Robber Knights

Today's game review is for the 2005 release, Robber Knights.  For 2-4 players, it can be played in 45 minutes.

Overview
In Robber Knights, your goal is to gain control over the villages, towns, and castles of the land.  Each player starts with 24 landscape tiles and 30 knight tokens which he or she must use to maximum advantage as turns progress.

Landscape tiles
There are two basic kinds of landscapes:
- Those without buildings: lake, mountains, plain
- Those with buildings: plain, forest
A building can be a village, castle, or town.

Knight tokens
Knight tokens deploy only from castle tiles and sweep across the countryside to stake their claims on the land.  At the end of the game, victory points are granted for each building your knights occupy (1 per castle, 2 per village, 3 per town).  But others can gain control of your spaces if you let them . . . so use your knights wisely!


Simplified Gameplay
Each player has 4 landscape tiles in his or her hand to start (their remaining tiles are shuffled as prescribed in the rules and placed in a pile).  Each player places 2 tiles face down and adjacent to the other players' tiles to form the rectangular starting layout (the other 2 are kept in each player's hand).  All starting tiles are turned face up, the oldest player starts, and the game begins.

On his or her turn, a player:

• adds 1 tile to the layout (adjacent to existing tiles and within certain limits as prescribed in the rules)
• if it is a castle tile, he/she can place up to 5 knights on it and immediately move them (see below for movement rules)
• draws 1 tile from his/her pile

A player may perform the above steps 1-3 times on his or her turn; play then progresses clockwise.

Movement rules
When knights are deployed on a castle tile, they immediately move away from the castle in a straight line in one direction (no diagonals, skipping tiles, or changing direction is permitted).  As they move, a minimum number of knights must be left behind on each tile, according to the type of landscape:

• plain tile: 1 knight
• forest tile: 2 knights
• mountain tile: 3 knights
• lake tile: impassable

Knights can only enter a tile if sufficient knights remain to be left on it (so if you have 1 knight left, you can't enter a forest or mountain).  There can never be more than 4 knights left on any one tile (if moving to a tile would break this rule, the tile cannot be entered).  If you enter a tile which already has knights on it (but less than the total permitted), you can place your own knight(s) on top of the existing ones to gain control of the tile.  Only the topmost knight has control at the end of the game.

a game in progress; image from here

another game; image from here

When all players are out of tiles, each player tallies his/her victory points based on which tiles his/her knights control (see Overview section for point system).  The player with the most points wins!

Review
This game is okay.  I've played it only once, and it has potential, but seems like more of a simple puzzle than a strategic game.  The rules are poorly written, and online support is nonexistent compared to similar games.  There may be better out there.

Rating: B-