King's Forge Overview of board games

With the previous current director “getting the chop”, your chance has finally come to become the main bodyguard of His Royal Highness, King Alphons Sedgwickson III!

But if you’re going to be successful, I’m not sticking. Or maybe it’s not just the dice that move… Below is a full overview of King’s Forge board games.

King's Forge (Third Edition)

Rules, 2 cards with quick instructions, 33 unique craft cards, 18 ...
Players: 2-4
Time: 45-60 minutes

A brief overview of King's Forge

King's Forge is a direct, competitive dice game for two to four players. Each contestant is vying for a free King's Forge title. To achieve such a role, you need to prove your worth by first making four items on the king’s special craft list.

Each budding gunner has a number of cubes that represent different materials. With cunning running dice and regular visits to Lady Luck, you need to gather the right resources to pave the way to victory in front of your opponents.

Unpacking King's Forge

King's Forge was masterfully smashed. In the box you will find:

91 Cubes
- 42 Black (metal)
- 22 Green (wood)
- 14 Red (gem)
- 10 blue (magic)
- 2 white (library)
- 1 purple (cemetery)
Cards 53
- 33 Turnover charts
- 18 Collect the cards
- 2 Reference cards
4 Smithy tiles
4 tokens
- 2 yellow tokens “Automatic 6”
- 2 green chips “+ 1 / + 1”
1 First Player Anvil
1 game board

I was really excited about the King’s Forge production. A lot of effort has been put into ways that were not necessary, but certainly appreciated. The cubes themselves are very high quality and feel good. The cards are also well made and have decent artwork.

For me, however, the standout piece is a huge plastic anvil that acts as the first player. In a game that is mostly based on dice and cards, there is little chance of actually revealing the theme. The anvil did it brilliantly and I actually let out a little laugh when I first saw it because it’s so powerful. Wile E. Coyote would be proud.

This linguistic sense of humor continued through the rules . It is written well, with fine text “hear” and a whole number of ordinances. It was also helpful that the rules for each Gather card were explained in more detail in the policy to answer any questions or clarify any disputes. This too is nicely set up so you can easily turn around if you want a reminder of what the symbol means.

How to play King's Forge

Setup

First, each player takes a Smithy Tile (this acts as your storage space) and five metal cubes.

Then take the Craft Cards deck and sort them from lowest to highest. These maps represent the various items on the royal list that you can make. Below their range you will see many colored cubes. These represent the types and quantities of each resource you need to make them.

Place the smallest three Craft Cards in the three ‘active’ slots on the table, then place the rest of the top cards so you can still see the resources needed for each.

Finally, place the required amount of Gather Cards face down on their designated table space next to the four Dock Cards. These are location maps with actions on them that allow you to retrieve dice from resources or perform other special abilities, provided you have the necessary resources. Each Gather Card has two possible actions that you can perform.

Stages of the game

The game takes place in a series of rounds, which themselves consist of three phases. The game moves clockwise, with each player turning before moving on to the next stage. The phases are:

Assemble the phase

The starting player deals four collected cards face up, then chooses one of three actions:

Request a collected card - to do this, you must have the number and types of dice shown on the card. In this case, take the card and place it in front, place the required dice on top. In return, obtain the resource cubes shown on the card from the stock and place them in your Smithy. Note that no dice you use at this stage can be used at any other stage of this round.
Use the Docks campaign - this allows you to take advantage of the mid-table campaigns available to everyone in each round. To do this, take a Gather card and then place the required resource on the Docks tile of your choice. Note that the dice you use this way will be returned to stock at the end of the round and not to your own stock.
Pass - if you decide to perform successfully, you will not be able to take action at this stage. However, you will not spend any dice, which means that everything will be available to you at the construction stage. If you are the first player to cross, you must take one additional metal matrix or a + 1 / -1 token for use in the Craft phase.

When each player passes, you move to…

Craft phase

This is your chance to put your nose on the grinder and make some shiny items for the king!

Take all your unused dice (i.e. not the dice you used in the collection phase or those in your Smithy) and discard them. You can then try to connect your dice to those shown on the active Craft Card. If you have all the required dice with the same color and corresponding values as on one of the craft cards, you can make them.

