"He must have taught you everything you know!"

Who knows where this line is from?

Okay, so this is a review of the new Ferti edition of this Reiner Knizia classic which I just recently bought and got to play with my wife a few times.


Overview
The game is a series of fencing duels and (maybe surprisingly for a Knizia game) the mechanics and theme fit perfectly. There's probably some neat mathematics behind, some clever formula, but who cares? It's all about honor and victory for the winner in this duel!

What's inside
The box weighs a little more then you'd suspect and has pretty nice artwork from an artist called Pierô. Inside's the main reason for the weight: two heavy metal miniatures of the fighters, about 5cm (2") height each, massive, impressive, with some soft velvet cloth glued on the downside of the base to avoid scratching surfaces, really fancy. Both miniatures are individually designed, you do not get two of the same model just left- and right-handed. They represent the two fighters you also see in the rest of the artwork (cards, box cover), which have different looks and portray different characters.


More stuff: there's several printed cardboard pieces to be used to build the 3D fighting stage. Yes, you can build a three-dimensional stage the figures are put upon to fight each other. If you don't like it, or don't have time to set it up, say for just a quick game, the backside of one piece can be used as a quickshot play-area, which is a neat idea.


25 cards is all else you really need for the game; they are numbered from 1-5, with five of each number and different artwork per number. Two small round tokens bearing the faces of the opponent fighters are used to mark the winning rounds of each. There's three small rules booklets in German, French and Dutch, also two thick cardboard rules overviews in card-size, sadly only in French (duh).

As a small goodie there's a booklet with pieces of all the artwork, from sketches to the full detailed and used versions of it, which is nice but of no real use, of course.

The game
The fighting stage, be it the built-up 3d-version or the flat one, consists of 23 fields numbered from 1-23 and a small bar on each side numbered 1-5 to mark the number of won rounds per fighter. The miniatures start on opposing sides, on the field numbers 1 and 23. The cards are shuffled, each player gets a random hand of five and a starting player is chosen. The other 15 cards are the draw pile.
Now players alternately play one card to

a) move their figure on the stage or
b) attack the opponent

Movement happens in exact the number of fields shown on the card. The player may move forward or backward, but cannot move past his opponent or beyond his starting field (1 or 23). He then draws a card from the pile to fill up his hand. A move exactly on the field where the opponent is on is an attack and that's the only way to attack the enemy – playing a card covering the exact distance. Now, the attacker may play multiple cards of this number, if he owns these and decides to do so. Why should he? Well, the opponent may (and should) parry the attack, by playing a card of the exact same number. Say, if the opponents are three field apart and the active players plays two "3" cards, the attacked player must also play two "3" cards to successfully parry the attack. If the attacker only played one, just one would be sufficient to parry (the defender has no advantage in playing more then the necessary number of cards). The attacker may not add another card to his attack after this, he has to put them in on the start of the attack. So if the defender parries, no hit is landed on this attack. The attacker draws as many cards from the pile as he played on this attack back up on his hand. The defender, if he used cards to parry, may NOT draw cards, getting behind in number of cards on hand, leading to the correct assumption that permanently being passive and in the defensive is not a good strategy.

If the defender couldn't parry the attack, a hit is scored (marked on the winner's score track) and this round is over, a new one begins. Game also ends if the last card from the draw pile is drawn (cards played are never reshuffled or drawn back; they may also not be searched to see which cards are already used, by the way). Once this happens, all cards on the both hands are revealed and it is looked at, if any successful attacks could be made of this. Say, if in this situation the players are three fields apart, one of them has two "3" cards and the other only one (or no) "3" card, the first one wins this round and scores. If no attack is possible (to far apart or to close for the cards available), it is looked at which player is moved further into the opponents half of the stage (field #12 being the middle). On a tie – well, then it's tie this time and no one's the winner. If a situation occurs where one player may not make a move at all with the cards on his hands (no move for/backward possible and no attack), the opponent also wins and scores. This repeats till one player scores the fifth time, making him the winner of the whole duel.

There's an advanced rules version which is not that more difficult at all but makes the game more dynamic. It allows the active player to make an indirect attack by playing one card to move into appropriate range and playing one or more cards directly afterwards to attack the opponent (again the exact range must be matched by the card(s)). After this he draws back the number of cards played from the pile. This indirect attack can be parried as usual and described above, but the defender may also decide to play a card to move backward. This ends the defender's turn and he may also draw back a card from the pile. And that's all about the advanced rules!

Pros
First of all, the two miniatures are wonderfully crafted. Lord, are they heavy! Details are great, though I am no expert in this. I am SO going to paint them! The artwork in the game will be of good use for that, so I can match the paint-job exactly to it.

The parts you build the 3D-stage up with are of good quality, thick, but it's a bit tricky to actually construct the thing. Especially the background thing doesn't like to stand right up, it tends to fall down on the opponents which ain't such a good thing… I think I'm going to fix this some way, it's nothing one can't take care of. Anyway, it looks good and adds to the atmosphere.

Theme! Yes, this game has it! Enjoy to insult your opponent every time you play a card! "Take this, you miserable worm!" – "Haha, whom are you going to impress with this, slob!" Well, you don't have to… but it adds to the fun, doesn't it?

A duel, though consisting of several rounds, goes pretty fast, setup time is almost non-existing once you built up the stage (or use the flat stage) and time flies by. Sure, there's a luck component b/c of cards, but hey, it's your job to make the best out of what you get.
Rules are simple, you can start right away.

Theme, ease and quickness of play make it a great game for couples. Of course, it cannot be played by more than two players, but I see this as a pro, not a con, as there's always so many dudes asking for good 2-player-games working for couples. This is one, get it!

Cons
The 3D-stage is a great idea and looks cool, very much fitting the theme. Sadly it's partly a little unstable, but I think I can workaroundthis someway. Still, it's a small minus and could have done better.

Though the miniatures are great value, it is questionable if the price is reasonable for a light-weight game like this. Actually, everyone can just print these 25 cards and draw a stage of 23 fields, take two meeples and there you go. One with artistic talents may also make these things very beautiful! There's possibly some miniatures of fencers on the market which can be bought and used for the game. I guess everyone has to decide for themselves if putting such work and time and money into this is worth the probably negotiable savings on buying the original. I'd like to see it going a slight bit cheaper, but on the other hand, the miniatures in the box are really really fine, so I guess the price is actually pretty reasonable. Yes, I'm a little indecisive here, but I don't regret the buy.

Summary
- Excellent 2-player game, even works with wifes/girlfriends!
- Lightweight rules, easily learned
- Fast play
- Great components and beautiful artwork
- Maybe a bit pricey

Hope you like it, my first review