Board Game Review: Chicken Cha Cha Cha

The best children’s games will have an appeal that cuts across generations, making it fun and playable for kids and adults. Klaus Zoch’s Chicken Cha Cha Cha is one such game that puts adults and kids on a somewhat even playing field and provides a fun gaming experience for all involved.

The components are absolutely stellar. The game comes with 12 thick, octagonal tiles featuring cute pictures of chickens, snails, worms, and other animal mascots. These 12 tiles are placed face down in the middle of the table. Each of these tiles has a matching oval pair, which are shuffled together and placed in a circle around the center tiles to form the track. Last, and this is really what sends the components score over the top, are the 4 wooden chickens with detachable tail feathers. These suckers stand about 3 inches high and make the game stand out in a big way. Kids love them, and even a 35-year old senior like me finds them cute. Each player grabs a chicken and the players place them equidistant on the track. Now, the game can begin.

The idea is to advance your chicken to the next spot on the track by finding its matching tile in the middle amidst the 12 face down tiles. For example, if the next tile in front of my blue chicken is the sandwich with the worm in it, I need to find and reveal that tile in the middle. If I find it, I can try again, and my turn will continue as long as I keep finding the correct tile. If I choose the wrong one, the other players get to see the tile I picked (a valuable clue) and then it’s placed face down again in the middle. It’s a simple memory game.

To win, a player needs to collect all the tail feathers form the other chickens. This is done by jumping over a chicken that blocks your path (sitting behind your opponent’s chicken, the tile his chicken is on is ignored and your target is the tile immediately in front of it). When you jump a chicken in such a manner, your chicken receives all the tail feathers that chicken had in its possession (each chicken has 4 holes on its rump for placing the feathers). Once a chicken has all the game’s tail feathers, the game is over and that chicken’s player wins.

Yes, it’s simple, but fun. The real appeal of the game is that it gives kids a fighting chance against adults. Even better, winning is meaningful, rather than just the arbitrary results of a collection of random dice rolls. No doubt a kid who beats his mom or dad at this game would have a lot to feel proud of. And on top of that, it’s a visual treat, with lots of color and cuteness to add to the enjoyment

Chicken Cha Cha Cha is the rare children’s game that can appeal to both kids and their parents. If my wife and I were ever to have children, this would be one of the games I would use to introduce them to the hobby. It’s far more deserving of a place in a young family’s closet than the umpteenth iteration of Monopoly. If you’re a parent and a gamer, it’s definitely worth purchasing.

Next

Bored with nothing to do, my friend John and I decided to give Nicholas Cage’s new movie, called Next, a shot. Based on a story by Phillip K. Dick and with a slight sci-fi feel to it, I figured it was worth a go on a night without much else to do. Unfortunately, a little bit of precognition on my part would have helped me avoid this mess. What an awful movie!

Cage plays himself, again, though his name in the movie his Cris Johnson (I really, really don’t understand why some people laud Cage as a gifted actor), only this time he has the ability to see up to 2 minutes into the future. The one exception to this rule is that he has some special connection with a woman named Liz (played by Jessica Biel), whose future he can read much further up the time stream. The movie demonstrates this gift by showing Cage’s character avoiding capture at a casino through a series of fortuitous near-misses that he’s able to engineer because he knows just where his pursuers will be.

With that established, the movie devolves into nonsense.

Jullianne Moore plays a gruff FBI agent who is on the hunt for a rogue nuclear device somewhere in the American southwest. After witnessing Johnson’s precognitive abilities in Vegas, she thinks his unique talent can aid her on her mission. Despite protests from her far more sensible superior, she struggles to get Johnson on her team, and eventually succeeds.

Meanwhile, and this makes zero sense to me, the nuke-toting terror group (a motley assortment of European and Russian thugs whose goal and motivations are never, ever explained) also catches wind of Johnson and somehow figures that he’s the one person standing in the way of detonating their nuke. This sets up a chase with Johnson and his new girl Liz on the run from both the feds and the terrorists.

At this point in the movie, I’m failing to understand why the feds think Johnson will be of any help. What? He’ll be able to give them a 2 minute heads up before the nuke goes off? Nor do I understand how the terrorists actually become aware of Johnson’s power and deciding that he’s the one thing standing in their way. Such simple questions plagued me for most of the movie.

