To Court the King – Try the game, or plan a little Regicide?

Designer: Thomas Lehmann

Publisher of version reviewed: Rio Grande Games

Like any other game review I do, I am going to do my work from the outside to the inside, and then include how the game plays with my different playgroups if applicable. (My 3 main groups are 1: My girlfriend and I, 2: a collection of 4 lighter gamers and me and, 3: Mom, Grandma, Girlfriend and I.)

The Box (Let’s take a look at the outside)

“The players are supplicants at the King’s court and try… to secure the support of influential members of the court and community. “

Recommends: 2-5 people, ages 10+, 45 minutes

My opinion*: 2-3 people, ages 10+, 20-30 minutes

*This game is the most fun when it is your turn, and only moderately fun when it is not. Sure, when it isn’t your turn, you can try to decide what you would do if you rolled what your opponent did, but the real fun is when you are in the hot seat, trying to ‘influence’ the court! For the time recommendation, there is a bit of a learning curve, as there are a lot of different members of the court to choose from. With continued play, you will learn the character abilities, then the turns speed up, and the time comes down. As well, you should not be playing with more than 3 people, and with fewer people, the game time is decreased as well.

The Components (I always dive past the ever important rules to see the medley of bits and pieces)

The game comes with 60 character cards representing the 20 different members of the court. I must take the time at this point to mention that these cards are of very high quality. They are full color, and glossy, and printed on a very thick stock of cardboard. Each card clearly (clearly after you have played a few games) depicts how to obtain the member, and what benefits they provide.

The game also contains 12 standard 6 sided dice, and while nothing special about them, they do fit the feel of the game, being a red marbled plastic with white pips. I do advise for speed of play that each player has access their own set of dice.

The game includes 5 player aids to help new comers with information on how to obtain the different members of the court, and their benefits. I think that these aids are great in theory, but in practice, they are really very confusing, with a ton of information to get lost in. I have found that as long as you place the members of the court out in the proper order, it is far more effective to just look at the members in the court.

My one hang up with the components is the ‘start player’ figure. It looks and feels like cheap red plastic. When everything else in the game has this old world feel to it, this token stands out like that pink stain on the carpet that won’t come out.

The insert that comes with the game is perfect. It holds all the pieces of the game nice and snug. The game even passes the ‘falling off of the game shelf and then getting kicked across the floor, until it hit the wall’ test, with flying colors.

The Rulebook (Does it enhance learning, or make you want to turn and run?!)

The Rulebook is a very well ordered 12 full color English pages. This rulebook is a definite asset to learning. It describes how to lay out the court properly, provides examples of play, offers strategy for new players (emphasizing the importance of getting extra dice), and presents a detailed description of each character card, including exactly how to acquire them, and what use they are. If you need to learn this game from only the rules, you will still have a very good grasp of the game.

The Rules (How do you play this sucker?!)

*Remember this is only a summary of play, consult your beautiful rulebook before you try it*

The object of the game is this: You start the game with 3 dice, and through rolling dice, you will attain members of the court that will either give you access to more dice, or allow you to manipulate your dice after you have rolled. When any player rolls 7 of a kind, they may choose to take the ‘King’ card, and force the game into its final round, where each player will use any court members they have collected to try to beat this roll.

At the start of the game, each play has only 3 dice, and their dreams of winning the King’s attention. A start player is selected, and they are given the cheap red plastic (CRP) start token. After each player has taken a turn, which I will describe in detail below, the CRP start token is passed to the left, and play is repeated. This has the effect of whoever goes last in one round, is the start player for the following round. This is important because there is never enough of each court member so every player can have a copy.

The basic turn is as follows:

