The worker placement mechanics of Emberheart are interesting. You don't just place a worker, you place a marker plus a stack of workers. Most locations on the board have 3 cards, and 5 spaces you could place your party on, numbered 1 to 5, and in general you need to put as many workers there as that number is. Players take turns to place their stacks, and after up to 5 turns the round ends. Then the player who occupies the highest spot on each location gets first choice among the 3 cards there, followed by the others in decreasing order. If there are more than 3 stacks placed, the 4th and 5th player get no card, but a consolation prize. The workers you can put in each stack are either grey grunts, which at the end of the round would go back into the general supply, or colored specialists, which at the end of the round would return to the player. But the grunts can be placed in any location, while the specialists can only be placed in the locations of their color. One resource in the game is gear, which can be used to change a grunt into a specialist, or vice versa, or a specialist into a specialist of a different color.

The different locations have cards with different functions: There are hero cards that, when combined with dragons, give special abilities and end game points. There are tavern cards that reward you with a mix of grunts and specialists. There are two different types of dragon cards, poached and free. Preserve cards also combine with dragons and give your dragon companion additional abilities. Garrison cards also give dragon companion abilities and end game points, if you fulfill their placement conditions. There are 6 locations in the game, with 5 spaces each, but as there are a maximum of 4 players with a maximum of 5 stacks each, not all locations will be full at the end of a round. Thus you need to think carefully where you want to place your stacks. If you always go for the 5 space, you will have first choice guaranteed, but run out of workers quickly. If you always place grunts, you won't have workers left next round, but if you transform them into specialists that limits where you can place them. Sometimes you can get a card with a lowly 1 bid, as not enough other players were interested.

I played two games of Emberheart this week, both with 4 players, two different groups. Each game took between 2 and 2.5 hours, including setup and rules explanation, so this is perfect for my usual board game nights, which have a 3.5 hours hard limit. Emberheart is the type of game that is great for pickup groups, as it doesn't take too long to explain. I am less sure that it would be great to be played repeatedly with the same people, as all cards except the hero cards are limited to exactly the number you go through in one game, so you will always see the same cards, just in different order. Only the hero cards have about twice the number needed, so there is more variability and replayability there.

Emberheart is also great value for money. The regular retail price is $39 or €35, and for that money you get a good amount of game components in good quality. Comparable games can easily cost $20 more these days. From the games I bought at Essen and tested up to now, Emberheart is the game I had the most fun with, and one of the cheapest.