Anyway, the terrorists captured Liz as some sort of move against Johnson, though I’m forgetting exactly why. Johnson reluctantly agreed to help the FBI track down the terrorists and the bomb, and then the audience has the rug pulled out from under them with a lame twist.

When the movie finally ended, my friend John loudly rejoiced. We both agreed that had it not been raining quite heavily outside, we would have left the movie early. The only good thing to result from this move is that while scanning over other online reviews of Next I stumbled upon this video clip of Jessica Biel in a bikini in another, obviously far more appealing, movie.

Card Game Review: Beat the Buzzard

Some games take an incredibly simple concept and spin it into a very entertaining game – Alex Randolph’s Beat the Buzzard is one of those games.

The components are simple: five sets of cards numbered 1-15; ten “mouse cards,” numbered 1-10; and five “buzzard cards,” numbered -1 to -5. Each player takes one of the sets, while the buzzard and mouse cards are shuffled together and placed face down in the middle of the table.

Each round, a single card from the center deck is revealed; the cards will range from -5 to 10, which indicate their point value at the end of the game. Then, all the players choose a card from their hand and place it face-down in front of them. Cards are then revealed simultaneously with the following rules in play:

• For point cards with a positive value, the player who played the highest card receives it.
• For point cards with a negative value, the player who played the lowest card receives it.
• If there is ever a tie for the highest or lowest card, then those two cards cancel each other out and the point card goes to the player who played the next highest or lowest card.

This continues until the center deck is exhausted, with the winner being the one with the most points. That’s it.

Yes, it’s incredibly simple, but don’t let that overshadow the potential for fun. With enough players, there is a lot of guessing, second-guessing, and triple-guessing going on. I’ve been in more than one game where the winner of the 10 point card is the person who played the lowest card - all the other players played high and ended up canceling each other out. A big part of the fun is yelling at your friends for having the nerve to play the same card you did. Damn them!

Of course, this game isn’t for everybody. As far as lightweight filler games go, it is way on the ethereal end of the scale (as opposed to a game such as, say, Coloretto, which is light but deep). There’s a bit of psychology involved in terms outguessing your opponents, but beyond that there isn’t a lot of “game” here. If that’s enough to keep you interested – and it is enough for me – than you’ll like this game. But for more hardcore gamers who are looking for a filler game, there might be better choices out there.

Beat the Buzzard is a fun, simple game that works well for a quick diversion when a break is needed. It’s also a good game for non-gamers because of its simple and intuitive rules.

Card Game Review: Einfach Tierisch

Einfach Tierisch is a clever bidding game with a fun theme. The players are all zoo owners competing to add some novel new animals to their collection, such as the Party Lion, the Paper Tiger, the Bookworm, and the Water Bird. One by one, these animals, along with some other goodies (and badies) are auctioned off, with the player with the best collection of animals at the end the winner (though there is a catch; see below).

To start the game, each player (the game supports 3-5 players) receives their own set of resource cards with the following values: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 25. Then, the auction deck is shuffled and placed in the middle of the table. This deck is composed of three types of cards:

• The Animals: As mentioned above, these are the odd animals that are up for auction. Each animal has its own point value, from 1 to 10.
• The Bonuses: There are three x2 cards which, of course, double your point value at the end of the game. And they are cumulative.
• The Negatives: There are also three cards that act as penalty cards: one halves your game end score; one gives you a -5 point penalty; and the last one causes you to lose one creature of your choice.

These 16 cards make up the auction deck, with each reveal of the top-most card beginning a new auction round.

Once the auction deck is set up and resource cards handed out, the game can begin. Simply choose a starting player and flip the top card. If it’s an animal or a bonus card, your regular auction begins. Beginning with the first player, each player can choose any number of cards from their hand to make their bid for that card. Each player must outbid the current high bid or drop out of that bidding round (and getting their bid back in the process). The high bidder takes the card he won and the resource cards used are put out of play.

With the negative cards, it’s sort of a reverse auction. Bidding proceeds as normal until someone elects to take that card into their possession. That person doesn’t lose his or her resource cards, but the other players do. In other words, it’s a bid not to take that card.

