El Grande

Complexity Medium Cost £30 Duration Medium Players 2-5 Producer Rio Grande Games (Hans Im Glück) Size Medium

Premise

Vie for control of Spain in the late middle ages

Review

This is one of my favourite games, and arguably better even than Settlers.

The aim of the game is to generate points by controlling regions of Spain. You accomplish this with your minions that you place in each province. At scoring times, the person with the majority gets a certain number of points, second a lesser etc. Bonuses are given if you have your Grandee in that province or the King. What makes this game so good is the randomness of play and the multitude of Machiavellian ways players can take advantage of it.

Each round starts by the players bidding to go first (or last); the catch is that you get less minions from your provinces if you play high numbered cards. Once play order is determined, each player in turn plays one of the 5 action cards, and places minions on the map as determined by that action card. Minions can only be placed next to the King's province (and he can be moved around by the players).

Every three rounds, there is a scoring round, and the castillo is emptied and its minions parachuted into a secretly selected province using the "secret squirrel" discs.

The gameplay defies analysis - you need to be strategic and tactical simultaneously. Almost any decision you make, even as a weak player can radically alter the outcome of a round which is great. It's a wonderful game to play by intuition.

This description barely does justice to the game. The game components are arguably the best of any game; all the pieces are wooden; the king is a 4 inch pawn and the castillo is built out of 6mm MDF! The board itself is beautifully illustrated, and the cards are all nicely done. Only the rulebook is weak - some of the card rule descriptions are open to a little interpretation - a weak translation no doubt (I searched for ages for the round marker - it's a cube of course :). On the plus side, there is a nice colour sample game on a separate doublesided sheet for beginners.

If you only buy one German derived game - this is definitely the one to go for.

Expansions

El Grande Expansions

The two German expansions: Intrigue and the King and Grand Inquisitor and the Colonies are available in a single English edition; if you hurry a freebie promotional expansion - Grandissimo, is also included. I haven't played these fully yet, but they are built to the same quality as the main game. There are plenty of components in the expansion set, and should add spice to any tired game.

The thing to be careful of however is that the two expansions are very different in nature. The former looks like it substantially changes the nature of the game, but the latter is more of a tradditional expansion adding new regions to influence: Africa, France and America. If you want Portugal, you'll need the freebie.

The rules leave something to be desired, and there are considerable holes in the expansion rules. For example, the rules for the new regions do not fully describe the operation of the Ship's Captain or America's Viceroy. If you play this expansion you are going to need some house rules to avoid arguments over the correct course of action.

Rating

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