Barbarian Kingdoms Review, A Surprise Hit of 2024s Board Game Releases

0:00 hello and welcome to board stupid my name is Wayne and I'm Matt and this is our review of Barbarian kingdoms Barbarian kingdoms is a area control game published by Aries games but also by Jester Chester is the is the actual it's the other other publisher other territories um and this is a really interesting game that if you want to hear us talk about uh or you can hear us just by listening but also we want you to hit the Subscribe button please hit that button yeah because it's really nice and it helps Channel massively if you think we deserve it after watching this review the rest of our content press it yeah on top of that if you press it the Barbarian will not come out to invade your house they won't invade your house so if you don't want to be invaded by barbarians subscribe barers or Barbers take you both of them together either subscribe that's another story it's another story we'll see another video subscribe right match talk about this game yeah let's go let's go let's go feeling nice cboard dreams and GS click subscribe it's a Vibe P two FS all we need for you and me what you Barbarian kingdoms is a game of area Conquest control and King slaying for up

1:32 to six players on your route to all of the king slaying and control you're going to be recruiting troops on the map and you're going to be doing that by paying the cost Associated and then placing your troop in an area that you already control not only that you're going to be putting the money that you need to pay for the troop also in that territory creating a spicy Target for someone to come and invade while you're preparing to invade you can maneuver your troops around the spaces you already control uh but only one troop can be in each space you can do a special castling maneuver like this by switching your king and a troop or if you do have a free space you can move one of your troops into an adjacent space that you control alternatively if you are by a port you can move one of your troops into the sea uh which will allow you to then Embark in any other Port space around the map which is very interesting indeed if you've been invaded another province which is another action that you can do you can then attempt to try and claim it by claiming it you're going to put your Shield here and if you've got all of your Shields out you're going to win the game you can also win the game by killing two opposing Kings all of this invading and killing and claiming can be contested by the other players in an Innovative and interesting combat system where you're going to be bribing your opponents by throwing money from your supply behind your screen into a bag and

3:05 giving it to your opponent yes you're going to be giving them money but also you're going to be giving yourself combat points the player with the highest combat points wins the battle again you win the game in two ways killing two other kings or controlling seven total territories so Matt first impressions of Barbarian kingdoms it's a very shiny shiny game Shin it's super shiny with all these um tokens that are um foil yeah foiled yeah everything is foiled and it's really nice but no apart from apart from that uh the first things that striked us when we saw it a Spiel was um well the board is exagonal yeah uh then you normally see exagon on boards but not boards exactly it's quite striking isn't it and uh when we came out today and and started checking out the game what it's about well it makes a lot of sense since you can play up to six players so each player will be at one of the side of the exagon and is where your kind of like your starting territory is is going to be um but apart from that yeah it's it's a really lovely um not even that complicated production is beside yeah beside everything that is foil in terms of the coins and the uh the treasures uh for the rest is standies and the hexagonal but um that's what just need it you don't pretty straightforward yeah I mean you you could imagine other Publishers doing this game with big Minis and things like that a lot of

4:36 minis you could see yeah the seamons of the world Etc doing something like that but it's not necessary and this game goes to show that that they focused really more uh on the game on the game not just what it looks like abut and talking about what the the the game is and how it plays so yeah we saw more or less how you play so uh you got your troops you're moving around the the territories you have to um CL not only moving in those territories you need to play or you can butle the the other um your neighbors and then you can come and uh and call for enforcement so that is all is all good but actually what do you think about the flow of the game I think the flow of the game is really fantastic because this is uh I mean it's not a Euro game it's it's a it's a hybrid area control it has some Euro influences from things like El Grande and and which you see a little bit of but um what I really like about this game is it is really heavily interactive and you're only doing one thing on your turn so it can actually be quite Snappy even with four five plus players you're not doing a bunch of stuff you do one thing which then resolves yeah but that's it you're either recruiting or you're moving or you're invading or controlling whatever it ising you're doing one of those uh five actions uh and that's it and it just flies around the table I think the flow is is really nice really yeah it's as you said it's very Snappy uh the box say is 15 minutes per player uh and I kind of like say probably a little bit more at the at the start probably at the

6:07 start uh CU you kind of like but at the end of the day those are the action you can take is do I need to put another dude on my map do I move it around do I want to do butter with this or that uh that that's very much it but the um the best things about the game I will say goes down to the close economy yeah and to the the Bri system that actually drives the game to uh to something that is uh different from all the this yeah you you don't really see this sort of closed economy uh in in many games actually weirdly enough where you never take anything from the supply there's not a bank there's there's no Bank whatever is on the board is the money in the coins are behind your screen your personal screen and the money the coins are on the map that's it that's it there's no more coin there's no banks there divine intervention that's going to fill up your if you need more money you got to go get more money from the map and then that money will flow between the players which is really interesting cuz you're going to need that money M because when you're doing actions you need to pay for them yes if you're going to be recruiting new dudes you need to pay the cost on your on your board and then put the money on the map yeah so that the the the more dudes you put on the map again it goes like uh first troop is costing one while the fourth troop will cost you four for for a single unit so having a lot of dudes on the map is actually uh it's going to cost you uh but on top of that yeah and