The tricky part is managing your resource cards during the bidding. You see, you’re not allowed to replace cards that are part of your bid. For example, if I bid the 4 and the 6 for a total of 10 for the 2 point Water Bird and it comes back to me later with a high bid of 15, I can’t take my 4 back and throw in a 10 for a total of 16; I’m forced to add to my current bid or pass. As you can imagine, this gets more and more difficult as the game progresses as you have fewer and fewer resource cards at your disposal. Reckless bidding is a bad idea in any auction game, but for this game it is especially important to be selective about the cards you throw down.

The game is over immediately when the fourth special light blue card is revealed. The three bonus cards are light blue, as is one of the negative cards (the one that halves your score at end game). This adds an interesting element to the game as the player will never quite be sure when the game will end.

And there’s one more twist. Once the game is over, the players will need the resources to feed their new animals. This means that the player with the fewest resource points left in his hand at the end of the game is automatically eliminated from contention. As if resource management wasn’t tricky enough to begin with, this is one more thing that each player needs to keep in mind.

I enjoy Einfach Tierisch quite a bit, though it doesn’t hit our table nearly as often as I would like. It’s the perfect filler game due to its ease of play and short game length (a long game might take 20 minutes). The cards are good quality with lots of cute artwork and the auction mechanic makes it easy for non-gamers to grasp. And despite the lightness of it all, it requires some tough decisions on the part of the players.

I strongly recommend Einfach Tierisch to any and all gamers who are looking for a good game to add to their collection.

Board Game Review: Ciao Ciao

I’m a big fan of Alex Randolph’s games because of his knack for taking a simple concept and spinning it into a fun game. Take his Ricochet Robots, for example. Here’s a game that involves moving robots around on a map while trying to get one robot from point A to point B. It sounds dry as hell, but it works splendidly as a multi-player experience (in fact, it’s one of only four games that I’ve rated as a 10). Ciao Ciao is another such game with a simple idea that makes for a surprisingly fun game.

The game is simple. The bottom of the box is lined with cardboard showing a host of man-eating plants on the floor of a humid jungle. A small cardboard “bridge” is placed on top of the game box, resting on two sides of the box’s rim. Each player has seven pawns which will try, one at a time, to cross the bridge over the danger below to find sanctuary on the other side. Beyond the bridge is another cardboard tile for placing the pawns should they make the dangerous journey across the bridge. To start the game, each player places on pawn on the starting side of the bridge.

The only other component to the game is a special dice tumbler. It’s a small cardboard tube with a clear plastic cover on one end, with a special d6 sitting inside; it’s designed so that the die roller can roll the die and get a result secretly. The die inside is distinct in that it is labeled 1-4, with two sides with a large X. On a player’s turn he’s to roll the die and look at the result without letting the other players know what he rolled. If the result is 1-4, he simply says the number out loud as shown. But if an X turns up, he needs to bluff by giving his opponents a number from 1-4. Once he gives a number (either truthfully or otherwise), the other players have a chance to challenge his or her statement. If no challenges are made, then the player can move his pawn across the bridge a number of spaces equal to the number he called (and again, the player may have lied). If someone challenges the die roller, then the die result is revealed to all and someone’s pawn will take a dive. If the die roller was telling the truth, then the challenger’s pawn is tossed over dramatically and the die roller can move his piece across the bridge in accordance with the rule above. If the die roller was bluffing, then his pawn is pushed off the bridge and the challenger gets to move his pawn a number of spaces equal to the number called by the die roller. Play proceeds in this manner until one of two ending conditions is accomplished.

The simplest way to win is to be the first player to get three pawns across this bridge, though this condition isn’t reached nearly as often one might think. The challenges come fast and heavy, with pawns constantly taking a dive into the box of death. It just isn’t likely that one player will have the luxury of getting 3 pawns across the bridge without any sort of challenge from his opponents. The other victory condition, should no player get 3 pawns across, is based on the order in which the successful pawns crossed the bridge. The cardboard tile playing home to the pawns that made the crossing is numbered form 1 to 8, with the first pawn across placed on the 1 spot, the second on the 2 spot, and so on. Should no player get 3 pawns across, then the pawns on this tile are scored for points based on the order in which they finished (1 point, 2 points, and so on), meaning that a late finish is worth more points than an early one.

