Kevin Wilson has designed a lot of games over the years, but few feel as immediately confident and mechanically rich as Kinfire Council. This is a game that knows exactly what it is trying to be — an asymmetric, competitive worker placement Ameritrash with a strong thematic core and a surprising amount of interaction. From the very first round, players are thrown into a city teetering on the edge of crisis, armed with powerful guild abilities and a handful of pawns that can be upgraded in specialist roles. It’s fast, clever, and chaotic enough to keep everyone on edge. In many ways, Kinfire Council is 2025’s Lords of Waterdeep.
Published by Incredible Dream Studios and set in the city of Din’Lux, Kinfire Council is the third major release in the Kinfire universe, following Kinfire Chronicles and Kinfire Delve. Unlike its predecessors, which leaned into narrative storytelling and dungeon-crawling respectively, Kinfire Council is a competitive euro-style game with a political twist. Players take on the role of Seekers — agents of the council — tasked with managing the city, influencing decrees, and keeping cultist threats at bay.
The game plays out over five rounds, each divided into three phases: Sun’s Rise, Day’s Light and Night’s Fall. During Sun’s Rise, players draw cultist tokens from a bag and place them on the board, blocking spaces and triggering threats. Day’s Light is the main action phase, where players place pawns, activate abilities, vote on decrees and contribute to city crises or even a communal lighthouse project. Night’s Fall is cleanup and scoring. It’s a tight and familiar structure and despite the number of moving parts, the game flows well once players understand the rhythm.
The board itself is a multi-tiered city, built using trays and district tiles to create a vertical landscape – in my pictures you’ll note that I omitted the trays for ease of presentation. It’s a visually impressive and functionally clever approach, with each tier offering different types of actions at increasing cost. From the outset, players are faced with quite an array of choices — nineteen distinct placement spaces, each with multiple possible actions. It’s a lot to take in, but the iconography is clear and the thematic ties help ground the mechanics.
One area where Kinfire Council really shines is in its asymmetry. Each player controls a unique council member with their own powers, and these powers are not subtle. In addition, the training action allows specific pawns to be upgraded with one of four skills that further customise the gameplay. One of these abilities (Spy) might allow pawns to enter occupied spaces, whilst another (Guard) allows a pawn to both capture a cultist and use the location that cultist was at (which is powerful.)
As for the council abilities — well one (which seems incredibly good until you see the others) allows that player to pre-train all of their pawns to have the Spy ability, then allows them an extra minor action (known as an errand) each turn, and allows them to retrain for the cost of an errand — which is amazing. Another allows the player who controls that council member to draw money directly from the shared tithe, which is massive when you consider the cost of many actions. These abilities are completely unbalanced — except by envy! You’ll constantly look at what other players can do and wish you had their power, while they’re doing the same to you. It creates a dynamic tension that elevates every decision and makes people want to play again.
If this wasn’t enough, each guild has its own seeker, which is a more powerful worker that comes with both a starting upgrade (to one of those that any pawn can access when trained) and its own unique ability to be played outside the city. This means that it can do things like deal with threats from the cultists, who are a constant thorn in the side.
Cultists are a persistent threat. If they ever outscore the players, everyone loses. It’s a semi-cooperative wrinkle in an otherwise competitive game, and it works well given the thematic context of the game. Players must decide when to deal with cultists and when to ignore them, knowing that neglecting the threat could mean a loss — that is, of course, unless a player happens to align with the cultists (which is only allowed in games of three or more). The cultist system adds urgency and forces players to consider the broader state of the board, not just their own engine.
Voting is another key mechanic. Each round presents two decrees (some of which might be crises or other events), and players can spend influence tokens to vote for the one they prefer. The decree with the most votes passes, granting benefits to the players who supported it. Crisis cards add stakes to the vote, threatening penalties if not passed. In theory, this should create political drama. In practice, it’s a bit muted because voting is quite costly and doesn’t feel like quite the central mechanic that I wish it was. Players often agree on the obvious choice, and the benefits aren’t always worth the cost of voting. I like the idea, but wonder if perhaps a dedicated voting phase or similar might have brought more weight to it.
Delightfully, I was sent the deluxe component upgrade box, and it’s hard to imagine going back to cardboard tokens now. The velvet bags for each player are a tactile delight, the upgraded influence tokens have a satisfying weight, and the neoprene guild mats are both functional and visually appealing. That said, the council member mats are still thin cardboard, and when placed next to the neoprene, the mismatch is jarring. It’s a small issue, but one that stands out in an otherwise premium production.
The base game itself is well produced anyway if I am being fair. The cardboard is thick, the artwork is vibrant, and the trays used to build the city are both practical and thematic. Setup is a bit involved — there are a lot of components — but the game includes a storage guide, and once everything is laid out, the table presence is impressive. Incredible Dream Studios has clearly invested in presentation, and it pays off. If I had one complaint here, it’s that the deluxe upgrades can’t really be accommodated in the base game box, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been a fan of having a separate box just for resources.
Kinfire Council has an expansion called Winds of Change, which adds solo and cooperative modes, new threats, and additional content. We haven’t played it yet, so we won’t comment on it here, but it’s worth noting for those looking to expand the experience. At a glance (and aside from solo and cooperative play) it seems to contain a complete new set of location tiles, as well as a load of new decree and cultist cards, as well as a few new lighthouse cards.
Gameplay in Kinfire Council is tight, interactive, and full of meaningful decisions. Every turn feels important, and the pacing is excellent. With five rounds, the game doesn’t overstay its welcome, but it still gives players time to build engines, adapt strategies, and explore the systems. Player count affects the number of pawns each player controls, which helps balance the action economy. At two players, you’ll have five pawns each. At six, just two. It’s a smart scaling mechanism that keeps the game flowing regardless of group size.
All of this said, there are still a few things to mention. I’ve spoken about lighthouses a couple of times but not in detail – and this mechanic offers the players something to invest in – gaining bonuses for doing so, or suffering consequences (from the cult) if not. Similarly, the city has needs, with things like food (goods) being in short supply. On the flip side (literally) players can pay money to flip worker placement slots and upgrade them, spending a valuable influence token to become the patron of that location — but helping to generate resources. These things (both good and bad) along with the voting and other features really make Kinfire Council feel like a world where you are influencing the city of Din’Lux.
There are a few rough edges. As mentioned, the voting system could use more bite. Some players might find the initial learning curve steep — there’s a lot going on, and the rulebook, while thorough, requires a careful read. The asymmetry, while brilliant, can also lead to analysis paralysis, especially for new players trying to parse the implications of each guild power – I liked how seeker powers are the same as upgraded pawns in the main, helping players ramp into the idea of upgrading steadily. Whilst the cultist system adds tension, it can occasionally feel like a distraction from the core competition and sometimes, it swings wildly from too easy to bloody hard.
But these are minor issues in a game that otherwise shines. Kinfire Council is ambitious, thematic, and deeply satisfying. It blends euro mechanics with narrative flavour, asymmetry with balance, and competition with cooperation — just like all the best Ameritrash games. It’s a game that rewards clever play, adapts well to different group sizes, and offers enough variety to keep you coming back. For me, Kinfire Council is a standout release and possibly one of the best in 2025 so far — it’s a game that deserves a place on your shelf, especially if you enjoy asymmetric powers, layered strategy, and premium production. Whether you’re a fan of the Kinfire universe or a newcomer to Din’Lux, this is a game worth exploring.
Kinfire Council is available now, you can find it on Zatu Games.
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