Barony

Today's review is of the 2015 release, Barony.  For 2-4 players, it takes 45 minutes.

Overview
Your goal is to dominate the land and be crowned king.  You'll start by placing 3 cities and 3 knights on the board (a modular hex grid of varying terrain).

One game at start; image from here

On your turn, you'll take only one of the following six actions (simplified for brevity):
- move 2 knights; if you end up dominating an opponent, you could destroy their knight or village (and may be able to take a terrain tile).  Movement can be restricted based on terrain and opponent presence.
- place 2 knights from your reserve in one of your cities (3 if the city borders a lake)
- place 1 knight from your reserve on a border hex and permanently discard another knight from your reserve (so it can't be used the rest of the game
- turn any eligible knights into villages or strongholds, obtaining one terrain tile for each
- turn an eligible village into a city (and gain 10 points on the victory board)
- cash in 15 points of terrain tiles to advance to the next level on the victory board

game in progress; image from here

Once a player has advanced to the last rank on the victory board, the game ends once all have played an equal number of turns.

Review
I like this game.  It's simple to learn, but has depth.  The modular board creates high replayability, and the choice of actions provides meaningful decisions each turn.  You're limited in quantity of cities and strongholds (and knights), so they must be played carefully.  There's no luck, which some will enjoy.  The only ding (and reviewer Tom Vasel nailed this) is the combat system.  If you move two knights into an opponent's space,where they have only one village or knight, that unit is defeated and removed.  Since knights can't move more than one hex per turn, that means an opponent can get the jump on you without any way of reacting (if you're far from your knights, or a city where you could place knights).  You can see it coming but be powerless.  That's a minor annoyance, but good planning minimizes that risk.  Overall, I recommend this one.

Rating: A-