My description probably makes the game seem more complicated than it really is. It actually is quite simple and moves along quickly. Its main asset is the fun that ensues as people make lousy attempts at bluffing while the rest consider the risk of challenging or not. It is, however, nothing more than a roll-a-die-and-bluff-if-you-have-to game, meaning it can be a fun diversion but nowhere near meaty enough to warrant more than the occasional game. It could also serve well as an introduction to gaming for non-gamers due to its simple gameplay and fun theme. Though a special caveat is in order for all the lousy liars out there: you will do very poorly at this game, though with the right mindset that doesn’t necessarily mean you will have a bad time.

Nevertheless, I find Ciao Ciao to be a fun game that deserves an occasional spot on the old game table. It’s light, quick, and fun, which are all good qualities for an occasional filler game.

Board Game Review: Richelieu

I’m a bit more selective about what two-player games I keep around. While I’ll play just about any game with the right group of people, playing a two-player game requires that I like both the person I’m playing with and the game itself. Oftentimes, I’ll buy a two-player game, play it for a bit, then unload it on someone else. Michael Schact’s Richelieu is a two-player game that I decided to keep. It’s a fun one.

The two players are vying for control over 17th century France. The game comes with 48 playing cards, all done with thicker than average card stock, that represent different regions of France. Each card has either one or two shields on it, and some cards with one shield have an icon indicating special influence in the military (sword), church (cross), or politics (tower). Each card also has a large number on it that represents the total number of shields there are for that region.

Players also begin the game with 3 Property Markers. These markers can be placed on the cards on the board to indicate a special entitlement to that tile.

The final game element is a set of 14 round markers that are used to add an element of randomness to the game. These markers show a regional shield, a sword, a cross, or a tower. In addition, two of them are specially marked and can be used to reacquire spent Property Markers.

The 48 cards are placed between the players in four rows of 12, face-up. Then 8 of the 14 round markers are chosen randomly and placed face down on 8 of the cards (the rulebook describes a certain pattern but I won’t go into that).

Once the cards are laid out and the other markers placed and distributed, the game can begin. The players take turns taking cards from the table for scoring at the end of the game, following these rules:

• A player may only take a card or cards from the outside ends of the 4 rows.
• A player may take two cards but they must be of the same color and can contain no more than 2 shields between them.
• If a player takes a tile with a special marker, he receives the marker and saves it for scoring later
• If a player wishes to take a card with his opponent’s Property Marker on it, he can, but he must sacrifice a Property Marker of his own.

Following these rules, the cards are removed from the middle one by one until all are gone and each player has his or her own set to score. Scoring is done as follows:

• For the 9 regions, each player counts the number of shields he or she has for each region. The player who has more shields receives that number of points towards his final score. Remember, the round markers can also count towards the shield total. In case of a tie, no points are scored. And if a player has no shields in a region he is penalized by 5 points.
• The Swords, Crosses, and Towers are scored as well, in a manner similar to the regional scoring as described above.

Once scoring is done, the player with the most points wins.

Richelieu is a tricky game in that it requires the players to keep track of lots of different elements. It’s easy to fall into a trap of fixating on the cards that you need while ignoring the fact that you’re opening up cards for your opponent to draw (which, I think, is the mistake I usually make). A prudent player won’t draw a needed tile if it will allow his opponent to make an even better draw for himself.

Richelieu is a good game for any two gamers, but it also does well as a couple game. Playing against women, I’ve found that I usually lose, offering further proof to my hypothesis that women do better at multi-tasking in games (see Lost Cities for another example).

I recommend Richelieu highly to any gamers looking for a fun, simple, quick two-player game.

Board Game Review: Ra

For one of my most recent reviews, I wrote about what I consider to be the penultimate area-control game: El Grande. This time, I thought I’d write about a different genre of games – auction games – and what I consider to be the best example of that genre. I’m sure I’m not alone in viewing Reiner Knizia’s Ra as the best such example.

Auction games are all about the players bidding some sort of resource to accumulate commodities of value, with some auction games having a stronger, more sensible, theme than others. For example, High Society has players using dollars to bid for high class items to add to their collection. On the other end of the spectrum are games like Ra, where the theme is simply laid on top of a mechanism for accumulating and bidding for tiles or cards with differing values. With Ra, the theme is ancient Egypt, and while it is totally superfluous, the color palette, board, and bits used to reinforce this theme are all done so well that one can overlook the arbitrariness of it all.

