Top 3 Games for Epiphany

Get ready for an epiphany – Twelfth Night on 6 January is also Epiphany! Also known as Three Kings Day, it celebrates the visit the three Wise Men made to see the baby Jesus. And like all good memorial days, it gives us yet another excuse to eat delicious cake….and play games! Not that we need a reason to do either, but it’s always nice to be able to point to tradition. The cake is quite special and comes from a French tradition of eating “galette des rois”. Whoever receives the slice with the tiny figurine baked into it is crowned the King or Queen (and hopefully doesn’t swallow or break a tooth on it!). But enough about the pastry, cream and almond dream. We need some suitably regal games to do Epiphany justice, so here are three to represent the kings and queens of games!

Kingdomino/Queendomino

Whether you opt for the simple elegance of Kingdomino, or the meatier, gamier Queendomino, you won’t go wrong with this choice to celebrate Epiphany. Based on the ancient game of dominoes, you will be creating your realm by placing double-ended tiles in such a way that the territories match. And the more icons you can bank in each region, the more points you will score. With bonus points for keeping your palace in the centre of your 5 x 5 (or 7 x 7) grid, and the need to avoid gaps to prevent wasting tiles (and scoring opportunities!), there are plenty of decisions to be made in these fast playing, tile laying games.

Turn order is based on the tiles you select from the market. And Bruno Cathala has been a clever man indeed by making the best tiles costlier in terms of when you get to go next in the picking order. There are also extra decisions to be made in Queendomino – taxes, dragons, and favours to boot – but the core gameplay is the same. And whichever one you decide to play, you’ll feel like a King or Queen for the day!

The King is Dead (Second Edition)

Scotland v England v Wales. No fluff. No excess. No wriggle-room. Somebody wants the throne. Question is; will it be you? All in on area control, you have very few options to turn the Kingdom to your whims. Eight separate actions are all you have in your arsenal. So in reality, you need to power-grab by doing 8 things. And what you do will in the main be based on moving your limited troops around.

In a tense twist, every action you do play (you can of course pass in a round), will be a double edged sword. After making a move that impacts upon one of the factions in play, you must then recruit a follower from it back to your court. So you’ll be giving ground with one hand and taking away influence with another. This game is a club-level power sandwich. Being able to manipulate all the factions is what makes The King Is Dead so challenging. The rules are simple, the actions even simpler. But the strategy and tactics needed to win are an inky deep pool of self-doubt and arrogance. Quick to play and quick to burn you (if you play the fool that is), this game will challenge you to pump the brakes on haste and think very carefully!

Azul Queen’s Garden

We love all the various iterations of Azul. Spatially based, tile drafting and placement, they are always eye catching. And Queen’s Garden feels like the puzzliest of them all. It’s actually another Azul based royal love story which makes a lovely change to the usual royal rumbles! King Manuel wants to create a beautiful garden to celebrate his wife, Queen Maria of Aaragon, and it is your job to arrange the plants, trees, and sculptures.

But your garden needs to grow in terms of scale and content. So you have to decide how and when to expand the ground you can lay tiles on. Then you need to decide what tiles you want as the cost of each can be very high indeed! Some are free to place (thank you trees!) but others become very pricey. And you can only use tiles of the same colour or icon (but never both) to pay to place them. There are also placement restrictions, and your ability to store tiles (for placing or paying) is also limited. With each round scoring for specific colours and icons, as well as end game scoring for contiguous groups, there is a lot to think about. Placing tiles to surround features will give you opportunities to take more tiles, and there are jokers to help you meet the high price of the most prized ones.

For us, Azul Queen’s Garden is the most thinky of the series to date, and we absolutely love it. Like being hit in the head with the Calico box whilst chowing down on Sagrada dice, this game is a revelation of pretty colours, optimal patterns and superb thinkiness!

We hope these three royal games have inspired you to honour Epiphany in the best possible way. Just don’t forget to wipe your sticky, cake covered fingers before picking up any game components!