Unique concept in two games going on at once essentially. Quick game, but you have to know when to be aggressive and when to wait one more turn before striking.

Common complaints are that you can't recover from bad luck and the card scale will end up favoring one person in the end (usually whoever goes last). You can't do anything about the luck, but there are a couple tricks to game the cards in your favor if you know what's going on.

The 5 attacks is nice in that you have to plan out what you want to accomplish and not just plow ahead and attack everything in site. You can use that to your advantage in the final duel by perhaps leaving a few troops in the Shields in the middle, forcing the other player to attack from the sword to reduce the Shield and waste an attack (or else attack the Shield at bad odds).

Always interesting option of after eliminating someone up top, of when to go for the bottom. Sometimes if you don't get the bottom Sword/Shield first, that doesn't mean you lose - just means your opponent took out all those neutrals for you! :)

I would love to see an Eight Person version of this, perhaps where after the first round the "winner" can choose which way to go next.

i like trains

Unbalanced. Very little chance of coming back once any advantage is gained. Interesting concept, but implementation makes the gameplay very limited.

I liked it, the subduel aspect is novel, and planning the five attacks provides some thought without melting your brain. Aggression is rewarded, but stay too aggressive and a well trained player can reverse the tide. My only complaint (and this is substantial) is that the board can lock up in the bottom duel when two evenly matched players enter at the same time. I wonder how many boards are won by the player first to control their respective mini-duel (my guess is: every), so replayability points are severly diminished. I really like boards that cut out the boring clean-up rounds and to this end the capital-quickening idea is ingenious. Kudos to risky, as usual, for trying something different.

What's better than a duel? That's right: *Two* duels happening simultaneously! I think it's set up quite nicely - the limited attacks keep the first players in each corner from overwhelming the second players and evens things out a bit. There's definitely an optimal strategy or two (HINT: Aggressiveness is good!), but there's nothing wrong with that. All in all, a solid, different board.

I find this board very fun to play. I don't see the point of limiting the number of attacks per turn, though, and I'd rather see that done away with.