Note that the number on the matrix can match correctly or exceed the required amount on the Craft Card. For example, if a craft card requires a green dice with two, you can use a green dice with four to complete the assignment.

Once done, place the card in front with the assigned dice on top. Then move the next craft card from the queue to the active space.

But it's not yours yet. Subsequent players can also steal the Craft Cards you created in this round. To do this, they must follow the same procedure as above, but at least one dice must be larger than the value of the previous player.

Players can make as many items as they want in each stage, and they can also steal items multiple times. Once all the players have moves, the next phase begins.

The cleaning phase and the next round

Move all the craft cards left in front of you, under your Smithy, and then return all the dice on the Docks tiles to the main stock.

All dice in the player's suitcase are added to their usable stock. Then a new round begins!

He wins the game

If a player has four Craft Cards in his Smithy, he wins the game! If both players score four Craft Cards in the same round, the player with the highest ranked card wins.

Your first King's Forge game

When you first start using King’s Forge, you’ll think a lot about whether to focus on stacking dice or not, or whether you’d rather try to obtain less common materials. Being the first player to have some red or blue dice can put you in a very strong position as it means you can make items that others won’t be able to steal. Maybe at least for a round.

However, if you focus on improving stock quality, you may end up ignoring low-ranked Craft Cards and lagging behind others early on.

Of course, creating this balance is part of the Strategy Game. However, keep in mind where you are in the playing order and how this may affect your chances of obtaining a Craft Card.

If you are the first, people are much more likely to be able to steal low-ranking products. One of the first items, for example (anvil), only requires the owner to have three black dice in which he can get them. Maybe it would be worth building up your stock and letting others fight ...

Advantages disadvantages

Advantages:

Good introductory dice game
Great presentation of the topic
A huge anvil

Weaknesses:

We can rely too much on luck

King's Forge is a very simple game, but each time it required enough strategy and planning to keep it challenging. Choosing to use the Dock campaign is always a risk, but with a limited number of each matrix, it can be risky to leave it too late. After all, having a red dice or two in your hands can make the rest of the game a lot easier. But if you use these dice now, will you go one round too early to really cash in?

All of these are pretty tough decisions. But once you can see which Craft Cards are coming next, you’ll be able to get ready for them.

The element of theft, however, is what adds real enthusiasm and introduces a key area of interaction into the game. You can spend the whole circle saving the dice to make the item, only to have someone steal it from you at the last minute. I can tell you that in moments like these, I sympathized with King Alphons’s tendencies to be beheaded.

The main possible frustration with the game is that it takes a lot of luck to win. You could very skilfully plan ahead and get a lot of real dice, but in the end, if you don’t throw the right numbers, you won’t be able to make the item.

Luck in games is usually not a big problem for me. It’s often part of the fun! But for some reason this time I couldn’t help but peek at it slightly, but no matter how much anticipation I used in front of the craft card that came to the table, I still lost a lucky throw to a poorly prepared opponent.

My last thought, though, is to go for a great theme and design. As already mentioned, the exceptional workmanship and quality of the cubes along with the huge anvil were a nice touch. Not to mention the linguistic narration of words at all (farting humor will always win me over).

TL; DR

King's Forge is a simple yet engaging dice game in which opponents compete to be the first to craft four special items for the king. It’s quick and easy to learn, so it’s great for all types of players.

As with any dice game, luck plays a big role here. And while it’s definitely a strategy, the simplicity of the game means that to some, the element of luck seems a little too strong.

But that doesn’t detract from what is a enjoyable introductory game for a fantastic launch theme.

Conclusion: a verdict?

King's Forge strikes the perfect balance between accessibility and strategy for all types of players. This will be a fantastic introduction to the dice drawing genre for all beginners, but it will still provide a challenging enough experience for more experienced heads to kick something off as well.

Due to the fast playing and direct competition between opposing players, this is also a very fun group experience. However, some find that the nature of mechanics depends a little too much on the rolls of some cubes rather than anticipation and strategy.

But if you ask me, this game is worth a coincidence just to get your hands on a huge anvil.

King's Forge (Third Edition)