Who Will Take the Throne for Good?

Are you fit to take the throne and rule the kingdom? Well, the rival houses seem to think so too, so you’ll have to prove your worth if you want to hold the throne. Launch powerful attacks, and cunning schemes in order to assert your house’s dominance and attain victory!

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What Is It?

✨Theme – Royalty
🎯The Goal of the game is to be the 1st player to have both 8 points and the Monarch token
⚙️Simultaneous Action Selection/Hand Management – Each round everyone plays a card face down and will reveal one at a time in turn order, with any lightning bolt effects taking place when revealed. The hoursglass effects take place at the end of the round. If the crown is taken, the new monarch takes the monarch token and 2 points, and all plays pick up all used cards. If the current monarch retains the throne, they get 1 point and players discard the cards they played and will not get them back right away
⚙️Take That – Some actions allow players to force others to discard their card, or play a different one, steal coins, and more

Who Is It For?

👥2 to 4 Players – The 2 player game has a slight variant and no one uses the crown deck. I think the game works better at 3-4, best at 4
👥Ages 10 & Up – Not super complex, but a bit of strategy in the card play
👥Fans of hand management, hedging their bets on what others will do since they need to select actions at the same time, and a sort of “hot potato” type of way to score points

PROS

🟢Rounds are snappy
🟢Art is nice
🟢Rules are well written
🟢I liked that you picked up cards every time monarch switched and not just once you played them all
🟢I like that the crown player had a different set of cards, I thought that kept things interesting

CONS

🔴I felt like the game didn’t work at 2, it’s just much more interesting with more
🔴It got a little repetitive after a while, and could sometimes feel a little too long for what you were doing

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Final Thoughts

Overall, I think it’s a fine game. The monarch token/deck will usually move around quite a bit, which keeps things interesting. And even in rounds where it doesn’t move, it gives the house players more discussion potential to try and take work together just a little bit (though you may also have to lie to get ahead sometimes!) Since you can steal and spend points, I thought maybe a few less points needed to win might have been better, but overall, it works pretty well!

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Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6/10

Designer – Jon Lannon
Publisher – Deathtrap Games (II)
MSRP – £18 – £39 (depending on version)
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