7:39 and then you say you're putting the whatever you you're recruiting I put in my dude here and I put the four coins here that if I don't claim it back the turn after someone else could claim come and take them so there is a lot of very um interesting uh strategies and tactics that you can do with this closed economies especially because again the bright things I was talking about it is that well when you do a fighting against someone else what you do is put some coins inside this little bag here so will your opponent and then we exchange the bag and then we see all right when gave me well what is it five coins while I gave him nothing at all nothing but in this case h he gave me five coins that means that he's going to is fighting power is going to have a plus five while I I gave him like nothing so my troops as as a zero however yeah I'm going to be happy to lose this fight cuz yeah probably I'm going to lose a dude but I'm getting five coins absolutely and that system is really really fun quite political lots of Mind Games going on which is really fun and more than just um the Fighting by invading other provinces you'll do fighting through people just challenging you because whenever you want to do something if you want to invade a province either a neutral Province or someone else's Province or whether you want to claim a if you just you just need to be a

9:09 diation to that to that if someone's adj to you they they might just say like uh uh uh uh not without a f and they can move their troops in and then you'll start bribing and and fighting that's great if you've got loads of money a big war fund you can succeed and smash your way around the table but if you do that too early then you're going to be struggling to catch up yeah a nice sort of risk reward there is a there is a risk rewards yeah kind of like push your luck in terms of like how much you can um uh you can bribe or how much you can fake it cuz sometime CU again all the money is going to be behind your screen so on the other place I'm don't really know how much you money you got in there so when I'm going to fight Wayne Wayne doesn't know if I'm very rich and going to put a lot of stuff in that bags or maybe not um so there is that that mechanism is that really interesting and the other very nice things is around the table they you create strategies and Synergy with the other players as well because he's like let's stop that player oh he's getting too much control or he's getting too close to the to the victory conditions so everybody start like getting against the single player very political but at the same time I think the the last time that we play I let you guys doing your all your things while I was doing my little things on the other side won the game like yeah everything is public right you got two main two stories two scoring conditions one is um have seven territories and you start

10:40 with three yep so once you get the other four on the board you win uh or the other one is killing uh it's two other kings two other kings so you are the king slay yeah K deserve to be victorious murder Kings you win and that's all public once you start getting that stuff out killing Kings talking yeah talking about the Kings as well that's the other interesting aspect of the game um each faction you got six faction again um each King and each faction will have different powers so there's a little little asymmetry in there uh some faction will let you collect more more coins uh some of them will let you recruit for Less uh or some of them are really yeah really fighting some some of them if you're fighting in your own territories you got more defense someone else if you kill a dude you kill it permanently doesn't go back which is brutal yeah cuz again the other things we haven't mentioned if if my dude if my dude um is killed on the map it will go back on my board to be recruited again in in the future if I again while that the power for that specific King if I is the busy go Kings if this is gone is gone forever so um it's it's really interesting and how then you base your play style on the on the power that you have again it's nothing um uh game breaking it's not like oh that power is it's it's something that is really nice that

12:10 is a little bit more interesting and I like that you have both a faction power and a king power so the king power is only working if your King's alive King yeah exactly right if your King dies doesn't mean you lose the game doesn't mean you're you can still win technically uh but your king won't be able to exert his power or influence uh to to do that thing other things love about this game is this this c space is like one's space and that's makes it fascinating cuz if you're in a port uh region which is one of these little icons here which will show during the close-ups you can go into the sea with your units and then you can then Embark at any other Port which makes it very spicy so if you're in a port you are very advantaged because you can move around wherever you want on the map at the same times everybody can attack you yes so it's it's quite interesting and this is the beauty of these games is that everybody is constantly fighting against each other it's not and there is never that things where okay um here in this corner the player that is plays on the other corner will never actually meet or we never I'm just going to fight on left and right no no no he uh is a mush pit is a really fun one as well we talked about the closed economy we talked about um or the fighting the combat and the bribery system which I think is amazing Amazing by the way and we'll talk a little bit about how you take the cash uh because taxing is really important you're limited by the number of things that spaces that you can tax but you can only tax if you can control the places and you can only

13:40 recruit if you control the places so it's kind of a slow start so this game has a really interesting Arc a slow burn as everyone slowly coming out from their home bases taking over a couple of neutral provins just to be able to recruit yeah just to be able to start taxing more and again as soon as you manage to uh control four different um territories that is another there is another big of the condition so at the start everyone's going to be getting at least one or two out so very quickly it escalates and you're going to be butting up against someone else's Bally especially because the territories the map is is big but not that big no it's pretty tense you only can put one dude on each territories that means that you got four Dudes plus your King five of that territories are yours uh technically and there are not that many so you are constantly neck to neck with with your neighbors and trying to find out what they want to do should I attack should I not should I let them take that territory so they can move out and then I can move in it's quite tactical but at the same times in a short time it's not it's not a three hours games this is in a in a four player is an hour an hour which an hour and a half with a six play is when there is a lot going on um and I find it that absolutely fantastic and um I think it's going to give us a nice segue to the next section or is this game for let's find out okay when so as we said what do you

