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Nottingham 1100 A.D.: The True King is away in the Holy Lands and the town is under rule by the evil tyrant, Prince John. He has forced matrimony upon Maid Marian and locked her in his castle against her will. The young princess sends word of her captivity to fabled outlaw and her true love, Robin Hood.
He vows to save her with help from his Merry Men — faithful souls who would follow him to hell and back! But this time, Robin sees doubt in their eyes. Little John, Will Scarlet and the other Merry Men deem the mission so perilous—it could plunge Nottingham into turmoil. Torn between love for the princess and his town, Robin devises a plan to save both! He proposes a challenge, betting his men that none can protect Nottingham as well as he. If one of them bests him at this task, he will bestow his mantle of leadership to the victor! They accept his wager, and pledge to rescue Maid Marian, no matter the outcome.
Their quest will require bravery, cunning and all the wits they can muster! Will one of the Merry Men become Nottingham’s newest hero, or will Robin live up to his own legend?
Robin Hood and the Merry Men is a semi cooperative, but a highly competitive board game set in the folklore we all know and love. It’s a thematic euro style game that perfectly blends worker placement, hand management, set collection and dice rolling into a one big exciting crossover.
In Robin Hood and the Merry Men, players take on the role of a famous outlaw such as Robin Hood, Little John, Will Scarlet and Jane Fortune, and their mission is to protect the town of Nottingham from the tyranny of infamous ruler Prince John and the notorious Sheriff of Nottingham throughout 5 rounds of onslaught. If they succeed, a winner is declared-the player with the most VP becomes Nottingham’s greatest champion.
Each round consists of two phases: A Merry Men phase and a Hero phase.
In the Merry Men phase, you will call upon your faithful friends who are famous for their abilities to build and set various traps. In order to stay one step ahead, you will send The Merry Men to acquire resources and weapons, and lay traps to catch the Sheriff’s endless army of Guards. Assigning Merry Men is done through playing Merry Men cards that offer variable actions.
With King Richard being away on the Crusades, Prince John has given the Sheriff of Nottingham power to tax the villages in and around Nottingham, so you must order your Merry Men to build barricades on the roads to prevent the heavily guarded and gold-filled carriages from entering the castle.
Before he went on his crusade, King Richard gave you certain tasks. In the midst of his struggles, he would welcome the news that his brave heroes have completed them.
In the Hero phase you will send your Hero to fight the Sheriff’s guards, ambush and rob the royal carriages of their treasures, enter archery tournaments, rescue prisoners from the castle’s darkest dungeons and much much more.
—description from the publisher
- Balancing personal gain with the greater good is a key challenge.
- Victory points are earned through various actions like building traps, barricades, and sending envoys.
- Jailbreaking opponents' Merry Men earns points directly.
- Managing Merry Men cards for potential endgame bonuses is important.
- A variety of action spaces available for both Merry Men and Heroes.
- Includes cooperative and solo modes with additional modules.
- Players must avoid losing the game due to running out of pennies or filling the guard track.
- Pushing luck too much when robbing can lead to arrest.
- Some actions require careful management of dice and resources.
- If Friar Tuck is still in prison at the end of the game (with the module), players lose.
- Hanging prisoners (with the Friar Tuck module) also causes immediate loss.
- Spy cards are worth negative victory points if left in the passive pile (with the spies module).
- Robin Hood legend
- Regency of Prince John
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- card drafting — Players draft weapon dice at the start of the hero phase.
- Dice rolling — Used for skill checks in various actions like robbing, fighting guards, and archery tournaments.
- Push Your Luck — Used when attempting to rob the rich, where players can continue to attempt actions for greater rewards but risk capture.
- Resource management — Players gather resources (wood, iron, tools, weapons dice, money) to build barricades, traps, and send envoys.
- Semi-cooperative — Players work together to foil villains' plans while also competing against each other to earn the most victory points.
- set collection — Players can score bonus points for collecting sets of matching Merry Men cards.
- Track advancement — Players advance markers on a reputation track, which influences victory points for certain actions.
- worker placement — Players place meeples (Merry Men) on action spaces to perform actions.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Hi I'm Tara you know Stella and this is my university have to play Robin Hood and the Merry Men.
- Players need to balance their action whether they need to add something that benefit the greater good or rich something that benefit them personally because everyone will lose the game if Prince John riches goal before the end of the game.
- The majority of your points will come from three main actions: building traps, building barricades, and sending invoices to the Crusades.
- Players need to work out how to balance these points scoring objectives with keeping the villains at bay.
- There is quite a lot of little points to remember in a lot of the actions so we put together a simple text cheat sheet which we use during the game.
- We found through playing the game that there is quite a lot of little points to remember in a lot of the actions so we put together a simple text cheat sheet which we use during the game.