To start the game, each player gets a number of Sun tiles that will be used for bidding during the course of the game. These tiles are numbered from 1 to 16, but the 1 tile is placed on the board and is part of the first auction. The number of players dictates who gets what Sun tiles – it is not random. Each player also starts with 10 points.

The game board has a couple of elements. First, there is the Auction track. As tiles are revealed for auction they are placed on this track. Above that, is the Ra track. This track is for the special Ra tiles that pop up from time to time that determine the end of each of the three scoring stages, or Epochs, of the game. The length of the Ra track can change depending on the number of players. The board also contains a quick scoring summary for all the players to look at.

All of the tiles used in the game are placed in a small sack and are drawn randomly. The different tiles, and their scoring values, are:

• Pharoahs: At the end of each Epoch, the player with the most gets 5 points and the player with the least loses 2 points.
• Flood and Nile: Score one point each if the player has a Flood tile; Flood tiles are discarded at the end of each Epoch after scoring.
• Gods: this tile is special as it can be traded for any tile on the auction track at a later point in the game; if it isn’t traded, it is good for 2 points during scoring and then discarded.
• Gold: Worth 3 points during scoring then discarded.
• Civilization: There are 5 different Civilization tiles; if a player has none at the end of the Epoch he loses 5 points. Bonuses are provided for having 3 or more different Civilization tiles. They are discarded after each Epoch.
• Monuments: Monument tiles are unique in that they are not scored until the very end of the game. They provide a bonus for having a greater variety as well as having multiples of the same one.

There are also a number of black-bordered Disaster tiles that cause players to lose tiles. They are:

• Funerals: Causes player to lose two Pharaoh tiles.
• Drought: Causes player to lose two Flood or Nile tiles, and he is obligated to discard Flood tiles first.
• Unrest: Causes player to lose two Civilization tiles.
• Earthquake: Causes player to lose two Monument tiles.

And as mentioned above, there are also Ra tiles that can be drawn as well.

Those are the elements of the game, now on to actually playing the game.

On a player’s turn, he or she has one of the following options. She can:

• Draw a tile from the bag and place it on the game board; if it is a Ra tile, an Auction round begins
• Invoke Ra, which also starts an Auction.
• Trade a previously won God tile for any tile on the Auction track.

The Auctions are the meat of the game and make for some difficult decision making. Starting with the player to the left of the player who either drew the Ra tile or invoked Ra, each player has a chance to bid for all of the tiles on the Auction track. Bids are made with the Sun tiles, and the bidding goes around the table once, with the player who bid the highest Sun tile winning all of the Auction tiles as well as the Sun tile sitting in the middle of the board (which is then placed faced down for use again in the following Epoch). The Sun tile used to win the Auction is then placed face up on the board in the middle and is available as part of the next Auction. One thing to note is that when a player begins an Auction by Invoking Ra, that player is obligated to bid should everyone else pass. In the other case, should all the players pass, the Auction track is left as is and game continues normally. And should a player use up all his Sun tiles in previous Auctions, he can no longer participate in any Auctions until the next Epoch begins.

Each Epoch is over when the Ra track is full. When an Epoch is complete, scoring is done and all tiles that are tossed after each Epoch are removed from the game. All players can then turn their new set of Sun tiles face up and a new Epoch can commence.

Following the third and final Epoch, there is one more special scoring category that is based on the sum of the Sun tiles each player has at game’s end. The player with the highest sum gets a 5 point bump while the person with the lowest suffers a 5 point penalty. After all scoring is done following the last Epoch, the player with the most points is the winner.

It probably goes without saying that success or failure in Ra depends on one’s ability to do well during the Auctions. But the challenge in the game comes from the various factors that must be taken into account when trying to evaluate what’s up for bid. One must consider the value of the tiles up for auction, both for one’s self and for the other players; the options other players have with their own Sun tiles; and the estimated time remaining for each Epoch. If a player shoots his wad early in the Epoch, he misses out on several Auctions the other players have less competition. But if you wait too long, you might find the Epoch end before you can use all of your Sun tiles (in which case, any remaining Sun tiles are saved for the next Epoch). And with the numerous Disaster tiles, the value of each Auction can vary greatly for each player. For example, bidding for a set of tiles with an Earthquake among them is easy to do when one has no Monuments. The challenge, and the fun, in Ra comes from trying to juggle all of these factors in one’s mind when trying to decide how much an Auction is worth.

