| Game Name: | Sheriff of Nottingham | Published Year: | 2014 |
| Game Publisher: | Arcane Wonders | Player Scale: | 3 - 5 |
| Game Designer: | Sérgio Halaban & André Zatz | Run Time: | 60 mins |
This is a game of cunning, of trickery, and mainly; of deceit, all dressed up in a wonderfully cartoony Robin Hood pastiche. Players will take on the role of a merchant from the middle ages in the grand city of Nottingham. In a bid to make a profit; players will attempt to smuggle illegal, contraband goods (like crossbows and mead) into the city along with their apples and bread. Each turn, one player will assume the mantle of the Sheriff of Nottingham, and for that turn, they will police the other players, either trusting them at their word, inspecting their goods, or taking a bribe. The player who has amassed the greatest supply of gold and goods is deemed the winner.
Sheriff of Nottingham is, at its core a very simple game; it is set collection through and through. Each card within a set earns you gold, the more of each set you have, the more you will score at the end of the game. Apples, Cheese, Bread and Chicken are all common place “legal” goods, and you will score for these cards, but what you really want is a secret stash of Pepper, Mead, Silk or even a very rare Crossbow or two. That is where the real money is made.
Each turn, one player is the Sheriff of Nottingham, and takes the Sheriff avatar – which could be switched out for a faux-fur cloak, silly hat or whatever you like if you really want to play
around – all the other players select the card from their hand and place the goods they wish to take to market in their little-felt envelope. Handing the envelope to the Sheriff player, they then declare “exactly” what it contains. The rules for your declaration are very simple:- The goods must be legal
- They must all be the same kind of goods.
- Must declare the correct number of goods.
And, you will break rules 1 and 2 over and over again (rule 3 is the only mechanical rule, and breaking this is literal cheating). If you slip passed the Sheriff’s beady little eyes undetected you’ll add whatever was in your envelope to your market stall, but, if the Sheriff wants to inspect your goods, you have but one chance to grease their palm and bribe them otherwise, all you undeclared and illegal good will be confiscated, and you’ll have to cough up the penalty for them too.
This game relies heavily on the player interaction around the table, and with the right crowd (and maybe even the companion sound effect app) you can have a lot of fun. A lot of fun. However, get the crowd or the mood wrong and this game will fall very flat, especially if you suffer a very early, very heavy cash loss (like me; every time I play), you can really struggle to make the difference back up again. For some, this can be a really interesting challenge, and one that is both socially and strategically based, for others this can be a crippling blow that causes them to withdraw from the game.
This social aspect is also important to get this game to reappear at the gaming table, as the large deck of cards is so big and balanced, there will be little game-to-game differences provided by the game itself. What it creates is an experience, much in the same way that a game of poker does with only 52 cards this does so with more character and more flavour than hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades.
I love the art in this game, it captures the theme and feel of the game brilliantly. I would love to
see plastic coins to go along with the felt bags – which give a very satisfying and definitive snap upon opening and closing, and the Sheriff standee would have looked brilliant as a plastic statuette – but these advancements would have pushed the cost of the game up beyond what most would be happy to pay for it.Being a British market stall merchant, during the middle ages has rarely been considered a fun occupation, but with simple rules and mechanics, brilliant cartoon artwork, and high player versus player gameplay this is a very fun game if you have the right number of the right players. If you enjoy thinking, strategy games this isn’t for you, but this little box will provide a very good laugh if you allow it too, and with a run time of less than an hour it is great warm–up or break game in an otherwise serious game night.
Fancy a game? You can pick Sheriff of Nottingham up here
those cards to build your steampunk engine or discard them for power represented by the one-hundred-and-eight-dice in blue (Steam), red (Fire) or yellow (Electricity). Alternatively, you can discard your cards for Cogs, which allow you to change the pips on a die, and give you the all-important re-rolls. After Venting the previously built up pressure in your machine (lowering and hopefully removing engaged dice) by discarding Cogs, you race; which is where you’ll roll all of those dice you’ve just collected.
Do not be fooled by this game’s cartoony exterior, this is not the light race game that it looks like, far from it in fact. Although each of the mechanics, as a standalone tool are straight forward enough, the combination of them in the context of the race is not only a hot molten mess of mechanics, it's counter-intuitive. There is a faux-strategy to this game, it makes you think you are making worthwhile decisions; that you are presented with choices that need to be weighed, measured and carefully considered – which incidentally is what I think a game should do. But you are not doing that at all, you pick the best of the hand you are given – and at the beginning that is only four cards, and not only are your choices limited, so too are the outcomes; power, cogs or parts.
are doing those things you’re not really moving very far, or very fast; which, for a race game is, well…counter-intuitive. On the other hand, if you build a super lean, economic machine built for movement, you then face the trouble of building up your defence to overcome the terrain, so you stop moving; which, for a racing game is, well…counter-intuitive. And then when you finally get to the finish line, when you have reached the end of the game, beaten off your opponents to cross the finish line first…everyone gets another go, and the actual winner is the person furthest past the finish line – literal moving goal-posts – which, for a racing game is, well…counter-intuitive.
player interaction in this game, you will pass cards to one player, and another will pass you their cards to you. That’s it. You’ll roll your dice, they will roll theirs. They move their standee and you’ll move yours. Out of politeness, you may well declare what you are doing, but it won’t really affect them in any way at all really. There are of course some weapons in the Boost deck, but they are few, far between, very limited and, basically you need dice and cogs more than you need a weapon that doesn’t do much.
