Gadgetory

Game of Thrones hand of the king is out and it's already one of our officers go to tabletop games it's a two to four player game and matches lasts about 10 to 15 minutes so the last time we played a board game in the office we were here till about midnight and not everyone's got that kind of time to kill on pre-industrial horticulture luckily hand of the king is for you and it takes about a minute to learn and I'll prove that to you right now look at the board like a big sliding puzzle players take turns moving varus around a 6x6 grid you can only move him into a new position in a row or column that he's already touching and when he moves you take the character that he lands on plus any other character that belongs to the same house that he passes over let's say I take varus and I move him over to Ned Stark Square I'll pick up Ned and I'll also get Leanna adding both Starks to my hand if you've got more people belonging to one house than any other player you control that houses banner when varus has no legal moves left whoever controls the most banners wins the game there's a few other bits and pieces like companions that have special abilities and there are some rules to play in teams but that right there that's the entire core game forty seconds nailed it so my favorite thing about this game is the Oh moment when a new player is a move or two into their first game and they realize they need to start thinking two three four moves ahead setting themselves up for good moves and leaving everyone else with nada if you're new to hand of the King or even tabletop games in general thinking strategically and plotting like spymaster varus himself is a great feeling it's damn fun and surprisingly deep it comes in at around 15 bucks in the US or 20 bucks in Australia making it the cheapest tabletop game you'll buy this year check it out