Border Reivers: Anglo-Scottish Border Raids, 1513-1603

Border Reivers took me back to old Avalon Hill games: not quite polished to a shine, but perfectly willing to let you enjoy the fairground. Its sixteen-page rules suggest more weight than the game needs; in practice, this is the most earnest dice game I have played since DBM, and I mean that affectionately.

Each player takes an English or Scottish family, and the main job is wonderfully plain: steal sheep and cattle from everyone else. There is no grand strategy hiding beneath the tartan. You look for a target, look at the livestock you want, and wonder who will remember the move when their turn comes round.

Between raids, the families can be drawn into battles of the period, so someone can hand out a slap with historical cover. The round-by-round drafting is the useful trick that stops card luck from running the table: you choose, watch what is left for the others, then steal their animals. The rulebook, incidentally, earns a respectable B for taking sixteen pages to explain such a straightforward game.

I had a good time with four and would play again, as would most of the group. With six, though, the table should become a proper borderland: more livestock, more targets, and enough people that no theft goes unanswered. I am not sure it will win over the hardest of hardcore GMT players, but for a group that wants light-fingered raiding, it is quietly excellent.