Dueling Nobles is a clever addition to the two-player game genre. While not very heavy, the game does offer some tough decisions for using resources and picking opportunities to challenge your opponent. As a bonus, Dueling Nobles is playable with readily available game components, so the cost is simply the time and effort to pull out a deck of cards and a few dice.

What Do You Need to Play?

Standard Deck of Cards (without the Jokers). At least one, preferably four, (d6) dice. Either some coins, poker chips or beads (to keep track of resources and noble wounds).

Since all of these components are readily available, the game is very accessible, if not "free". The rules for the game are posted in the file section of the Dueling Nobles BGG game page and are available on-line (http://www.freewebs.com/3jgames/duelingnobles.pdf).

Object of the Game

Each player will have a courtyard of nobles which will duel against the opponent's nobles during the game. As a result of combat, nobles will be wounded and killed in battle. The player who eliminates all of the opponent's nobles is the winner.

Game Set-Up

Separate all the "noble cards" (i.e., Kings, Queens and Jacks) into a pile, which will be known as the Noble Deck (initially containing 12 cards). The remaining cards (i.e., Aces, 2s, 3s, … 10s) will comprise the Number Deck.

Each player will be dealt six noble cards, from which each player selects three nobles to comprise their respective initial courtyards. The unselected noble cards (six total) will be reshuffled and used as the Noble Deck for the balance of the game.

After the nobles are selected and placed in the player's courtyard, each player is dealt six cards from the number deck. These cards have multiple uses in the game, as described below.

What Each Player Has

Nobles: The three types of nobles rack up as follows:

• King – Base Dueling Strength of 13, takes 3 Wounds before eliminated
o Special Abilities: Rolls 2 dice instead of 1 in duel. A player can Wound the King at the beginning of their turn in exchange for gaining one resource chip.
o Pros: The King, with higher base dueling strength, extra duel die roll and higher Wound threshold, is a formidable dueling opponent.
o Cons: Since the King relies on 2 dice for his dueling score, his performance may be less certain than the other nobles.

• Queen – Base Dueling Strength of 12, takes 2 Wounds before eliminated
o Special Abilities: Gains +3 in duel for each other noble in her courtyard (i.e., the Queen receives a +6 bonus if there are two other nobles in her courtyard).
o Pros: Early in the game when the Queen is guaranteed to have company in the courtyard, she can be tough in combat with an extra +6 to her dueling score.
o Cons: If the Queen's courtyard-mates are eliminated, she will become vulnerable quickly.

• Jack – Base Dueling Strength of 11, takes 2 Wounds before eliminated
o Special Abilities: Can have 2 number cards played on top in duel (versus 1 number card for the other nobles).
o Pros: Being able to lay 2 number cards makes the Jack's performance in a given duel more certain. That certainty is very comforting when attacking.
o Cons: Using the extra number cards to power the Jack in duel can strain a player's resources.

Number Cards: These cards may be used as follows:

• One-Time Dueling Boost: During a duel, each player may place a card (or two, if a Jack) on their noble to enhance their dueling strength. The strength boost is equivalent to the number of the card. The noble receives an additional +2 bonus if the suit of the number card placed on top matches the noble's suit. If the card placed on top of the noble is an Ace (regardless of suit), the noble will automatically win the duel, unless the other player also plays an Ace on his noble (in which case the duel is a tie).

• Permanent Dueling Boost: Since the 2s and 3s are somewhat less useful for playing on top of a noble in battle, a player may elect to place these cards under a noble as a permanent strength boost. From that point forward, that noble would always receive a +2 or +3 bonus in battle in addition to any card (or cards, if a Jack) placed on top. Any given noble can only have one permanent strength boost, and if that noble is eliminated, its permanent strength boost is also discarded. These bonuses can be moved between nobles at the beginning of a player's turn. Note: no matching suit bonus is awarded for 2s or 3s used as permanent dueling boost cards.

• Special Discard: At the beginning of a player's turn, he may (once per suit per game) discard a card from a given suit to gain a specified benefit (i.e., over the course of an entire game, a player may discard a total of one Spade, one Heart, one Diamond and one Club to gain its respective benefit).
o Discard a Heart – You may remove one Wound token from one of your nobles.
o Discard a Diamond – If (and only if) you have fewer nobles than your opponent, you may draw 3 number cards from the Number Deck. [Note: this is a handy mechanism to make up ground.]
o Discard a Spade – You may peek at your opponents number cards.
o Discard a Club – You may select any number card from the discard pile and place it in your hand. [Note: this is particularly useful if an Ace is in the discard pile.]

Resource "Chips": Resources are gained and used as follows:

• Players "earn" resource chips from the following sources:
o Each player receives one resource chip each turn automatically
o The player who is victorious in duel receives one resource chip
o As noted above, a player (at the beginning of a turn) may Wound one of their own Kings in exchange for an additional resource chip
o A player may discard three number cards of the same suit in exchange for 3 resource chips

• Player spend resource chips on the following:
o 1 resource chip = 1 number card from the Number Deck (max 3 cards per turn)
o 5 resource chips = 1 new noble from the Noble Deck (no choice this time, just draw and place in the courtyard)
o 2 resource chips = have another one of your nobles "step-in" for another of your nobles who was challenged to a duel. This ability may be very useful if your opponent has targeted one of your wounded nobles whom you would not be able to support well with number cards.

