Paladins of the West Kingdom

This game is an outstanding addition to the West Kingdom series and easily my personal favorite. The strategic interplay between actions and the risk-reward dynamic of gaining suspicion are standout features. Although each action has a thematic name, the game has an abstract feel to it. The solo AI is well-balanced and provides a competitive challenge without being overly complicated. Overall, this game is a fantastic option for fans of crunchy Euro-style games.

Amazing 2 player game and was happy with my order!

I am very happy with Paladins of the West Kingdom. I play solo mode and there is a lot of variety to the solo campaigns and fun game mechanics. I wager the other games in the trilogy might be more interesting at higher play counts. Before purchasing I would recommend watching a few gameplay videos on youtube to get a feel of what the game is like in comparison to the other games in the trilogy.

This game took me 2 tires to really get, but now it's my favorite in the West Kingdom trilogy. It can feel a bit like multiplayer solitaire at times due to how much happens on your player board, right up until you're racing to get the spots on the main board that you want.

Your first impression of this game will be that this is a heavy box for its size. The box is packed full. The player boards are dense, and the remaining space is full of wooden meeples. The rulebook was easy to read, and the examples provided were helpful in understanding the rules. The layout of the book makes it easy to reference actions that are available to you. There are seven rounds, and if you manage your meeples and resources well, you can take many more turns than the minimum two you could probably otherwise make with the six meeples you start with. The paladins help you in this if you coordinate your actions with what each brings to the table. I didn't find that there was much randomness, or that it was mitigatable with choices you could make. I also didn't think that I would be able to score very highly by the third round, thinking that I should have tried a focused approach instead of balanced, but the game ended up being quite well tuned, such that by the end of the seventh, I was just able to reach some of the maximums and had exhausted almost everything that I could do. While there is some area control in the game that prevents taking a particular action if already taken by another player, I did not find that it unduly hampered my ability to take actions. It certainly prevented one path, but with many paths available, I was not blocked in my quest forward. The game did not end with me wanted to play again right away, so while a good game, it just didn't have the appeal to make it a great game with repeated plays. It is an engine building game, and I don't know that there would be a lot of variance between games, or in other words not much difference in strategy or execution. I liked it; I didn't love it.

I love this game. I have only played it twice so far, and have yet to try the solo mode, which I am very excited about. Both plays were very tight in the scoring, even though each player built a very different engine. First play took overly long AP wise, but it improves with familiarity.   It's a simple worker placement, however, you only place on your own player board. Where it is clever is that each player has their own identical deck of paladin cards that they shuffle, draw three at the start of the turn, choose one to play, one to return to the top of the draw deck and one to send to the bottom, possibly never to be seen again. Each paladin grants you unique bonuses, which will affect your choices for the round. It's a thinky puzzle as you slowly build up your engine, trying to cascade benefits. The first 3/4 of the game it feels like you haven't done anything and then the last two rounds are just amazing and your planning pays off. So, excellent game arc.    Components are great, the art is enjoyable and the rulebook was clear and easy to understand, which is a bonus for any game. I think it will have a fair amount of replayability. Highly recommend it.