PLAYED FOR YOU

Lyssan

Triumph or ShaMe?

The realm of Lyssan needs to be reunited and you can do that by acquiring the most triumphs. You begin with four influence cards, place two castles, two knights, two nobles, one priest and one spy on the board and can then play as many influence cards as you want, paying for them other influence cards; then you determine the first order of play in ascending order of amount of influence.

Then you play rounds of four seasons: In spring revealed triumphs are awarded for majorities, provided there is a revealed triumph in sequence next to it. In case of a tie the lower number of debts is the tie-breaker. In summer you gather taxes, command your armies, engage in intrigues, hire new agents and cope with shame from prior turns. You get rid of shame by discarding influence or by drawing a card from the debt deck; shame is acquired by agents that are killed in the field or from denunciations made by the clergy. In autumn you can again gather tax or acquire influence. In winter the order of play is adapted. You are ousted from the game if you lose your last castle or cannot get rid of all shame in autumn and summer. Triumphs of an ousted player are distributed to the other players in clockwise directions. You win instantly with the demanded number of triumph in relation to number of players, or if you are the last ne in play or with most triumphs when all have been revealed.

Based on standard topic and mechanisms, Lyssan provides some clever, fresh and unusual mechanism details and also plays a lot faster than the "big" related games like Runewars; the possibility to negotiate adds another layer of possibilities and also some flair.

Players: 2-4

Age: 12+

Time: 180+

Designer: Sam Brown

Artist: Allan Amato, Tomasz Jedruszek, Marek Madej

Price: ca. 50 Euro

Publisher: Thornhenge 2012

Web: www.lyssan.com

Genre: Conflict, resources

Users: For experts

Version: en

Rules: en

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Very attractive design

Standard mechanisms and topic, but clever and interesting mechanism details like getting rid of shame to stay in the play

Compares to:

All games on succession to thrones featuring conflicts and resources management

Other editions:

Currently none

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 3

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0