Neuroshima Hex 3.0 – The Year of Moloch Edition is a celebration of a great game, but who for?

Sitting just outside the BoardGameGeek top 300 games of all time, Neuroshima Hex 3.0 is a game that has many fans. It is both an extremely deep and broad-sci-fi inspired duelling game and also a tight, fast-paced and relatively light experience. In the fiction attached to Neuroshima Hex 3.0, we learn that a malicious AI has brought about the end of days — and in the original 2006 release, we learned that the AI in question — Moloch — would rise in 2020. The Neuroshima Hex 3.0 – Year of Moloch Edition that we are reviewing today is publisher Portal Games’ method of commemorating one of their most successful IPs. 

Originally released as a Portal Games’ exclusive product featuring a large plastic bust and a few other extras, Neuroshima Hex 3.0 – Year of Moloch Edition finally saw a retail release in late 2021. The more widely available version is what we’ve been sent, and it is “just” the game without any of the extra stuff – which is where my question “who is this game for?” comes from.

You see Neuroshima Hex 3.0 – Year of Moloch Edition is essentially a big box storage solution with a very small (starter set) amount of content in it. The box itself is large and really, really good looking. The black background serves the silver-embossed metal features of the Moloch robot that dominates the face of the box, and perhaps more than any other game I’ve played recently, this look really drew me in.

Inside, however, I was met with a bit of disappointment. Lots of effort has gone into the four factions that are presented in the box, with each coming on a punch board that has the pieces for the faction in question, as well as a piece of exceptional, but entirely disposable artwork in the areas where no tokens are present. There are also two punch boards of additional, optional and replacement units which I haven’t used yet. 

Once punched, Neuroshima Hex 3.0 – Year of Moloch Edition amounts to four factions which fit into four of the “holes” in the brilliant custom insert. There’s room for 14 more factions (and each one has a slot for a custom plastic command token which is also included). Each of the bundled factions, like the box, has embossed features that look excellent when the light shines on them, and the board is a double layer affair that keeps the pieces more or less in place whenever a knock occurs — all very nice.

Before I call out my biggest reservation with the production of Neuroshima Hex 3.0 – Year of Moloch Edition, there are a couple of other things in there. Each of the 18 factions receives a new player aid in the correct colour (to go with the revised command token) and there is a fantastic complete rulebook, a separate glossary and an all-new Rise of Moloch solo or cooperative campaign booklet. This stuff is proper enthusiast stuff – the new pieces, players aids, campaign and consolidated books are all great, and the insert is… not bad.

The thing is, as a new player, I was super disappointed with what I got inside the box considering the RRP, and if I were an experienced player, I’d probably have even more to moan about. Let’s deal with new players first – a four-faction starter set and a load of stuff I can’t use seems steep at eighty quid, and it’s damn near impossible to even work out who the other fourteen factions are, let alone to find them available…. At roughly ten pounds each, that’s another 140 that I’d need to find to fill my box if retailers even had the other factions in stock.

It’s possibly worse for enthusiasts though, because they will already have the four factions included in the box here, albeit with different art — and the other however-many factions they have will match the original pieces… So, which set do they keep when there is only room in the new box for 18 factions? On that note, since Neuroshima Hex 3.0 – Year of Moloch Edition was released, a 19th faction (Beasts) has also been released… and that faction has no slot in this box, nor a power token or new player aid, so from an enthusiast perspective that becomes a real problem.

So, after a full four or five paragraphs of musing about Neuroshima Hex 3.0 – Year of Moloch Edition’s production, what is actually like to play Neuroshima Hex 3.0? Well, here’s the real conundrum — because on board, this game is fantastic. Each faction has about twenty hexagon chips at most, and each turn two will be drawn to form a hand. Hex chips are either played onto the board or used to advance existing units or otherwise affect the game state.

What makes Neuroshima Hex 3.0 so good is how simple it is to learn and teach, how fast it is to play and how diverse the factions are. The Moloch, for example, spreads like a network (because they are one), enhancing units that are connected to the core, but losing strength when a unit is disconnected for any reason. The Hegemony faction is very balanced — with a lot of melee tiles and the ability to chase down enemies and reposition their units on the board.

Because of the way Neuroshima Hex 3.0 plays, the board is always extremely tight. Effectively only the inside ring of units is used in a normal two player games, so units are pretty much always adjacent (or very close) to an enemy. This is because units don’t simply move by themselves – and can only do so when a move tile is played. With say two to four move tiles in an entire faction stack, positioning in Neuroshima Hex 3.0 is absolutely critical. A badly placed unit may simply never participate in the battle.

Because it really is excellent fun to play, Neuroshima Hex 3.0 – Year of Moloch Edition leaves me in a massive quandary. This version is too expensive, and the release of the Beasts faction makes me think it’s a tough one to recommend simply because it is already somewhat obsolete — I mean, not really, but from the perspective of a completionist it’s not ideal. Meanwhile for a new player, this version is far too expensive and contains a lot of content you may never use. 

So where does that leave me? Honestly, Neuroshima Hex 3.0 as a game is completely unique and very, very good. Each faction is highly individual and I have a huge desire now to experience more of them. I genuinely wish this were a big box experience that crammed everything in — even if it had been twenty or thirty quid more expensive. As it stands, I really do recommend the game itself, and I think anyone should try Neuroshima Hex 3.0 in some form… I’d just start with a basic starter set and a couple of easy-to-find expansions rather than this version. 

You can purchase Neuroshima Hex 3.0 on Amazon.