Kopis
- Board's Eye View
- Feb 23
- 2 min read
Its strapline 'Outthink. Outflank. Outscore' sounds like a refrain from George Washington's 'Right Hand Man' song in Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton. However, Kopis is an abstract strategy game for two players that's published by SBG Editions. Actually, that's not entirely true: Kopis is in fact two abstract strategy games in a single box and which both share the same components. The design credits are shared by Stefano Di Maria and Chris Loizou.
Open up the long magnetic-sealing box and you'll find a neoprene play mat with its 6 x 6 checkerboard grid, two sets of plastic faction tokens and two stronghold castles for each faction. There's also a tower that's used in both games to mark the token that was last moved: both games involve moves that can push other pieces but you can't push a piece that has the tower on it. This prohibition prevents players from making back and forth moves.
Both games have similar scoring: you earn 2 points for each of your tokens that is orthogonally or diagonally adjacent to your stronghold but no points for those adjacent to the enemy stronghold. If a token is adjacent to both your own and your opponent's stronghold, it scores 1 point.
If you play the Storm the Castle game, each of your tokens moves just once - so players each have exactly eight moves. Pieces move straight ahead from their set up positions until they butt up to another token or stronghold, pushing them on to the next square. Strongholds cannot be pushed off the board but tokens that are pushed off are captured. They are each worth 1 point in end-game scoring.
In the Sudden Death game, tokens move just one square and the game ends when a player mobilises their eighth token. That means this is likely to be a longer game with scope for more tactical play. It also means that players can control the game end, so if you see you're in the lead you can end the game for a win. The game therefore becomes Sudden Death because both players will probably have seven of their tokens in play and will only bring on their last token when they can see they have attained the position for a winning score.
Both of the Kopis games play quickly: 10 minutes for Storm the Castle and around 15 minutes for Sudden Death. That makes Kopis a good filler length game for anyone who enjoys abstract strategy games, and particularly Chess and Checkers players.
