This Friday we'll be playing Shadows over Camelot, which is one of my favorite games. Knights of the round table doing quests, panicking over everything going wrong, and wondering who's a dirty traitor. Now, before you look at the boards and pieces and think it's too much to learn to play, it isn't, there's just a lot of options. And all the rules is on the character sheets. Here's how it works…
How to win:
After twelve or more swords are laid on the round table, the knights win if there are more white swords than black swords.
How to lose:
1) There are seven or more black swords on the round table.
2) The twelfth siege engine is placed.
3) All knights are dead.
Turns are made of two phases, evil and then good. You choose one option for each.
Progression of Evil:
1) Lose one life point.
2) Place a siege engine.
3) Draw a black card.
Heroic Actions:
1) Move to a quest.
2) Perform an action for a quest you are at.
3) Play a special white card.
4) Heal one life point by discarding three identical white cards.
5) Accuse someone of being a traitor.
Note: You can sacrifice a life point to take a second different good action.
After that, it's the next player's turn.
The options of quests can look huge but they break down into two categories, fight or unique.
Fight: Most of your white cards will have a number on them from 1 to 5 or a wild. These are fight cards. If you are at a location where you can fight (the Black Knight, Lancelot, the Dragon, or the Saxon and Pict wars) you may lay one fight card as your heroic action. When you look at the location, it will tell you if you have to lay down two of a kind, three of a kind, or a straight. When either good or evil fills up their side first, the fight is over and both sides count their numbers. Fighting siege engines is a bit different. A knight decides how many fight cards they want to play and then rolls an eight sided die for the siege engine. Whoever has the highest number wins.
Unique: Three locations have special heroic actions you can take.
1) If you are at Camelot, draw two white cards.
2) If at Excalibur, discard any white card to move it one spot closer.
3) If at the Holy Grail, place a Holy Grail card on the board.
On the quests, you will see two boxes, they tell you what happens if you win or lose.
Red is losing: The round table gets black swords and knights at the quest lose health.
White is winning: The round table gets white swords, knights at the quest get cards and health, and some quests even reward relics!
Every knight has a special ability.
Cards can mess with the above rules.
Evil always wins on ties.
If the traitor hasn't been founded when twelve or more swords are on the round table, change two white swords to black.
And that's the game!
If you want the rules, here's the link:
https://www.daysofwonder.com/shadowsovercamelot/en/content/rules/And a video review:
https://youtu.be/hstGOkBN170