Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
After the death of King Thorne, chaos spread as the lords of the realm battled each other for the supremacy over the land. Warring Kingdom is an ancient themed card game in which players seek to amass a formidable army and crash his peers.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Read the full game description
After the death of King Thorne, chaos spread as the lords of the realm battled each other for the supremacy over the land. Warring Kingdom is an ancient themed card game in which players seek to amass a formidable army and crash his peers. The players must visit the slave traders and traveling merchants to create his own city, while plotting to overrun his neighbor's. There are four merchants to choose from, each one with diverse goods of his specialty: 1) Civilians 2) Soldiers 3) Weapons 4) Items Each player has a playing area of 2 rows of 5 cards. The castle is located behind the last row, in the center. Players can deploy up to 10 units into these spaces. Each turn, a player goes through the following phases: 1. Act 2. Deploy 3. Attack 4. Pay 5. Buy 6. Discard and Draw In these phases, a player 1) can choose one action allowance and can execute any one card with an action on it, 2) can choose to deploy a unit onto his board to improve defense and/or economy, 3) can choose to attack another player to cripple their board or even to win the game by destroying their castle, 4) must pay the upkeep cost of all cards currently on his board, 5) can use the remaining income for the turn to visit a traveling merchant and buy more advanced units, items or weapons, and finally 6) must discard his entire hand and draw a new one. The combat stage of the game occurs when a player attacks, and the two players at war will have 5 fronts lined up, with a dice driven mechanic to determine which units will attack. While wars are often unpredictable, a poorly equipped militia would never stand up to an elite force! The constant threat of attack means every player must balance their military needs with their economic ones, fielding an army that's large enough to fend off attackers, yet small enough to avoid draining the economy.