The King is Dead Review – The Pinnacle of Modern Board Game Design

The English, Welsh, and Scots are fighting to gain control over Britain in The King is Dead. As a noble, you’re doing your best Aaron Burr impersonation and attempting to gain favour with the eventual victors.

Who that is, you’re not quite sure yet.

However, you’re not one to leave things to chance.

Using the cards given to you, you need to influence the eight battlefields in Britain so that the army you back wins control over the country. This control is earned over many rounds, where each round starts with players playing cards and ends with a skirmish on one of the battlefields.

At the start of a round, players take turns playing cards that may move forces (cubes) around the countryside, take forces out, or change the region where the skirmish will be. Players take as many turns as they want, but might not want to as you only have eight cards to use for the entire game.

Once everyone passes in a row, a skirmish breaks out on the predetermined battlefield.

The faction, or colour, with the most cubes, wins the skirmish and controls the area for the rest of the game. After eight battles, the faction with the most controlled areas becomes the next ruler of Britain.

Now we know how the factions win, let’s talk about how you win.

Things are about to get interesting

So, to win you need the most favour with the winning faction. This favour is gained after you play a card, as the second part of your turn is picking up a faction cube from the board.

However, in doing so, you make that faction weaker.

This devilish contradiction of spending your actions to strengthen a faction, only to make them weaker to gain favour, is at the heart of every decision you make.

But it also gives you options.

Sure, you can pick up your preferred faction’s cube to gain favour, but you can also pick up a different faction’s cube to make it weaker. Strengthening your preferred faction by proxy.

Notice the phrasing, ‘preferred faction’ and not ‘your faction’. This is because you don’t have that much control in The King is Dead. It’s a game of influence. So rather than supporting one faction and brute forcing your way to victory, you need to be observant. You need to figure out what’s happening on the board, who’s backing which faction, and what cards people still holding onto.

Then you need to gently nudge your way into victory.

However, despite requiring a softer touch the tension you feel playing The King is Dead is astronomical. With only eight actions, there’s an extremely low margin for error.

So you’ll spend a lot of time in The King is Dead thinking. Sometimes your turns will be five or ten minutes, only for you to pass, and that will be a good turn.

As when you play cards is as equally important as what card you play. With each battle won, the board shrinks. Reducing the options of your actions, but making them more powerful in terms of determining the winning faction.

Tie breakers ‘r’ us

While The King is Dead requires constant thought and analysis, it is a quick game without too many rules. This is why it’s lauded for its beautiful game design.

But… There are a lot of tiebreakers.

With only eight actions, and therefore only eight influences gained per player. The game is always very close just from the limited resources on the board.

However, what makes The King is Dead even closer is the multiple end-game scenarios. While we’ve focused on the winner of the warring factions. There’s also the sneaky French. Whenever there’s a tie in a skirmish (i.e. the same number of cubes from each faction) then the French win the battle. If the French ever win three battles, the game ends.

In the event of a French victory, then the winner of the game is determined by whoever has the most sets of influence from the other three powers. They become The Great Uniter, stopping the war and getting the three factions to fight against a common frog-eating foe.

From a rules perspective, the multiple-ending victory conditions, along with the associated tiebreakers are super tricky to wrap your head around.

You’ll learn these combinations after a couple of games. But still, for a relatively simple game, figuring out the winner can be quite complex – and frustrating. The only time you learn about the third tiebreaker is when it happens. Leaving you unprepared for the result.

So.. game of the year?

The King is Dead feels like the love child between two brilliant games in Santorini and Hanamikoji. Two games I adore for their simple rulesets and tense push-and-pull gameplay. The King is Dead is a deeper board game than those both, while still maintaining a paper-thin ruleset.

It’s also a game that plays fantastically at each player count, as the rules mutate to fit. At four players it becomes a team game where you’re trying to help your team members win – without communicating with them. This adds new layers of thought, where you’re not just thinking about yourself, and your enemies, but also trying to figure out the best way to help your ally.

Then there are also special cards, which you can add in that completely turn the game on its head.

There’s a lot of content in a relatively small box. It’s no wonder No Pun Included gave The King is Dead their award for best game of 2020. I am blown away by its simplicity and mental complexity. It truly is a fantastic board game and the pinnacle of modern board game design.