Wars of the Roses is an epic two-player game concerning the long and bloody dynastic struggle between the houses of Lancaster and York for the throne of England. The game depicts both the vicious military campaigns and the rich political struggles that surrounded the late rule of the mad-king Henry VI, the Yorkist usurper Edward VI, the bloody rule of Richard III, and the early years of the first Tudor king, Henry VII. Also strutting across the game's stage and toward the throne is Richard of York, the patriarch of the house of Plantagenet; Richard Neville, the notorious "Kingmaker"; the iron-queen of Lancaster, Margaret of Anjou, and the would-be Lancastrian king Edward, the Prince of Wales.
The game system employed in Wars of the Roses takes off where the award-winning Hammer of the Scots left off by greatly enriching the card deck. "Holding your political cards close to your vest" has never meant more. With them, players can now launch or uncover political conspiracies, bring Scotland into the war, hire mercenaries for their cause, go into exile abroad, employ spies to reveal enemy plans, force neutral nobles off the fence, call up the standing army at Calais, mobilize the powerful Northern or Welsh March, lay-low the heads of powerful families, or even marshal the fickle winds of fate to undo the best laid plans of the enemy.
