Azul Duel

• Designer:  Michael Kiesling
• Publisher: Next Move
• Players: 2
• Age: 10+
• Time: 45
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4jnZiZA
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Decorate the magnificent ceilings of the palace. Will the vaults look more beautiful by day or by night? Azul Duel invites you to play with light and pit opposites against each other.

This competitive strategic game for two players retains the purity and elegance of the original Azul while adding an extra tactical dimension in which you determine the pattern in which tiles will be placed, in addition to drafting tiles to complete that pattern.

Each player takes their own personal board and the scoring board is placed between those – with the player colors oriented towards the matching player board.  Each player starts with 5 points on their scoring area.  Unfold the tower and place it on the table.  Three bonus tablets are arranged near the board as well.   

Three dome tiles are dealt out in the central area.  The factories (1 large and 4 smaller) are arranged in a circle with the darker moon crescent areas aligned into the center of this circle.  Set aside the 9 special tiles, and then mix the rest into a facedown supply. The large factory gets 5 random tiles faceup on the sun portion while each of the smaller ones gets 4 faceup tiles on their sun areas.  The start player marker is placed on the larger factory, and a random facedown bonus chip is placed on each of the smaller factories.

A starting player is chosen, and that player takes one of the three available dome tiles and places it on any dome space on their player board.  The central market of dome tiles is replenished and then the other player chooses a dome tile and places it.  The board is again refilled and the game can start.

The game is played over five rounds, each with three phases: Acquisition, Dome-tiling and Scoring, Preparation.

In the Acquisition phase, players alternate turns, each taking a single action from the following four choices:

1. Use one of your two player tokens to choose a Dome-plate: take a faceup domeplate OR spend as many points as you like to draw that many facedown domeplates from the supply and choose one.  Place your chosen tile on any empty space on your personal board.  You must use both of your player tokens in each of the first four rounds.
2. Take all the tiles of the same color from the Sun area of any one factory.  If on a small factory, take the remaining tiles and place them in a stack in the order of your choice on top of the bonus chip on that Factory’s moon.  If on the large factory, place the remaining tiles individually on the moon spaces.  Add the chosen tiles to any single pattern line on the left of your player board, always placing from right to left. All tiles in a particular line must be the same color. If you have chosen more tiles than you can place, the excess are placed in the broken tile area (max 4 broken tiles).  Your goal is to complete lines – as these completed lines will be transferred onto your Dome in a later phase.
3. Take all top tiles of the same color from all the moon spaces on all the factories.  If you are the first player to choose a tile from the moon area of the large factory, you are also obligated to take the first player token.  If the last tile is taken from a small Factory’s moon, reveal the bonus chip that was underneath. Add the chosen tiles to any single pattern line on the left of your player board, always placing from right to left. All tiles in a particular line must be the same color. If you have chosen more tiles than you can place, the excess are placed in the broken tile area (max 4 broken tiles).  Your goal is to complete lines – as these completed lines will be transferred onto your Dome in a later phase.
4. Take a revealed Bonus chip and place it into your Bonus chip storage area. Each player will take exactly two Bonus chips per round (and there are five groups of two on your player board to remember this).

The Acquisition phase continues until all the factories are empty (all tiles chosen and all Bonus tiles taken) AND when both players have used both of their player tokens to take Dome tiles.  

In the Dome-tiling and Scoring Phase, players can work simultaneously to move their completed pattern lines to their Dome. During this phase, you can also use your Bonus tiles to complete lines.  Any two tiles which have the needed color can be used to fill any ONE empty space  of said color.  Alternatively, any 3 Bonus tiles can be used for any single space.  Going from top to bottom, the rightmost tile from a completed line is placed onto an empty space of the same color on a Dome-plate in the corresponding line.  If you have a finished row but do not yet have a tile placed with that color on it, simply leave the tile.  However, if that particular row is already full of three Dome-plate tiles and there is not a matching colored space, the tile must be discarded into the broken tile area.  If you place a tile onto a Dome-plate or into the broken tile area, the rest of the tiles in that line are discarded into the Tower.     As you move tiles onto your Dome, they score points equal to the number of horizontally connected tiles (including itself) PLUS the number of vertically connected tiles (including itself).

There are two special spaces that can appear on the Dome-plate tiles.  The Joker space can be filled with any color tile.  The special colorless space can only be filled with a Special tile (these were set aside in setup). Whenever you have filled in the other three spaces on the Dome-plate tile, you can then take a special tile from the supply and fill in this last remaining space.  You also score a bonus amount equal to the number seen at the right of the row on your player board where you placed the special tile. Note that special tiles do not score for adjacency.  Finally, take penalties for any tiles in your Broken Tile area: -1/3/6/10 for 1/2/3/4 tiles.  Additionally, lose two points if you have the starting player tile.  The Broken tiles are then discarded into the Tower.

In the Preparation phase, the game is reset.  Each player takes back their player tokens, the Factories are refilled (using the tiles in the Tower to replenish the bag if needed).

At the end of the fifth phase, the game is over. Each player then scores end-game points based on how well they met the criteria of the three scoring tables which were set out in setup. The player with the most points wins. Ties broken in favor of the player who holds the Starting Player tile at the end of the game.

 My thoughts on the game

There is definitely a current Renaissance of Duel games – I have reviewed quite a number of them in the past year.  Azul Duel has some familiar features about it, but I think there is enough difference here that it really stands alone as its own game, albeit one that can only be played with 2 players. 

As an illustration – the tile choice feels a bit familiar – you choose one of the colors from a sun tile and then take all those tiles to play.  However, it is also a bit different because the remaining tiles are not just thrown into a central area but rather are placed in a stack on moon section of that tile; and you can later choose the top tile from each moon stack so long as they are of one color…

Tile placement also feels both familiar and different.  Like in the original, you take your colored tiles and place them in rows on your board; however, you are not trying to fill a pre-printed pattern on your board; now you have to choose your own set of Dome-plates (drafting two each turn).

On the whole, it’s a bit more complex (and possibly fiddly) than the original Azul; but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I think it is actually quite necessary to be a bit different – if it weren’t, there would be no reason to make/buy/play Azul Duel – after all, you can play the base Azul game just fine with 2 players.

I think this will be a good fit for fans of the Azul franchise.  It provides a fresh take on the familiar tile collection game, and it does provide a really good 2p experience.  For me, that’s the only real downside of the game, as I’m not often in a place where I only have one other gamer when it’s time to play games – but I think this will be a good fit for those who often play 1v1 games.

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Alison Brennan: It implements changes to make it attractive enough to be different and more 2-player focused. In the former category, build your own colour goal board (from an open draft) and then collect the matching coloured tiles to cover it up and score per usual. In the latter category, when you take tiles, you’re encouraged to analyse the opponent’s board more closely than usual to determine the order the non-taken tiles will be stacked in (only the top can be taken from each pile from now on). Which slows the game down so much you stop caring about ordering after a while. It’s a nice variant to explore but the doubled play-length isn’t a big-league win.

Steph H: Best Azul yet.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it.  Dale Y, Alison, Steph H
• Neutral. 
• Not for me…

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