Tabletop Spotlight: The King’s Abbey
The King has demanded you construct an abbey – can you complete the task and survive the viking raids?
Our friends at Dragon’s Lair Comics & Fantasy know I’m a sucker for a good worker placement game. So when they pulled out The King’s Abbey, a worker placement game set in the 11th century I was immediately intrigued.
In The King’s Abbey players take the role of keeper of an Abbey during the end of the dark ages. They have been commissioned by the king to build, maintain and defend these new abbeys. Each player has their own Abbey card that they use to track their progress. You can gain more followers, increase your stature within the church and add improvements to your parish of land.
What’s really interesting about this worker placement game is that while it is competitive at the core, it forces players to work together to complete tasks and overcome viking raids. You have to recruit workers to do tasks and those tasks will get you resources. However, during the rounds events happen and several of those events involve vikings coming to raid. Players have to work together to allocate workers to fight the vikings off or they will all end up taking a hit to their abbey!
There is also the main game board where players track their progress and can send their workers to complete their tasks. The worker placement interesting because all players can place simultaneously. At the same time, you can send workers on quests in the crusades to bring back points and resources – and you can enlist the help of the other players. Again, this game is very heavily focused on the “co-op” and the “competition” aspects; it’s a “co-opetition” type of game!
Overall, if you’re looking for a really solid worker placement game that also has a bit of a wheeling-and-dealing vibe then you should take a look at The King’s Abbey. It’s also a longer paced game which is perfect for a summer day or a long Saturday of gaming!
The King’s Abbey
The King’s Abbey is a worker placement/resource management game that transports you right into the 11th century. This is when great abbeys were a central part of the Middle Ages. Each player leads an order of monks commissioned by King Sivolc to construct a great abbey to defend against the ever increasing darkness that threatens to engulf the land. Players improve their abbey and gain prestige by training clergy, building towers and buildings, fighting off Viking attacks, and completing crusades. The player with the most prestige at the end of the game wins.
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Work together to build your abbey – just watch your score ticker at the same time…
