Split the Hoard
- Board's Eye View
- 12 minutes ago
- 3 min read
J R R Tolkein has a lot to answer for. There's no end of fantasy adventure games where intrepid adventurers embark on a quest inspired by dreams of untold treasure. This game from EN Publishing isn't one of them, however. For sure, it features versions of the various adventure game archetypes - warrior, wizard, cleric, druid, rogue - but the setting in Marc Kenobi's design is after the adventure is done. At the start of this game, the dragon has already been vanquished. The players represent the victorious adventurers. This game is all about divvying up the loot!
There's a lot of loot to nab. You want to claim your fair share and just desserts, and maybe a little more on the side, and you want to additionally be rewarded with titles so that sagas about your exploits will be passed down for generations to come. Split the Hoard then is a game where the 2-5 players are claiming treasures and buying them from each other. Some treasures will further your character's hidden objectives and others may score when paired in combo with treasures already in your stash. You can also activate treasures for their in-game effects, albeit by discarding them from your haul.
Players each draw three treasures which they must put up for purchase with a base cost of 1, 2 or 3 coins. They get to keep any treasures that don't get purchased. In turn, players can either take two coins from the supply or use coins from their haul to buy a treasure from those put up for negotiation by other players. You can make a treasure more expensive for a rival to buy but you will lose any coins you use to raise a price. You may want to do this tho' in order to discourage rivals from taking a card you need in your own haul, perhaps because it's essential to the set collection bonus you'll get for it. In our plays at Board's Eye View we had some memorable 'negotiation' sessions where players used inflated prices to trick others into thinking a treasure was especially valuable to them: a potentially expensive gamble but great when successfully pulled off.
Each character has an affinity with a particular treasure type, giving you a compensatory treasure card whenever one of your treasure types is taken. Your character type may also determine how ties are resolved; so, for example, the Rogue's affinity with wealth means they win if at the end of the game there's a tie for claiming the Wealthiest title.
This is in reality a set collection, bluffing and deduction game. Tho' the offer for trade is referred to as a 'negotiation' phase, there isn't any actual negotiation - just setting prices and deciding what and whether to purchase. We were surprised that the game didn't invite competitive bidding, but that would've been a quite different game. If you've a good memory you may have an idea of what cards others have in their hauls but it may well be imperfect because there are circumstances, including triggered card abilities, when cards are added directly to a player's haul without having gone through the 'negotiation' phase. The game comes with screens to shield your haul from the prying eyes of rival adventurers and EN Publishing have included a very helpful Appendix booklet that details all the cards and their effects. They just missed a trick in printing boards for each player that are identical on their reverse side; these could've instead offered alternative abilities or genders for the characters. That's a very minor gripe tho' in a light enjoyable filler-length game that makes an ideal end to an evening playing an adventuring game like D&D.
