffles it. Sometimes you can risk it in the hope that they may not need it as much as something else, but you’ll open yourself up for hate drafting if you’re not careful.
Ultimately, all the options are good and I like how different strategies can win seemingly equally. I do believe it is important for your turtle to travel down the board as much as possible. Not only does this give you more points, but really can help bolster other strategies too. Saying that, cards can be beneficial in that way too.
The roll off is total luck-based, dice-rolling fun. The dice have slightly different numbers, with the first-player dice having the highest. So you can increase your odds of survival but, of course, rolls can easily go against you and every numbered dice can beat the others. The benefits are good, but this is a risky strategy. Upgrading cards can also help with roll-offs by adding a plus one to the pip value of certain colours.
Play moves round at a decent pace. I think it works at all player counts, but Australis is slightly weaker at two players. As a duel you don’t have the tension of the area majorities so much. I actually wish there was a fifth player option as it definitely could’ve sat another player comfortably without adding too much downtime.
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Table Presence
I was totally succumbed by prettiness when I stopped at Kosmos Games’ stand at AireCon for an introduction to Australis. It is a beautiful game. The overall design and components are all very satisfying. The colour palette and styling works really well. This is a great looking game!
That’s not to say that I don’t have complaints. Firstly, the fish tokens are too similar in size, the small ones are worth one fish and the big ones are worth three, but it is tricky at a glance to distinguish between them. They needed a different design with a group of three fishes on them really. I think using clownfish is a bit predictable too. Secondly, the box has a lot of air and candidly the box is about a third too big. Such a waste of space when sending it around the world and even more annoying on my full board game shelves. The prettiness goes some way in forgiving these issues though!
The iconography is clear and easy to learn which I appreciate. The rulebook was good too.
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What the kids thought
Max (10): It’s a brilliant game! I love the artwork, the turtles are really cute. I really like the gameplay too, especially the roll off. Ten out of ten!
George (14): I think Australis is a really entertaining game. I like all the different options. It looks really good too. The roll off is fun, it’s like a Mexican stand-off but with dice!
Harrison (17): Australis is an amazing family weight game with a large variety of ways to score points meaning there are some fun strategies to try out. I especially enjoy advancing up the turtle track and controlling coral zones. The design of the game is also really appealing to me as I love the coral reef theming. It’s found its way into my top 5 family weight games and will love playing it for quite some time!
Final thoughts on Australis
Australis is a very good game in its family weight category. I like the dice drafting decisions and the pinnacle of the roll off at the end of each round. This is amplified by the stunning artwork and components.
Sure there is some luck, but in all my plays I reckon it has pretty much evened out. Also the randomness of the dice rolls can enable younger players to be competitive still, and as a family game it is important that younger players feel like they have a chance to be competitive even if via luck.
I really enjoy playing Australis with my family! I’m really impressed by it.
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Key Facts
Number of players: 2 to 4
Board Game Review Recommended Age: 9+
Publisher’s Recommended Age: 10+
Playing Time: 60 minutes
Setting Up and Take Down Time: 3 minutes
Designers: Leo Colovini, and Alessandro Zucchini
Publisher: Kosmos
RRP: £34.99
Summary
Good looks and fun dice gameplay combine to make Australis a big hit in our household. It’s certainly one I recommend giving a try!
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Artwork and Components
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Complexity
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Instructions
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Interaction
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Value for Money
Overall
Pros
- It’s so beautiful
- Dice drafting and rolling
- Lots of paths to victory
- Family fun
Cons
- The luck of the roll off
- Box is too big for the contents
- Fish tokens too similar
- No fifth player
Need more games?
If you already own Australis and enjoy it, or are looking for other inspiration, you might also like these similar games:
- Rajas of the Ganges
- Mille Fiori
- Noctiluca
- Sushi Roll
Buy Australis
If you want to buy Australis after reading our review click on one of our affiliate links below (note there has been no affiliate links until this point)
Reviewer’s Note
For clarity: we don’t get paid for our reviews. However, we were kindly gifted this game by Kosmos Games. We have tried not to let this affect our review in any way.
We may however earn a tincy wincy commission if you buy a game having clicked one of our affiliate links like the one above… this hopefully gives us a bit of pocket money towards hosting costs and new games to review!
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