KNIGHTS

Last night, Anne and I got a little Dad-Daughter time in and went to the local coffee shop. We played KNIGHTS by Rio Grande games, a pretty simple family style game from Rio Grande.

The game is not going to give anyone any wrinkles worrying over strategy. There are three ways to win: overthrow the King and collect a certain number of castles; collect four castles; and win three tournaments and control TWO castles.



The game mechanics are dirt simple. This is basically a collection game.. you collect sets to get winning combinations (noted just above). You capture cards to collect the sets. Each card (with the exception of tournament cards) has a dice set printed on it. You have to BEAT that dice set to win the card. Cards can be castles (which you generally need to win), other useful items (castle guards, catapaults), extra dice rolls that can be added to your rolls (a nice touch!) or tournament cards.

Here is the game laid out for play.



We were constrained by the Starbucks tiny cafe tables, but the game plays pretty well for all of that.

Tournaments are handled slightly different than the other cards. This starts a three round dice off between the players. The organizer of the tournament (the player that drew the card) dices four times.



The photo above shows the game having moved fairly along. Anne has had a tremendous run of luck on tournaments, which would win the game for her. Note that I managed to roll and capture a dice modification card (twos) at one point.



Here's Anne, showing the diplomacy she is known for.

And the final line up...



2 Castles, 3 Tournaments. I guess the dice favored Anne last night.

KNIGHTS is a fun game, a bit of a no-brainer, but I'd play it again with an adult or two just to see how it does multiplayer.