Artus is a game about King Arthur and the round table designed by Michael Kiesling and Wolfgang Kramer (the creators of great games such as Tikal, Tikal II and Asara).  The board shows the round table with seats around the outside occupied by players’ knights, the princes and the king.  The table shows points values ranging from -15 to +10 for each seat position.  The crown on the table always points at the King, so when the King moves, the table turns which means the points for each chair change.

Each player has 22 cards (all will be played during the game) which are split into 3 decks and each player has the same: Knight cards move your own knights, King cards move the King/Princes, and scoring cards.  Players start with 3 Knight and 3 King cards, but after their first turn, they can draw cards from any of their decks.

On their turn, players play any 2 of their 6 cards.  Knight cards let the player move one of their knights a number of spaces within its range so a 3-6 Knight card lets you move one knight 3, 4, 5 or 6 spaces.  Knights move clockwise apart from one card that lets you move one anti-clockwise.  When a knight moves, the player scores points equal to the value of the chair (indicated by the table) that they vacate.  If a knight moves to a chair already occupied by a knight then that knight gets displaced to the first empty chair anti-clockwise. Read the rest of this entry »

The game’s full name is ‘Artus and the Knights of the Round Table’ and the reason this game has caught my attention is that it is by the same designers who created El Grande which is one of my favourite games (as wel as many others like Tikal I, Tikal II and Asara).

During the game, players play cards from their hand (they each have identical decks) to move their Knights (usually clockwise) around the table.  Each chair has a number next to it ranging from -15 to +10.  When a knight moves, the player scores points equal to the number of the chair they leave.  If a knight moves to a chair already occupied by a knight then that knight gets displaced to the first empty chair anti-clockwise.  Players also have cards that move the princes, make a prince into a new king, and trigger scoring situations (i.e. score all your knights on the carpet chairs, etc.)

The gameplay sounds clean, simple and tactical, but the extra twist is that when the King moves (or a prince becomes the new King) the whole table is rotated so the King is at the crown position which can shift the numbers (and, therefore, the potential for scoring) a lot. Read the rest of this entry »