Lancaster

Location: MSK

Yet another worker placement game, with this one having a "bumping" mechanic similar but more forgiving than Carson City, and a laws phase similar to Cuba.

During a set number of rounds (5) you want to score the most points. You own a meagre castle and you travel the lands fighting for nobles and protecting their castles and fighting the marauding French. The mechanic is worker placement, with the twists being that you have differing powered workers (more prestigious knights) and these more powerful knights can access castles that weaker ones cannot and they can also bump out weaker knights from a location. Squires are a form of currency, as they are weaker temporary workers that can boost your conquering power in a castle but after they're a once use only when you choose to use them. When placement is completed, you collect a reward (generally an upgrade) and/or collect a noble. Collecting both requires an expenditure of money, which is tight in this game, and the nobles themselves score BIG end of game points if you collect enough of them.

You can alternatively go fight (place your knight) in a battle against the French- this has the benefit of almost certainly scoring at least some points, potentially multiple times and will certainly award you a small favour (like money, maybe a noble etc). A phase where new laws are to be voted in (or not) then occurs and these can be a source of victory points as well- here you use voting cubes which are another currency that expire after each round but which can be powerful to sway the outcome in your favour. You then collect smaller rewards from your castle which hopefully you can upgrade during the course of the game.

End of game points are also awarded for the most upgraded castle (you also benefit in game for having an upgraded castle) and for having the most/most upgraded knights (you also benefit in game for having this setup).

This does not seem on the surface to be overly original but it is a well-designed euro strategy game with some minor but quality twists on known mechanics. The whole is better than the sum of its parts. Seems to scale from 2-5 players but 2er looks like you have some dummy player managing to do (annoying).

Own the [boardgame=107863]New Laws[/boardgame], [boardgame=132431]Reward Tiles[/boardgame], and [boardgame=132150]Henry V[/boardgame] expansions.

After a few few plays with "Lancaster":

1. Very nice material, finds the "easy ones" to clear structures fantastically & very much atmospherically

2. Romp from tared play mechanisms, to win varied possibilities, very interactively & sometimes a little nasty :-)

3. In 2 people variation->

   • too fast past, some would be able Be play years more
   • the allies did not come with us to Application, more facade (one may use only either his knights, or those of the ally, or we have wrong read the rule?) , otherwise also well in twos!

Any time I / we play it with pleasure....

120102 Interesting worker placement game. I'm not fond of them in general so naturally I'm not going to rank it too high, but it manages to avoid being too complicated (as opposed to dominant species or age of empires) so I enjoyed the play.

Lancaster was one of the earlier worker placement games that I experienced. While my opinion on it has cooled, I still enjoy it more than most because of the extra player interaction and the little touches that keep it from being 'pure' worker placement.

At 3, this is a nice svelte game that plays in 90 minutes. Avoid with 4 and 5. While there are a lot of moving parts, they cohere nicely and the downtime is not too bad at the smaller play counts.

I love the blind voting on new laws (scoring cards), and having played the game half a dozen times, familiarity with the laws lets you anticipate and adjust your strategy accordingly. We have the New Laws and haven't felt the need to play with them yet.

A rock-solid worker placement base (with neat extras like displacing opponents, voting on laws, and fighting the French) make Lancaster good but not great. These days, I'm looking for something a little shorter and quicker than Lancaster.

I've got to get this played with a better group.

05/20 - Rated 8 11/21 - Rated 7 12/24 - Rated 6

A delightfully interactive classic that deserves more attention from the modern gamer. I really enjoy the voting for round scoring objectives and the constant tension from potentially having your knights displaced.

Solid Euro game with a cool level up mechanic and a fun voting phase.

I own the alternate laws expansion.