The one complaint I’ve heard about Ra that I think is valid is that it’s difficult to keep track of tiles won and their worth. This is easily fixed by downloading one of the many players’ mats that are available at the Boardgame Geek. These mats have scoring summaries, important notes, and pictures of all the tiles available so you can easily organize all the tiles you’ve won. I learned to play Ra with these mats and can’t imagine playing without them. I have a set of 5, all laminated and sitting snuggly in my game box.

Ra is just a blast to play and truly is a classic. The gaming community is fortunate that Uberplay picked up the game and re-released it last year, as it was out of print and hard to get a hold of for awhile (I paid inflated prices for a used Dutch version back in 2004). Ra deserves a prominent place in every game collection.

Board Game Review: El Grande

Area-control games make up a well-established genre of board games, and sitting dominantly atop this genre is the venerable El Grande, a game designed by Wolfgang Kramer and Richard Ulrich and first published in 1995. I consider it the best example of such games and the benchmark for judging all others that share its style of play (San Marco, Web of Power, etc.). And according to BoardGameGeek statistics, I’m not alone in my high appraisal of it: El Grande is currently rated the 6th best game in the BGG database. This respect is well deserved, as El Grande is nearly the perfect game, with even the game board and bits praiseworthy.

The theme here is 15th century Spain, with 5 groups vying for control of the country by exerting their influence via their knights in different regions across the country.

The board itself is a lovely map of Spain divided up into 9 regions. I’m never one to lavish too much praise on a game board, but for a game that would still be great if played on a hand-drawn map the gorgeous board is just icing on the cake. Along the edge of the board is a score track for keeping track of the players’ scores. Along the left edge of the board is a handy turn track for keeping a record of game progress. The bottom right of the board has a 10th region (well, more of a pseudo-region, actually, as it doesn’t perform exactly like the other regions) known as the Castillo, which is an easily assembled wooden tower that stands about 5 inches tall and makes for an interesting game prop. Like any area control game, the goal is to score points by controlling the different regions in the game, and each region has its own score marker that indicates the points available for the player with the first, second, and (sometimes) third strongest force in that region. In this game, the forces are the players’ knights, called Caballeros (though they strongly resemble small colored cubes).

Off the board, each player has a pile of Caballeros (in this state, they are known as in “the provinces”); a Secret Disk for secretly choosing a region on the board; a Grande, which is a larger cube that indicates each player’s home region; and 13 Power Cards numbered from 1-13.

The final addition to the board is the 5 stacks of Action Cards that are placed face down along one side of the board. These provide the actions that drive the game along. I’ll talk some more about them later.

With everything set up, the game can begin. First, the King (a large wooden figureine) is randomly placed in one of the regions. This is known as the King’s region and plays an important role during the game, which I’ll talk a bit more about later. Once that is done, each player randomly gets his or her own home region and places their Grande there along with two Caballeros. It’s worth noting that both the King’s region and the various home regions can change during the course of the game. Now, the game can begin.

The top card of each stack of Action Cards is revealed for all to see. These cards determine the available options each player has for that turn. At this point, one of the game’s cleverest mechanics is displayed.

Going around the table, each player plays a Power Card to determine the order in which the Action Cards are picked, with the highest card going first and then following in descending order. Each Power Card has a number of Caballero icons that indicate the number of Caballeros that player can move from the Provinces to his Court (which is indicated by placing his Caballeros on his home region card). It’s a trade off though, as the number of Caballeros one can recruit is in inverse proportion to the ‘speed” of the card. In other words, a 12 or a 13 card will give you first or second choice of an Action Card, but neither allows you to move Caballeros to your Court. On the other hand, a 3 might mean you pick an Action Card last, but it allows you to move 3 Caballeros to your Court.

Regarding the Action Cards, I do want to give you an idea of what they can do, so here are a few detailed examples:

• Intrigue: Move any 3 foreign Caballeros on the board.
• Province: You send 1 Caballero from any region from each player back to the Provinces.
• Special Scoring: You may choose any region to score.
• Royal Advisor: Move the King into a neighboring region.
• The King’s Card: Move the King to any region (this card is unique in that it is the only card in its stack, meaning that it is always available).