15:12 think this game is for uh if you're a fan of those a majority games which we are uh if you like things like blood Rage or or Rising Sun or an God of EGP the the the Lang Trilogy um or or The Godfather even or if if you like um more classical games like this might be worth looking into because I think this is has more in common with El Grande weirdly things like the SE game yeah but it's even if it's Lally different El Grande is area majority while this is area direct combat this is very much direct and this is I got one dude in my territory that is my territory um so there is yeah that's slightly different but absolutely that is the the kind of spirit of the game is controlling territories making sure they your troops can move in the right um position before attacking or be ready to be to defend a certain territory that you want to tax in the future or something that you want to claim to try to win the game uh or Ambush someone else King to try and kill him and if you really like an interactive game this is heav interactive really heavily interactive we talked about um outside on civilization which has some area control elements very um not similar really but it has the controlled Pace right where only one person on occupies a space really um but this is very different cuz in that game you can kind of turtle a little bit in this game you can't you cannot Turtle because other players will not let absolutely yeah you will be attached from all angles so I

16:44 think you really need to be offer an interactive game it's an it's an anchor game so uh you need to be ready for some you got Buck strap up and get ready for it what about you who do you think it's called um I think you you named them um those are the usual but um I find this is it's a really fun game it's um it's probably less thinky from a certain point of view CU again your actions are very limited you got one action per turn so you can think as much as you want but you still got one things to do and sometimes you won't really have sometimes you're forced to do some some of the action uh but again I love the this mosh bit feel where everybody's against everyone and uh if you really want yeah you need to talk with the the guys sitting next to you and TR oh can we make an alliance how much how much you want to pay for it and and and this and the close economy and this bribe section where I fight you but still pay you money so even if you lose the territory you might get a lot of money they're going to bounce you back into the game so there is that constant no one is ever in the at the back in this game so you don't really know winning until someone wins the game and I find it really really entertaining and most of all is a fun game absolutely Matt should you move on to the next section yes let's do the final thoughts so Matt give us your final thoughts on Barbarian Kingdom and

18:15 where would you put the complexity of it um I will put the complexity into intermediate probably uh it's not it's not a beginner game uh but at the same times it's not uh the rules are not that complicated it's um is quite easy to pick up especially if you played already some area control games and um some some more games and that my my main thought about this game that is a fun games to play and it's fun to be around all the all the five people that playing these games and uh whatever happened happens and I finally I had a such a such a great time this game I think what I really liked about this game um many things really but it it's way you got to be very careful because you only have four pieces right the maximum of you're not going to have loads and loads of TRS right you don't got tons of stuff in your supply loads of what you've got four guys right so where you put them how you maneuver them is very important right and you can easily make a mistake so there is a narrow room yeah but the game doesn't drag on too long you're not playing for like 4 hours and being upset because you're messed up yeah because you just put the wrong the dude in the wrong position hours of game time down the P hour and a half and then you can laugh about it afterwards it's just short enough to not not feel bad no no yeah just not feel bad I love the closed economy system I think that needs to be done more um it really encourages going out and getting

19:47 resources and attacking your friends if they're sitting on a pile of taxable money that a you don't want them to have because they can use it to bribe you and B you want to yeah cuz you once you finish your money you finish you need to go out and fight to get it yeah which is really cool I think I'm more going to pop this up towards the advanced I think just because this has um all of the asymmetric Powers as well with the King and different kingdoms and different setups and if you've got more players and it gets absolutely crazy um but I think if you are an intermediate player that wants to push on a little bit this is a good purchase and wants to be a little bit fighty this is one of those I think is a real underrated hit a real un unsung g under the radar for us under the radar uh I'm really really happy that we managed to actually get a copy and um and have a lot of fun with this game thank you just games by the way to provided this copy for us it's fantastic and uh we loveed it we got play absolutely so I will say it's definitely a big recommendation for me if you looking for um for an um area control and uh a little bit of a fighting FY game yeah absolutely I think this is a a strong recommendation from both of us yeah absolutely so that was our review of Barbarian kingdoms by Jesper and sometimes o games both of them both of them it's a fantastic area control game with some really interesting elements close economy uh bidding uh sorry

21:20 bribing love bribing my friends great fighting fighting fighting figh fighting fighting mhing controlling territories slaying King KS satisfying way absolutely it is staying Kings feels good feels powerful but yeah what but again we loved it we it and um he went under the radar we really think that you should keep an eye on this one and uh if you can manage to grab a copy definitely do it and uh have a look go check this out on BGG go have a look see if you can grab a copy for a good price cuz I don't think it's even that expensive I think really around the 40 Mar pretty good or less uh so worth a punt if you're in the market for a fighty area control game and let us know what you think in the comments below and if you liked this video you know what to do it just hit the like button and then also hit the Subscribe button absolutely do that because we have a plan for our top area control games of all time at some point in the future so hit that and then you'll get told about you'll know and what's not to like about that check out the rest of videos and we're going to catch you again real soon me what you play