Review copy provided by Renegade Game Studios
Viscounts of the West Kingdom is the final installment in the West Kingdom trilogy from Shem Phillips and S J Macdonald.
The games have been published in successive years since 2018 and have frequently contended with other strategy games for top honors from many tabletop award ceremonies. While each adventure focuses on gaining Victory Points in a competitive strategy environment, the gameplay has been slightly different each time, combining classic mechanics together in novel and satisfying ways. There is always some worker-placement, but card drafting, variable player powers, and other mechanisms feature in the trilogy as well, albeit in innovative and contrasting ways.
It’s never the same experience twice in a row, but the familiar iconography from Shem Phillips and the delightful art from The Mico lend a sense of continuity to the three games.
I have not played or reviewed Paladins yet. I plan to. But I have reviewed both Architects and its Artisans expansion. Along with Raiders of the North Sea and the soon-to-be-released Raiders of Scythia, which builds on the mechanics of its predecessor, I feel quite at home in the STU (Shem Tabletop Universe).
So, as the West Kingdom Trilogy takes a bow, let’s explore what is new to this strategy game and what would entice gamers to grab a copy of Viscounts.
STORY
The West Kingdom saga started circa 850 AD and we have now progressed to the end of the next century, with Architects and Paladins making way for the King’s viscounts.
Viscounts of the West Kingdom is set at a time when the King’s reign began to decline, circa 980 AD. Choosing peace over prosperity, our once strong King began offering our enemies gold and land to lay down their axes. But peace is a tenuous affair. As poverty spread, many people lost faith in his ability to lead and sought independence from the crown. Since finding favor in his courts, our future has also become uncertain. As viscounts, we must be wise and decisive. Loyalty is to be upheld, but gaining favor among the people must be our priority, should there be a sudden shift in power.
As agents of the crown, players will trade for resources, build structures, delegate other workers, and write manuscripts in an effort to both sustain the power of the king and build rapport with the people. It’s a balancing act that will involve a lot of movement, networking, and action.
Are you viscount-y enough for the job?
GAMEPLAY
Who wants the most Victory Points? You want the most VPs. That’s the goal, anyway, as it’s always been in a Shem Phillips game.
And, yes, there’s worker-placement mechanics. But say hello to deck-building in Viscounts, with Starting, Neutral, and Hero Townsfolk that will all help you get the job done. The gameplay is a joy to unpack—and unpack you will because there is a lot happening on this modular board.
As usual, a player’s turn is a rather simple one. It involves deciding which of three cards in your hand to play. Players will then resolve the effects of their cards, decide on one of four actions, and complete their turn by using card symbols and resources to follow through with their choices.
The difficulty lies in figuring out what actions to do in what order to achieve a certain result. Build now, trade after, and transcribe later? Or place a worker now to get a resource that helps to build a building for the extra symbol needed to transcribe that manuscript… and then trade afterward to start all over?
The kingdom is going to grow in prosperity or devolve into poverty. Or maybe both. And it’s up to the players to decide which side of history they’re going to be on.
I think that Viscounts does the best job so far in creating player interactions that are not too aggressive while also providing a competitive landscape to pursue Victory Points. Raiders of the North Sea had scattered “take that” Townsfolk cards that negatively affected other players when played, hired, or killed and that didn’t always fit as well within that resource-gathering game. And Architects had the worker-removal mechanism of tossing other players’ workers in Jail, which was one of several ways to adversely target your opponents during that game.
This doesn’t really have that as much. You can knock other players’ workers off the castle, but when you do, they are compensated for it, which can be advantageous at times. And when you end up in the same spot as other players’ Viscount meeples, that actually benefits them and gives them the opportunity to rearrange cards on their player board.
So there is interaction, but it’s not really hostile at all and can end up being a positive encounter for other players. This is a step in the right direction for games that are not really designed to be wholly antagonistic, like the brutal 4x games where player attacks are frequent and expected.
I will say that the gameplay and the associated rules are a little harder to teach other players, though. That is something that might take more time. There’s just more to do here and since everything is intertwined, that means that players need to understand the nuances of each action and how they can relate to other actions.
Deck-building has associated rules with the drafting and discarding of cards to winnow the number of and to strengthen the quality of cards in the deck. Set collection means that there are certain Manuscripts that you might want to acquire over others because of their long-term benefit. Worker-placement is important around the castle because the rules for advancement and exile depend on numbers. Resource-gathering is connected to constructing buildings, which is also connected to every other action when considering the symbols uncovered by a finished building.
So it’s all mixed up into one big Viscounts ball and players will take some time to chew on that.
At the end of the day, though, if you like other games in the North Sea and West Kingdom trilogies, then you will surely enjoy Viscounts of the West Kingdom. If you haven’t tried anything from Shem Phillips and S J Macdonald, then I still encourage you to check this out because it’s a meaty, saucy, lovely bowl of tabletop spaghetti and you’ll want to slurp it all down.
