Last Aurora

Race against time to survive the radioactive ice desert!

This year, while on holiday, it was 2am and I couldn’t sleep. Browsing Boardgamegeek on my iPhone, I discovered Last Aurora and bought it on impulse. In the morning, I hoped I hadn’t wasted my money. But then it arrived, I played it, and to my great relief, I loved it!

Another game from Pendragon Studios distributed by Ares Games (see The Thing: The Boardgame), Last Aurora is primarily a race from one end of a board to the other between your convoys of nuclear winter survivors, each trying to reach the icebreaker ship Aurora and a last chance for survival. But there’s much more to it than that. As you race, you build a tableau of cards in front of you representing your convoy and the resources it carries. Wonderful artwork brings this ragtag selection of trucks, trailer, weapons and storage units – and the survivors riding on them – to life, and as you travel you fight enemy gangs, plunder locations for resources, and expand your convoy to increase your chances of survival.

The game has a wonderful Mad-Max-on-ice feel, and the encounters and locations really bring it to life. The decisions are interesting and make you feel like you’re really managing a convoy of survivors and their precious resources. And all this works through some straightforward and easy to remember systems.

I’m very glad I bought this one on impulse that sleepless night, and it isn’t long before I grabbed the two expansions, Project Athena and Frozen Steel, which not only expand the game, but this interesting post-apocalyptic world. This is one of these games that you can confidently put on the table knowing you’re going to have a fun experience. Highly recommended.

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Update Log

Date Version Changelog
Dec 2022 1 Original release

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