That in turn adds a very nice element of resource conservation into play – you want to keep those safe spaces free until you really need them, but they’re safe spaces for everyone even if each player has a different view on just how safe they are. You want to use them at the time where they yield their maximum benefit but that’s the same thing that everyone wants to do. As such every turn becomes a kind of architectural roulette where you weigh up the odds of success versus the potentially wasted opportunity of playing it safe. Someone is going to use the safest part of the structure to play their roof. You want it to be you, but you don’t necessarily want it to be now. You want it to be when not playing it safe is too risky to contemplate. Final Score: 5 Stars – Takes everything we love about the original Rhino Hero and adds in more variety and excitement. Super Battle changes that by giving players autonomy as to where they’ll place their card, and the structure you’ve all been collaborative architecting will provide whole suite of meaningful options around that. Those options will draw in position, precarity, and the confidence each player has in their ability to work within the constraints of the construction. Maybe you place a really dodgy roof on a really dodgy wall hoping that it’s just on the right side of robustness for you to make it stay, but not so robust anyone will want to build on it. There’s nothing to stop another player looking at what you’ve done and saying ‘blow that’ before placing their own roof somewhere different. Eventually your structure will become so interconnected that every placement impacts on every other card but that doesn’t mean every point of play is as risky as every other. More than this, each player will have their own views on what is risky and what is not. You might find yourself driving the next player towards the place you want them to build only to find they had different ideas as to the destination of their own card. The first player consideration is likely to lead to interesting discussions….the player who is the best climber can start! They make their move which consists of six action points:

The rules to Super Battle are so deceptively simple that even your pet dog will understand them, although dogs don’t have thumbs so probably best not to play this with your dog…or any animal really. Whilst all these intoxicatingly bright colours are a feast for the eyes, it has ignited some of the more interesting debates I have had in my life. Endeavouring to convince people to play what essentially looks like a children’s TV show is more problematic than I thought. Oh, and we’ve saved the best until last. Rhino Hero comes with its eponymous hero in the form of a grinning rhino meeple – brilliant – and if your roof card has the rhino symbol on it, the next player has to move the rhino onto that roof card’s symbol! Rhino Hero is about a heroic rhinoceros, clad in a cape and cowl, trying to scale a skyscraper! (If that hasn’t grabbed your attention, nothing will.) Technically this is a children’s game by hugely popular publisher HABA, but don’t let that put you off. While you can – and will – enjoy this with children of all ages (realistically aged five and up, for them to grasp the dexterity concept), it’s also guaranteed to be a smash hit with the adults, too!Each player starts the game with five cards, unless there are only two of you in which case you start with seven. Your hand is made up of roof cards only, with each one having a different action on it that, once played, affect the game in some way. The wall tiles remain in a draw pile to the side which should be taken from at the beginning of each players turn. Draw a new floor card from the pile or take one of the three face-up floor cards. If you choose the latter, you must fill up the free space with another card from the draw pile. Victory! The walls as well! The walls are made out of high-quality card which after many play throughs, simply refuse to fray and crease horribly. Personal Point Roll the light blue die. The number rolled indicates how many floors your superhero can be moved up the skyscraper. If the structure has not fallen by this point, the player then rolls a die to climb the tower. Based on the result, the player moves their hero piece up or down that many levels.

I will say that the box is a tad generous with the age 5 rating. That’s probably a little early, although you know your kids better than anyone. We tried it with a 6-year-old and he was able to play, but still required a bit of help from us. The game can be made more difficult by having the game board show less than 10 build points. At the start of the game arrange the three base pieces however you want. If only the red starting points are shown then there are only 5 points and you have chosen the most difficult starting setup... and/or by only allowing only one hand to be used for building. And it's even more difficult if players are only allowed to use their less dominant hand!I have two small negatives about Super Battle. First, it feels like a missed opportunity that this game does not integrate with the original, and second, the box is far larger than it needs to be. These issues aside, however, the production of this game is top-notch, and it’s great fun to play. This is about the limit of what he can manage without standing on his chair and putting a hand on the table HABA have long been experts in creating exciting, fun, learning games for children. Rhino Hero first and foremost teaches children basic hand management and dexterity skills and patience. But it does more than that, because it’s one of the most perfect party games out there for adults, too. If ever there was an ice-breaker in a box, Rhino Hero would be it. The game box states that Rhino Hero Super Battle (designed by Scott Frisco and Steven Strumpf) is suitable for 5-99-year-olds. What’s amazing about this game is that not only are people of all ages capable of playing the game but the rules contain great ways of allowing younger players to stand a chance of winning against older players. These include: Rhino Hero is joined by three other action heroes and hanging spider monkeys. Includes 2 dice for hero battles when they land on the same floor.

You’ll likely want to have some early mulligan/do overs to extend games a bit, especially for younger players with shakier hands. The game is at its best when your tower is 4+ levels high and you’ve got an impressive-looking tower going Is it going to enthrall those of us who are more tactically minded and want to feel like we’ve worked a bit harder for our victory? Probably not, nor is it going to be a game that you revisit for its own replay-ability and depth. The quirk of this game is in its humour-inducing ability, not in its own greatness. It is one-dimensional and is better played with a few of you. It also requires a level surface with no surplus movement – a fan the other end of the room or an un-even table will cause you problems – which makes it limited in where and when you can play it. This also ensures that before too long you can’t nudge one card without nudgnig all of them because it’s inevitable that you’ll have to make use of other roofs to support new roofs. Many roofs need a long and a short wall and you can’t have roofs placed at a slope. Before too much time has passed your whole edifice has the internal interconnectivity of a haphazard hive constructed by bees doped up on LSD.The goal in Rhino Hero: Super Battle is to get your hero to the highest level of the communal tower. On a turn, players will add either tall walls or short walls to a dictated by a floor piece that has already been played. You may also have to add a dastardly spider monkey to the construction! Then you will add your own floor piece for someone else to build on. There can be few games which provide as much tension and laughter to both children and adults as Rhino Hero Super Battle does. The rules are straightforward and present effective ways for children and adults to play on a level playing field… Rhino Hero Super Battle Set-Up HABA Games had their work cut out for them in trying to improve upon the crossover hit that was Rhino Hero… and they completely succeeded. Rhino Hero: Super Battle is incredibly fun, easy to learn, and definitely is not just for kids. Sure, you can play this one with your little ones, and then once you shove them off to bed, play again without them. On a player’s turn, they begin by selecting a floor card to use. Each card shows one or two wall symbols, and may show a spider-monkey as well. Walls come in two heights, so the player takes the walls shown on their card and adds them to the tower, placing the floor card on top of them.