VISUALS
There are aspects of Viscounts that make the visual experience of a West Kingdom game even better.
Having a physical meeple for each player helps to anchor them in the world a little bit more than the previous two games and that’s made more delightful with the hulking big wooden component for each player color. It’s a big piece that feels great in your hand as you maneuver it around the board.
The castle is another addition that I really like. Not only does it serve a role in the gameplay as the site of the struggle for influence with the king, but it also functions as a centerpiece for the board that keeps the modular pieces in place. It’s a nice touch that elevates the quality of the board while also serving a purpose beyond the aesthetic.
The chunky, custom-shaped resources are another win for Viscounts. I don’t really care for the bland (and sometimes off-colored) resources in either of the Raiders games. I wish they were a little better done. But the Ink Wells, Gold, and Stone in this game are easily distinguishable, in both color and shape. The buildings, as well, are distinct. It makes for easy gameplay.
I feel like the designers and the artists have taken everything they’ve learned over the last six games and fine-tuned it into a strategy game with a lot of depth that is matched with equal attention to detail from a visual perspective. The game looks beautiful and I appreciate any opportunity to revel in The Mico’s work.
It’s a success in both production and design.
REPLAYABILITY
So much is going on in a game of Viscounts. There is worker-placement, deck-building, variable player powers, set collection, and AI solo play. It’s packed full of mechanisms that all combine for an engaging tabletop experience.
And the full-to-the-brim gameplay also gives so much variability that guarantees a high replay value. No two games will be alike and no two player counts will function exactly the same. It’s got a lot of depth to it that won’t be accessed in every playthrough.
With the flip-flopping Deed and Debt decks, the king-of-the-hill brawl in the castle, the permanent bonuses from buildings, the ribbon-striped Manuscripts, and all of the other possibilities that exist, players will always be fighting over something different.
It’s probably my favorite game in the West Kingdom trilogy, based on my experience with Architects and all that I’ve read about Paladins. And I know that it will get even more playing time with the release of The West Kingdom Tomesaga, which turns all three games in the trilogy into an epic campaign or cooperative experiences. I’ll be reviewing that expansion opportunity later, but it only reinforces the fantastic replayability that already exists in Viscounts.
WHAT IT COULD HAVE DONE BETTER
The two areas where this game drags are in player setup and rules explanations.
Setup involves getting starting cards passed out, player cards passed out, Hero Townsfolk cards passed out, starting resources divided according to each player, debts or deeds distributed as needed, and all other components spread out on the game board and near the players. It’s a lot. However, it’s not really something about which I can offer too many suggestions because, yes, the current approach is clunky but it ultimately introduces a lot of variability and replayability to the game. Having player cards with different starting resources and specific Hero Townsfolk with unique effects aid in adjusting the beginning state of play. So the lengthier setup is something that I would suffer through or endure in order to maintain that high level of variability. It’s worth it in the long run.
The gameplay rules, though, could be aided. The North Sea and West Kingdom games all share the same or similar iconography, so gamers that have played Raiders or Architects or any of the previous Shem Phillips games will be able to jump in without too much trouble. For other players, though, it may be a little more difficult, and Viscounts packs so much into the game—and on the player board—that a rules reference would have been useful.
In games that utilize a lot of cards and thin player boards, it wouldn’t be too burdensome to add some rules reference cards and that would help minimize some of the time dedicated to explaining rules, reminding other players about those rules, and discussing things that slow down and break down gameplay.
The complexity in Viscounts is higher than other games in the two trilogies, so any tactic used to mitigate confusion and smooth out gameplay is desirable.
VERDICT
You really can’t do everyone in this game. You won’t be able to effectively build all the buildings, transcribe all the manuscripts, and place all of your workers in the upper tiers of the castle. But that’s okay because it accurately simulates the tug of war that the viscounts would feel when trying to appease both a king in decline and a dissatisfied populace on the rise. It’s a tricky juggling act and players will have to just navigate the best path through the storm.
Viscounts of the West Kingdom is a game that has both learned from other Shem Phillips games and also steered off course and charted a new path. Yes, it’s a little bulky during setup and a smidge laborious to teach, but that stems from a wealth of possibility rather than a cluster of confusion. You can play so many different ways and they’re all interconnected.
Like the bulbous-nosed and pot-bellied Trader, Viscounts is girthy and that’s going to keep it alive when other games waste away and fall off the shelf from a lack of substance. Like the lithe and sneaky Scoundrel, this game will move forward at a slick pace as players decide what card to play and what actions to carry out as a result.
It’s a fun game that softens the complexity with the familiar mechanics and atmosphere of all the games that came before it. And it’s a rewarding conclusion to the West Kingdom trilogy.
Learn more about it and order it from Renegade Game Studios if you’re interested.