For the most part, the Action Cards involve moving pieces around on the board, moving pieces onto or from the board, or triggering some sort of special event, such as a special scoring round.

There is another interesting trade off when choosing an Action Card. As I mentioned above, there are 5 stacks of Action Cards. The defining characteristic of each stack is that each card in that stack allows for a certain number of Caballeros to be moved from your Court to the board (ranging from 1 to 5). And again, this is set up in such a way that the more powerful Action Cards allow fewer Caballeros to be placed while the less powerful ones allow for more.

In other words, if there’s a strong Action Card that you just have to have, then you can play a high Power Card to grab it first, but you’ll be recruiting fewer (if any at all) Caballeros to your Court and you’ll be moving fewer Caballeros from your Court to the board. It’s a nifty two-step process that demands tough decisions at each step.

Once all the Power Cards are played, in descending order each player moves any Caballeros from his Provinces to his Court and then picks an Action Card. He can then move up to 5 Caballeros (again, this depends on the Action Card taken) from his Court to the board and has the option of triggering the card’s special power (which can occur before or after the Caballeros are moved from the Court to the board).

The rules for placing Caballeros on the board are simple: they must be placed in an area adjacent to the King’s region, or in the Castillo. They may not be placed in the King’s region as this area is considered sacrosanct – nothing can move into or out of this area. And any units placed in the Castillo are secret once placed

Once every player has a chance to play the turn is over. Any remaining face-up Action Cards are discarded and the top card of each stack is revealed, giving the players another set of cards to choose from. The used Power Cards from last turn are also discarded. The player who went last in the previous turn leads the new round and can play his Power Card first.

Scoring takes place after every third turn. Scoring is done by counting the number of Caballeros in each region (including the Castillo) for each player, with the first, second, and (sometimes) third place player in each region receiving a number of points as designated on each region. There are also bonuses for having a majority in the King’s region and also in your own home region where your Grande is sitting. There is, however, an important X-factor during the scoring rounds: the Castillo. At the beginning of the scoring round, each player with Caballeros in the Castillo chooses a target destination for the Caballeros there. After this is done, the Castillo is raised to reveal the Caballeros and it is scored just like any region. Then, the Caballeros there are “airdropped” to a region as selected by their owner. This occurs before scoring the rest of the board so the players may be blindsided by an unforeseen influx of Caballeros where they weren’t expected.

And that’s the game! Play three turns, score. Then three more turns, score. Then three more turns and a final round of scoring.

As much as I’d like to include a lengthy strategy guide to this review, I’ve only played El Grande 9 times so I’m hardly a master at it. Off the top of my head, however, a few pointers come to mind:

• Avoid the arms race. I’ve witnessed several cases where two players engage in an arms race in one territory, with each trying to out do the other in hopes of gaining majority control in that region. This is a bad idea because every Caballero you place in that region is one less you can place elsewhere. More often than not, you’re better off sending those Caballeros to other regions for points elsewhere.
• The home region and King’s region bonuses are valuable. Take advantage of them.
• Don’t spread yourself too thin. It’s better to focus on 3 or 4 regions.
• Use the Castillo. Others may differ, but I think dropping Caballeros in the Castillo is a wise investment. On top of the points available there, there is a lot to be said for a secret, last-minute surge into a region where your opponents didn’t expect to see you.

Despite being called a “classic” by many gamers, El Grande does have its detractors. The most common complaint I’ve heard is that there is too much chaos on the board, making long term planning close to impossible. I suppose this is true, though for this gamer it isn’t so much of an issue as more often than not I view chaos in a game as a feature rather than a bug. But for gamers who like to be in control at all times, I can see why they might be turned off. In a 5 player game, for example, with so many Action Cards being played, the board can change drastically from one turn to the next, leaving one’s surefire setup for victory a random mess on the board. But again, I find this element to be part of the challenge of doing well; “The best laid plans of mice and men,” and all that…

But for those who don’t mind a little bit of chaos and uncertainty in their games, I’d call El Grande a flawless game that deserves a spot in every gamer’s collection. It’s the rare gem that deserves to be kept near the game table at all times, rather than buried on the bottom shelf under a dusty stack of Parker Brothers game in the corner of someone’s dimly-lit game closet. It truely is that good of a game.