Cover Your Kingdom Board Game Review

Steve Godfrey
13 minutes ago
7 min read

Cover Your Kingdom

WBG Score: 8.5

Player Count: 2-8

You’ll like this if you like: Cover Your Assets, Goat Lords

This is the reviewer’s copy. See our review policy here

Take cover! It’s not safe in them there kingdoms. The lands are full of Leprechaun men trying to sell you dodgy insurance, Mob goblins rule the streets, Bragons won't stop talking about their six-figure job in the city, and the Hentaurs, well, they’re just clucking mad!

How to cover your Kingdom.

Each player takes a kingdom board and is then dealt six cards. Each kingdom board has two spaces on it, a mountain and a field. On a player's turn, they can do up to two actions, but they have to take at least one.

Discard a card and draw another.

Settle by placing two identical creatures into its matching settlement. The creatures can either both be in your hand, or you can pair one from your hand with one from the top of the discard pile. Whenever you add a new clan, place it crossways to the previous one in the stack. Only clans on top of a stack are able to be targeted.

Add a matching creature from your hand to the top of a matching clan.

Recruit by taking a creature and placing it next to an opponent’s matching clan on top of one of their stacks, provided they have more than one stack in their kingdom. They then have the opportunity to counter this by playing a matching creature or a wild. This will go back and forth, and the player who played the last card wins. The played cards get added to the stack and either stay with the defender or go to the attacker, depending on who won.

Hire a creature with an ability. These don’t get added to clans but instead have special abilities that you can spend an action to use, then discard the card.

Once the deck runs out, keep playing until all players have played their cards. It may be that you can’t do anything useful on your turn, at which point you just discard a card. Players then count up the points from all of their cards, and the player with the most points wins.

Should you cover your kingdom?

To put it bluntly, yes, yes you should. That goes for actually covering your clans to protect them, and yes, you should play this game. One of the first card games I taught my two girls when getting into the hobby was Exploding Kittens, a game which also presents a similar take-that style element to it in which you can take pleasure in screwing over your friends, or in this case, their dad. While we will still happily get that one out and play, Cover Your Kingdom takes those elements we loved from that game and elevates them into something better and also takes away that element for more targeted meanness that a lot of games with a “take that” element often have. Which in this case means, if they're going after my clans, there’s a reason for it. You see, you can only really “recruit” from an opponent's clan if a) they have at least two clans, b) the clan is on top, and c) you’ve got a card matching one of those clans in your hand. So if you’re going to take that clan, it’s because the universe has aligned to give you that opportunity to do so, and let’s face it, it’d be rude to ignore the universe, especially if that clan is worth a tasty amount of points.

This game is known in our group for easily eliciting a ton of raucous fun and laughter. Whenever someone tries to take a clan, there’s always an opportunity for it to escalate, and when it does, so does the reaction along with it. The more someone plays a card and is rebuffed by another, the louder the reactions it gets, and it’s honestly one of the great joys in the game. You see people's reactions change as they go from “haha victory” to “how have you got another card” and back again. It can be such a quick change in fortunes that the rest of us have nearly suffered from emotional whiplash. Of course, while the rest of us are enjoying the rally, we're also loving the fact that the points for that clan are shooting up and up, and chances are at least one of us is plotting on how we’re going to take that next turn.

When Pigxies fly.

Protecting your valuable clans is therefore a pretty important part of the game, so important in fact that they put it in the title as some form of frontloaded strategy tips (why don’t more games do this?) It's here that the strategy comes through. It’s easy to underestimate this as a simple, end-of-the-night party game, and in a lot of respects, it can absolutely be that, especially if you're in it for the laughs and not too bothered over scores. But, if you’re going to do well in this game, you need to think about when you're going to play certain cards and when you're going to keep some for the long game. Take the wild cards, for example. It’d be all too easy to just play them when someone goes to take a clan of yours, but ask yourself this. Is that pile that’s worth 15 points really worth throwing a big points card on to save it?

Come to that, even if you do save it, can you protect it? Or is it better to let it go and save those cards for a pile that is really worth fighting over? The same goes for the special cards, where, if you can get a specific pair, could help you pull off an epic combo that could net you loads of points. On the other hand, if you’re feeling really childish and petty, in an epic display of “if I can’t have it, no one can” (which I sometimes encourage in this game), you could use the card that can take a stack out of the game altogether. The strategy really kicks in though when the deck runs out and all you're left with is the cards in your hand. Now it’s all about what people have left in their hands, and there’s this final tension of wondering which cards to discard and when to try and take something off someone, and also if you have enough to counteract someone else’s attack. It’s brilliant, especially when you consider that you're now on a countdown to the end of the game, and it’s those last cards in your hand that could stop any last-gasp attacks or nab you those last juicy clans.

This is based on another Grandpa Becks game called Cover Your Assets, which I’ve not played, and while it sounds fun, I think the fact that you only have one pile and the theme means that Cover Your Kingdom is the one I’m sticking with. Although I’d still happily give Cover Your Assets a go. The theme is great and makes my geeky little heart happy. The parody kingdoms are a lot of fun, and I love the idea of having two clans exposed at any one time, which really opens up the decision space and ups the risk factor. The clans themselves are just great and make me smile every time I see them, from the names to the art on the cards. The Vulc-ents and the Sighclops being personal favourites of mine. Each clan has their own art, and while it’s basically the same on each card, there are subtle differences on each that make them a ton of fun to look through, and no doubt you’ll find something new each time.

There are also two gameplay variants in the box. One gives you bonus points for collecting types of clans, and the other one gives each player unique powers. We’ve not tried either of these since we’ve always felt that the base game is brilliant enough in itself and doesn’t need anything else. That’s obviously a personal choice, and for some groups, those variants may be the only way they’ll play the game. One day we may try them, but for now, we’re loving the game as is. I do like that they’re in there though.

You can’t always cover your assets

Even though the ‘take that’ element of it tries to steer away from that meanness, it doesn’t mean to say that you can’t have a bad game of this. If, say, you haven't got a way to cover those big point clans and someone comes for them and you’ve not got the cards to defend with, well, it’s gonna feel a bit crummy, especially if you can’t get that back. This could easily happen to anyone over the course of the game, and it’s kinda par for the course. However, if you’re not having much luck and this is happening a lot over the course of one game, then yeah, it’s not gonna feel great, and I can see people having a bit of a bitter taste in their mouth after a game like that. Trust me, I know it’s happened to me before and a few of the others I’ve played with. If that does happen, then let me know, and you could join us in the 10 point club, which is the lowest possible score you can get in this game. Not sure if I’ve ever seen a zero score before.

This is a game that plays well at three and really shines with a big group, and for that reason, I just want to take it everywhere and teach people because I know that ultimately whoever I’m with, we’re just gonna have a good old laugh with it, and if that’s not a great thing to bring to a game night, then I don’t know what is.

Right, I’m off to my neighbours because I hear they’ve got a pretty tasty high point clan of Vulc-ents ripe for the taking. Live long and GIVE ME YOUR CLAN!