presentation

Merlin

Who will succeed King Artus?

King Artus and Merlin are searching for a successor to the throne among the Knights of the Round Table. As one of the Knights of the Round Table, players try to win favor with King Artus and Merlin.

To prepare each of the six rounds, all players roll the three dice of their color and one white Merlin die and place all dice on their board. Then, each player in turn, selects one die at a time and moves Merlin or one of his knights accordingly, on the Action Rondel. The cases on which the movement ends, determine the action of the turn: place henchman in principality - receive influence - receive victory points - take Excalibur or Grail - swap shield, flag or commodities - relocate henchman - swap mission cards - build a manor. If you discard an apple or a flag token, you can change the value of a die; discarding of a Merlin staff token allows you to do one action twice.

Furthermore, you can resolve one mission card per round by meeting its requirement for victory points and discard it. When all dice have been used, the round ends and the next one is prepared. After Rounds Two, Four and Six you score manors you built, traitors you deflected, influence in principalities and henchmen as well as completed mission cards.

Well, the names of Feld and Rieneck mean good games, and Merlin is a good game too, with lots of interaction; but you have to use the many option of the Merlin dies - Merlin moves in any direction - and the more limited options four your knight - he only moves forward - in an optimum way and the element of chance in rolling die and drawing missions must behave itself, because dice modifiers are hard to come by.

Players: 2-4

Age: 14+

Time: 75+

Designer:  Stefan Feld, Michael Rieneck

Artist: Dennis Lohausen

Price: ca. 40 Euro

Publisher: Queen Games 2017

Web: www.queen-games.com

Genre: Worker placement

Users: For experts

Version: multi

Rules: de en fr

In-game text: no

Comments:

Good basic mechanisms

High element of chance

Dice modifiers are hard to acquire

Efficient use of Merlin is essential

Compares to:

Worker placement using dice

Other editions:

Currently none

Chance (pink): 2

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 1

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0