Brick, and Wheat. To build one of the three structures: Roads, Settlements, or Cities, you need a varying collection of resources. In turn, each player will roll the dice, and whichever resource tiles share the number rolled will generate that resource for any player that has a building on one of its corners. This means that some resources will be common in one game, and rare in another, all depending on which numbered tile is placed upon the resource. An essential aspect of this game is trading, in most games, no player will (start) will easy access to all the resources, so player interaction in the shape of trade and negotiation is abundant in this game.
This can, in turn, lead to some frustration, games can be won by both wide and narrow margins even by experienced players when the dice and cards just do not work in your favour. Equally though, as the board is very easy to read and to ascertain which player is in the lead, it does then become possible to block and hamper them by road building, making use of the robber and most simply refusing trading opportunities.
The artwork (by Rocio Ogñenovich) and mutant theme work really well together making for a fun varnish on this otherwise well-tested farmer troupe. Important to note that this is a tried and tested game, and is, in fact, the English version of the game produced, by OK Editions, an independent game and art design couple producing comics and tabletop games in Argentina. As with many worker placement, resource management games the player versus player interaction is on the lighter side. In Mutant Crops, the ability block and horde particular actions/resources is a really nice flourish which can cause a satisfying amount frustration for your opponents when you pull it off well.
two-hundred-and-eighty possible combos. This is where this game really shines, the variety and differences between the Races alone is great; Humans get extra Victory Coins for every Farmland Territory they occupy, Orcs get extra Coins the more fighting they do (obviously), Halflings have impenetrable burrows or “Halfling Holes” (they also don’t have to start at the board edge either- which is very handy for surprise attacks). The Power Badges then add an extra boost, for example Dragon – you have a pet dragon to help you conquer new Regions, or Fortresses, which allows you to build (guess what) fortresses to increase your defensive value and so on. How these Powers and Races interact drastically change the flow of the game and will appeal to players of different gaming styles.
Because of all the different play styles potentially available, the beautiful cartoon artwork (from Miguel Coimbra), the light-hearted nature and the very simple rules this is a very easy game to pick-up-and-play. As with many area control, fighting games there is plenty of strategy and tactics in here, but it is light enough to be understandable and engaging to younger or less experienced players. The box also boast two dual-sided boards, one for two or three play games and the other for four and five player games – so this game scales great between two and five players seamlessly, of course, there is nothing stopping two or three players duking it out on a larger board, you have the choice. Regardless of how many players there are though, this is a quick game. Turns can be taken in mere seconds when you’re reaching the end of your Race’s time, so your phone should probably stay away from the table less you miss something crucial.
components are all very high quality, with, as mentioned, great artwork. Even the inlay for the box has been well thought out and there is a dedicated space for everything. The Token tray is a particularly great organisational tool (and in the later expansions you’ll get an extended version to store all the additional Races) which also make the game very quick and easy to get it to the table.
simultaneously attempting to research a cure for all four of the diseases, plus what other mission objectives there maybe.
There is also an array of small numbered black “strongboxes” which will add…stuff…to your games when you open them. And in the words of Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.”
resource management and area control at its finest. Elements of chance are marginalised and only appear at the game set up, which; with the diverse and carefully balanced asymmetric roles, this game is compelling, complex and worthy of returning to your gaming table over-and-over again
There is a lot to take in when you read the rulebook, and yes it is a little confusing at times, but it has plenty of diagrams and examples to help guide you through it – scattered throughout are wonderful little character flourishes about the races you’ll be playing in the game too. Also, when you lay this out for the first time (which is a little time consuming) you’ll realise that you’ve got a big game and a lot of bang-for-your-buck. The player boards are brilliantly designed, and once you understand the user interface and the iconography you’ll be flying through it, and truth be told it is actually pretty simple, but this is a case of seeing the wood for the trees.
dominant strategy in this game, no obvious route to starting and winning the game. A lot of the strategy feels like it happens above the board, by you the player, much like in chess; you’ll be out-thinking and out manoeuvring your opponents. Winning not only feels great, but it feels hard-won and earned, but losing doesn’t have that bitter twang of defeat, instead, you’ll look back at the board and see with the glorious power of hindsight what you could have/should done differently. Whatever the outcome, with the end of every game you’ll find yourself staring at the board wondering how you could have done better, or just how close the victory was.
You’ll notice as soon as you pick this box up that you are going to get a lot inside, it is full of brightly coloured wooden pieces, and thick durable card for play boards and tokens. The artwork (from Dennis Lohausen) and graphic design are great too, with a very classic fantasy rendering the game looks and feels very much of its genre. The icons are, once you know what they all mean, are very intuitive, simple and don’t break the feel of the game either. You may also appreciate that there is no plastic of card inlay for this box, it is full of baggies and components…and that’s it! Once you have everything sorted and organised there is little to no room for anything else in the box – which as someone who has an ever growing collection of games this is a big, but subtle tick in the “Well Thought-out Design” column.
General Tiles – now this came about because of my love for Tera Mystica, and if you’re familiar with the turn scoring in that game you may notice some similarities. If you’re not then it works that 5 random tiles are drawn and laid on the board to indicate how that turn will score. Bad Pets will just use 2 (although one of these is actually a turn reduction to create a faster-paced game).
There really is no down-side to the pets, unless they don’t work well, which at the moment they don’t.