-Roll your dice.
-At this point you can use any or all of your court members to manipulate your rolled dice. (Each of your court members can only be used once each or your turns, so after you use one, the rules suggest you rotate the card 90 degrees to show that you have ‘tapped’ its usefulness, and the card is now ‘exhausted’.
-After you have enlisted the aid of your court members, you must choose to ‘lock’ at least one of your die. You may lock more than one, but you must lock at least one. The effect of ‘locked’ dice is that they can no longer be rolled, nor can they be manipulated with the members of your court. They are stuck on the number rolled for the rest of your turn.
-You must now roll any dice that you have not ‘locked’ and then proceed to use your unused members of court to manipulate this new roll.
-You continue rolling, manipulating, and locking dice until you have no more dice left to roll.
-At this point you use your completed roll (all of your ‘locked’ dice) to see which new member of court you can claim. As mentioned, members of the court come in 2 forms, those that add dice, and those that manipulate them. The dice manipulators come in a lot of different forms, and are useful in a variety of circumstances. The abilities can range from letting you reroll some or all of your non-‘locked’ dice, to adding values to some of your dice, to swapping the ‘pips’ from one die to another, to completely being able to change a die to another face.
-Add the new member to your collection, and realign the court members in an upright or non-‘tapped’, non-‘exhausted’ state.
-Play then passes to the next player.


This continues until one player rolls at least 7 of a kind, and selects the King, and remembers what the set was that claimed him. The player who claims the King gets the Queen by default. At this point, each player who has not yet had a turn in this round takes this one last turn (until it would be the start player’s turn) and the game will then proceed into the last round.

In the last round, each player, starting with the player left of the one who claimed the King, tried to outdo the roll that was used to claim the King. A roll is beat if it is a higher set, like a set of 7 5’s would beat a set of 7 3’s. A roll is also beat if it contains more dice in the set, like a set of 8 2’s would beat a set of 7 5’s. There is one slight variation to this rule, and that is, the player who originally claimed the King only needs to tie the roll that was used to take the King away from him, giving the player to initiate the end game the win if it is a tie.

Game Groups (so how does each group like this game?)

Group 1 (My girlfriend and I): This game plays great with 2 people. There is very little down time. It is a nice mix of rolling and thinking that keeps each player engaged. She will play this game with me most times I suggest it, and she does very well at it, after that first ‘learning’ game where you see each court member in action, and you are better equipped to make the decision on which court members you prefer. I do tend to have a slight advantage over her in this game, which I think is from our different approaches to the game. Whenever I roll, I already know which character I am trying to get, and do what it takes to obtain them. Whenever she rolls, she decides which character she is most likely able to obtain, and goes for that one. Hey, every relationship has its speed bumps.

Group 2 (4 lighter gamers and me): I have only once played this game in excess of 3 people, and it was dull. In the beginning the game does play a little slower, and that accompanied with a lot of down time took all the excitement that comes with rolling dice, and spaces it too far apart. The general consensus after this game was that it was merely ok. I think it may have been because for a large portion of the game, each player wasn’t doing anything, but merely a spectator.

Group 3 (Mom, Grandma, Girlfriend and I): I have played this a few times with Mom and Granny, when my girlfriend was not with me. As far as being grandma friendly, I think that it may be just out of her reach. There are a lot of characters in this game, and a lot of choices how you are going to lock and re-roll your dice. I find that my Grandma requires a little assistance using her characters to manipulate her dice to get what she wants. It almost feels like she gets frustrated with it. My mom’s biggest complaint is that when I am too fast at thinking. After I roll, I can look at the dice, and announce what character I can take, and start to manipulate my characters to show my modified roll. My mom says that I am going to fast, and she wants a minute to examine my dice herself so she can figure it out =)

BONUS Group (Roommate and I): My roommate and I have got the most play out of this game. It is always close up until right before the end, and we have each won our fair share. He requests this game quite frequently, so it gets a lot of play. As before, the 2 player games are always speedy, and we almost have it down to a science, where after some rolls we just say, ‘I am taking ___’, without going through the mechanics of how each court member needs to be used. Always a good time when either he or I state, no, that’s not possible, and then the solution is shown, and you feel, dumb…’oh, that’s how’. I like it.

The Rating (I am going to assign a number to the game to represent its ‘fun’)

I really like To Court the King. I find it a good paced game when played in small groups. It has some good decisions, and good choices to make, coupled with good ol’ fashioned dice rolling to get your blood jumping.

My main detraction with the game is with one of the court members, the General. The General is fairly hard to obtain, needing 6 of a Kind to claim him, and his effect is that he gives you 2 extra dice each turn. The outcome of this is usually the player who is winning gets to claim him, and then they are really unstoppable. We have tried a few variants to weaken him, but just haven’t found the right one, but that’s ok, because every time we play, we come up with a new way to ‘fix’ him.

This game is a 7.