So How Does a Player's Turn Actually Work?

Step 1) Special Actions: A player may:
• Place (or move) one Permanent Strength Boost (i.e., a 2 or 3 number card) under one of his nobles. [Note: only one Permanent Strength Boost can be played per turn.]
• Wound a King in exchange for 1 extra resource.
• Discard a number card of a given suit to enable the special discard ability (e.g., Discard a Heart to heal a Wound from one of your nobles). Each suit's special discard ability can only be used once per game.

Step 2) Generate Resources:
• A player automatically receives 1 resource just for being there
• Three number cards of the same suit may be discarded in exchange for 3 resource chips

Step 3) Spend Resource:
• A player may buy up to 3 new number cards from the Number Deck (1 resource chip = 1 new card). Note: this action must be taken all at once, as the rules specify that you cannot buy and look at one card before deciding to buy another one.
• Purchase a new noble (5 resource chips = 1 new noble).

Step 4) Duel: A player may (but does not have to) declare a duel:

If he so chooses, the player selects one of his nobles and one of his opponent's nobles to duel. The defender may select a different noble to stand-in for the designated defending noble by paying 2 resource chips.

Each player rolls one (or two if their noble is a King) die to add to the base dueling strength of their noble. [Edit: per Zaphod's post below, the die roll occurs prior to the playing of number cards.]

The attacker then may place a number card (or two, if the noble is a Jack) on his noble to augment its strength in duel by the number on the card. If the card placed matches the suit of the noble it is played upon, the noble receives an additional +2. [Note: In the case of a Jack, if both cards matched the Jack's suit, each card would receive +2 for a total of +4.]

The defended may then do the same - placing cards to augment his noble's dueling strength.

An example of Jack in duel is shown below. The Jack has a dueling strength of 28, which is a sum of the base value for a Jack (11) + the die roll (3) + the first number card (5) + the second number card (9 total, which comes from 7 for the card + 2 for being the same suit as the Jack).



The noble with the highest dueling strength wins the duel. The winning player receives one resource chip. The losing noble acquires a Wound token. If the noble has two (or three, if the King) Wound tokens, it is eliminated and shuffled back into the Noble Deck. In the event of a tie, both nobles receive a Wound token, and neither player gains a resource chip.

An Example Duel



In the depicted game, Player 1 elected to have his King of Spades challenge Player 2's King of Clubs in duel. The King of Spades scores a dueling strength of 29 with its Permanent Strength Boost, One-Time Strength Boost and Dice Roll. The King of Clubs does counter with a stronger One-Time Strength Boost card, but is let down by a mediocre dice roll and only totals 27. Player 1 will receive 1 resource chip for the win, and Player 2's King of Clubs will acquire a Wound token. [Note: per Zaphod's clarification, the die roll would occur prior to playing number cards. Ergo, Player 2 should have declined to play a number card unless he had one that could have won or tied the duel.]

[Note: in the image, Player 1's Jack of Clubs already has one Wound token and will be eliminated if it is Wounded in duel an additional time.]

Some Strategy Considerations

• When selecting your initial courtyard of 3 nobles, diversifying the suits of your nobles is generally a good idea. Since you won't know what number cards you'll have in your initial hand, you'll have a much better opportunity to find a matching suit number card to play in duel (and receive a +2 dueling bonus) if you have different suits of nobles in the courtyard.

• Because a player can use two number cards to power them up during duel, Jacks can be very powerful when attacking in duel and can be dangerous when being attacked (unless you used the special Spade discard ability to determine what number cards your opponent has in hand). However, the cost of using two cards too often can rapidly deplete your resources if not careful.

• Although it will go against many player's aggressive nature, you do not have to declare a duel every turn. The attacker's advantage is being able to select the nobles for the duel. If a player does not have a noble who can generate good attacking strength versus what he thinks his opponent's noble(s) can muster, electing not to declare a duel may be the best course.

• There’s no shame in "conceding" a duel if attacked with overwhelming cards. The defender's advantage is knowing what the attacker is throwing at him (excluding the die or dice roll) before selecting cards to add to the duel. If the defending player cannot mount a dueling strength that will give him any reasonable chance of winning the duel and/or if the attacker plays an Ace (and the defended does not have an Ace with which to respond), the defended may be better served not playing a number card as a one-time boost for the duel and saving it for another opportunity.

Interesting Note

This "free" game also has a "free" expansion, which can be found at (http://www.freewebs.com/3jgames/DuelingNoblesExpansion1.pdf). We've not played with the expansion rules, so it's not covered in this review.

Overall Assessment

Dueling Nobles proved to be fairly easy for us to learn. After a few turns, the only rule(s) we needed to keep referencing were the Special Discard abilities of the various suits when discarding a number card. The game was also a good deal of fun. Yes, you can catch a few bad breaks with dice rolls, but the game is very much about deciding when to take calculated risks in committing your nobles to duel, determining how to expend your number cards to gain best return and weighing spending resource chips to gain new number cards versus saving resource chip for new nobles. We found this game to be very clever and a welcome addition to the two-player game category. And you can't beat the price.


Edit: Resize images for better display in article.
Edit(2): Clarification, the die roll in combat occurs prior to playing one-time strength boost number cards.