Die Abenteuer des Robin Hood
At the end of the 12th century, in the county of Nottingham in England the events told in the saga of Robin Hood happened. The King of Thieves with his compassionate heart and his companions Little John, Maid Marian and Will Scarlet put themselves up against injustice and reveal dark secret. We players take up all those roles to put an end to the machinations of our opponents, lead by Prince John - who raises a claim to the throne of Richard The Lionheart - and including Sir Guy of Gisbourne and the Sheriff of Nottingham with his gang of men and to restore piece and prosperity in the realm.
In addition to the introductory game, in which each round is explained in great detail, which is absolutely necessary, we are facing eight varied, connected-by-story-line games, in which it is absolutely necessary to adhere to the order of the games - we do not want to meet Richard The Lionheart already at the start of the game. We are tasked with recreating the well-known story of Robin Hood, or to be more exact, try to do so, because failure has not been mentioned in the history books. The consequence? Try again with slightly changed starting conditions as stated in the book and do better in this second try, or wield a luckier hand when drawing cubes from the bag.
The story itself is developing successively with each game and is also growing in game play intensity, adds rules, adapts the board, and thus offers new options like a forest camp or tree bridges in the forest which on the one hand provide safety and on the other hand allow for quicker crossing of the forest. A big positive factor as regards to the time element, which is a deciding component of the game, hugely influenced by the action and movement range. When the sand timer tokens are used up, the undertaking has failed!
Apropos movement: Movement per se is unrestricted - a special feature of this game - as there are no slots or other markings. Restrictions do exist, for instance to cross the castle wall, and there is of course a range limit. In your turn, you place special additional pieces which work as distance-meters, next to your pawn and then place the second character pawn at the and of the row of distance pieces. If. In this way, you reach an action spot or get within shooting range, you can act accordingly. An action spot demands consulting the story book where we learn what the spot has to offer. Those spots are, similar to an advent calendar, integrated into the board; they can be opened, removen and replaced with their reverse side showing. Unfortunately, the handling of those spots is difficult and easily results in damage to the cardboard, which does not damage the game, but doesn’t look nice and leaves a bad feeling.
In those spots you can meet a friendly maid, a traveling trader, or a village resident - blacksmith, priest or boat men - but also a few mushrooms, unusual parts of the forest or even the Guardian of the Forest whose function is a bit of soothsaying, story telling and task posing. All this, however, does not only details of the story, no we promote the story ourselves and usually must decide on one of several options. Whether we ask for support, are enabled to buy or trade commodities or receive information is determined by the varying texts in each chapter. Sometimes we even indulge in robbery and have a penchant to hold up noblemen or to overbear gueards. But it is not as easy as that sounds, at the start of the game the chances to be successful in such are venture are really very low. Why? Because a confrontation is resolved with a clever mechanism in which cubes of different colors are drawn from a bag. One white one should be included, but usually they are purple ones. The ratio changes regularly, because when it is Sir Guy of Gisbourne’s turn, three additional purple cubes are added to the bag; a white one goes into it if you forfeit the use of the longest distance piece in your turn. Drawn cubes are not put back and we begin, depending on scenario and number of players, with a ratio of about 3 white : 18 purple, not very promising, but absolutely concordant to the story. Anyhow, you can draw up to three times, and even up to five or six times with more weapons, better equipment, or character traits; you will realize quickly that rushing along is not advisable and some thinking is necessary. A dilemma, as this makes the time go faster, as it advances when you draw red from the disc bag, which triggers the “dark events”. In addition to spending time, you turn over the tiles on the board which can lead to bad surprises in the guise of guards and their immediate attacks. This result to being taken prisoner and one has to free oneself which again takes time. No wonder, that the hope marker on the hope track also retreats by one - and if we run out of hope, things do not look good for us.
So, better to draw discs of other color from the bag, because they usually determine the active player. IN addition to player colors and red there is also purple - Gisbourne, who wants to get at us and chases the character nearest to him across the landscape - as well as white and grey; those colors allow all or only one player an additional turn. When all discs have been drawn they are put back in the back and drawing is continued - thus you cannot avoid the “dark” events. If we are unlucky and Guy is drawn twice or - across rounds - even three or four times, even the per se slow Gisbourne can attack. The consequences are not told here, as are many other details - we do not want to provide spoilers - but some chapter titles and intros to wet your appetite can be mentioned:
The Escape (Introductory scenario)
Robin returns from the crusades and meets Will Scarlet. Little John has been taken prisoner. Prince John arrives. Little John must bee freed.
A secure hideout
The white and purple disc come into play. Robins home has burned down. Aim: The outlaws surch for a secure hideout.
Gold for King Richard / A Difficult Decision / The Big Tournament ... The Oath of the 13 / The Darkest Hour
The cooperative adventure game with tactical and strategic elements comes with some innovative features which are fun to play and in general work very well. The components are visually pleasing and no obstruction the game, if you disregard the difficulties in taking out the cardboard tiles from the board. The not really simple set-up, the sometimes appearing lengths in the game and the danger of forgetting something or doing something wrong in the handling do deduct a bit from the pleasure. Story aficionados might be a bit irritated sometimes and miss Brother Tuck, but appreciate that - due to the many chance elements - the chapters can be experienced variedly. Therefore, repeated play is possible despite the reduced allure due to the then lacking surprises from the story - but players who love to optimize turns will enjoy a better estimable field.
Moderate for planners and experts as regards to level of difficulty, difficult to class for “let’s bash them” players which can lead to discussions in the group, not withstanding possible dominance by one player. A tip: If you want new stories, you will find them on the homepage of the publisher - at the time of this review there were already two available, the tendency should be for more, and the publishing of expansions seems very probable.
Thomas Bareder
Players: 2-4
Age: 10+
Time: 60+
Designer: Michael Menzel
Artist: Michael Menzel, Fiore GmbH
Publisher: Kosmos 2021
Web: www.kosmos.de
Genre: Cooperative, adventure, history
Users: With friends
Version: de
Rules: de en nl pl
In-game text:
My rating: 6/5*
*when all chapters are played
Chance (pink): 2
Tactic (turquoise): 2
Strategy (blue): 3
Creativity (dark blue): 0
Knowledge (yellow): 0
Memory (orange): 1
Communication (red): 1
Interaction (brown): 0
Dexterity (green): 0
Action (dark green): 0