Blood Royale, you louts!

I know more than one F:ATtie has this on their shelf...so why have we yet to read an after action report?!

If I can't play it at least let me live vicariously or what's the point of this here internet? Enough about here today, gone tomorrow KS games, let's get this on the table and played!

Sold my copy a couple of months ago after it not getting played for over a decade. Played another guys copy about a dozen years ago and it was a fun day, day being the operative word as i think it went on for 6-8 hours (with breaks) due to all the character production, negotiations and witten agreements (and other stuff I can't remember). It is an interesting game as, from memory, you need to trade resources with other players to be able to win and to trade you have to enter into marriages with agreements but then you can't attack taht player until the alliance (marriage) is over - this saw strange sights of players trying to get Queens to have as many children as possible so tehy had a greater chance of dying in childberth.
The guy who owned it was going to try and make a mod where we had pre-rolled characters to use but his gaming addiction (play more games) has stopped him dead.
So long ago can't say too much more, pretty sure I enjoyed it and nothing really turned me off in it.

I'm finally getting a game of this with a full player count of friends lined up in the next month or two. Just nailing down the date!

Planning to play to 1000 gold or cap the game at set time, whichever comes first. Going to be an all-day Saturday affair.

Mr. White wrote: I know more than one F:ATtie has this on their shelf...so why have we yet to read an after action report?!

If I can't play it at least let me live vicariously or what's the point of this here internet? Enough about here today, gone tomorrow KS games, let's get this on the table and played!

I have it, I live here, why cannot we make this happen?

At the local gaming con late November, as a friend walked by to check on our game of GoT, I casually asked him (can't really say why I thought of that at that specific moment) if he'd ever played Blood Royale and he replied that he'd just played it for the first time in the other room! Weird Twilight Zone moment for sure.

Talking about AH Dune as the last Grail Game made me think of this gem again.

So....who's played since the call out last year?

Not only I never played, I never heard of it until this thread. It sounds really interesting and my kind of game.
Can anyone compare it to Fief? I tried bringing that one to the table as a distraction from Dune/Rex, but it was discarded because too much randomness.

I haven't played Blood Royale, but am a big fan of the GW edition of Warrior Knights also by Derek Carver.

Warrior Knights also has its share of randomness, but is far superior to Fief because it's the wacky, gonzo randomness of 80s GW.

Here's my thread on this amazing game: fortressat.com/forum/10-ameritrash/16682...talk-warrior-knights

and a follow-up review by Wade: fortressat.com/articles-analysis/5340-wa...-with-the-same-title

If I were to only have one _board_ game in my collection, it would probably be Warrior Knights.

I wish there was a Vassal module for Blood Royale. I could see doing a PBeM thing. It would take forever, but could be fun.

Thanks for reminding about this thread and the review, Mr. White. I read them a while ago, really enjoyed it and forgot about it.
Now I am thinking maybe I should acquire Warrior Knights, because my recent fall-in with GW and the theme makes it look very attractive.
I think you're dead right on Fief, too. It has not good randomness, because its randomness is not easy to interpret, and requires a lot of rules consultation.

On the other hand, my group is so used to the virtually un-random Rex that it is really hard introducing new games to them. The first thing they ask for in a game is a battle wheel, followed by when they can form alliances, and what special powers do those confer.

Played Blood Royale a while back. Love it. Thought I did a write-up but I'm not finding it?

We had 5 players, all new to the game. We set the end game for 8 hours (with breaks) or 1000 gold. We went the full 8 hours and two players at the time were just shy of the 1000 gold needed to win, and it was a really close victory for one player having just a little more gold than the other player. I finished in 4th, but really not far behind the winner. We had hidden money and I was surprised at how close we all were at the end.

Table space is an issue. I had well over 20 little character sheets to manage and so did each other player. I need to print more sheets before we play again because we went through the included pads quickly. Everyone was rolling for children and pushing their luck for more children every round. Nobles and children were dying left and right on their survival roll but there were always a ton of characters in play due to everyone's desire to have marriageable offspring.

Unfortunately just about my entire family line was ugly as pacman frogs, so I had a hard time arranging fruitful marriage agreements. There wasn't a lot of military action until late in the game because everyone was acquiring what they needed through marriage contracts. Except me and my house of hideous. I ended up with one really "good" family branch but the noble son at the head of the branch was something like 5th in line for the throne. So I marched his predecessors off into losing battles to be captured or otherwise so that I could pass over their claims without penalty. I also stopped making birth rolls for the uglyblood lines of succession and started marrying the surviving uglies off with dowries and whatever else it took; women for cheap and men matrilinearly so they had no claims. Through all that I managed to divest myself of the deplorables in my family tree and ensure the crown would pass onto my favored heir.

Meanwhile another player started getting really unlucky with survival rolls and ended up with a boy king and a withering family line. He would have been better off but he had made some risky marriages and left himself in a precarious position. I got one of my attractive girls betrothed to his boy king in a marriage contract that I really needed to get trade goods to bring in some much-needed gold. Then the little snotheaded boy king died on the same turn the marriage would have become official and his crown passed off to his baby sister leaving me in a real tough spot.

We were France and Spain and nobody felt sorry for us.

Also meanwhile Germany and Italy had been cooperating heavily and making a ton of coin while establishing decent military borders on the edges of their kingdoms. Many an ugly heir of mine stupidly marched into battle on their borders to diminish their forces, but it wasn't enough to stop Germany from winning.

We played some of the more finicky rules like moving trade goods a little bit loose and the game was better for it, especially in a learning game as this very much was. Three of the five of us had a blast and while the other two had fun they weren't as enamored with the game as us three. I'm really looking forward to playing again.

Some general thoughts on game balance and strategy:
* Profitable marriage contracts are critical, but even not-so-great contracts are better than having a bunch of unmarriageable middle-aged uglies. Unless doing so really sacrifices too much to the other players. It's a real negotiating balancing act. Having a super-profitable marriage contract isn't as great as it sounds, because they're mostly public and having such a contract can cause other players to not want to give you any edges in further contracts.
* There are ways to pass over unsuitable heirs without much or sometimes any significant penalty. I figured out too late how to exploit these ways. Don't be like me when you've got a house full of uglies and cowards.
* Too many heirs can be a problem also. There's a finite number of marriage contracts a sane person will decide to balance at once, and the extra unmarrieds are really just extra paperwork.
* Military is not a winning path. You can't actually fund a large enough army (component limit and too expensive) to conquer Europe. Figure out when to threaten and sometimes push with armies, but don't try to throw your weight around or you risk losing out on more profitable marriages because of your aggression.
* Use the optional rules. We used most of them. Especially governing princes (or something like that). They make the game far more dynamic and interesting.

Damn...thanks, Wade, fantastic report!!

Have any memebers of this group also played GWs Warrior Knights?

Can BR and WK be compared?

That sounds like an awesome experience. If only somehow the game could be distilled down into 4 hours.

You could play the game with a 4-hour time limit, but it would only pay off if you had players who have the game rules/system down pat. A lot of time was spent explaining things in the early turns. It isn't a particularly complex game; it's just different enough that things need to be explained well.

I don't think it's very comparable to WK. They're similar on the surface but Blood Royale is really about negotiating and wealth via your family tree. It seems like the board and trade goods and things are really there to reinforce the bloodline and marriage aspects of Blood Royale. Blood Royale would really be the most rewarding as a campaign game. Something like "greatest wealth after 4 sessions wins" or something. The long game in Blood Royale really pays off.