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

Border Reivers is a very recent GMT release that brought games from another era to mind: that Avalon Hill phase when titles came out by the truckload, quality control felt optional, and yet you still had fun amid the carnival. It has that slightly unruly, old-fashioned charm. And yes, it is an excessively simple game—much simpler than its 16 pages of rules prepare you to believe. That is not necessarily a criticism; it is simply worth knowing what you are opening.

Each player takes charge of a family or clan, English or Scottish, and the central aim is to snatch sheep and cattle from everyone else. The interaction, then, is not hiding behind polite curtains: you look at someone else’s livestock and consider how to make it yours. If you expect a weighty historical game with complicated procedures, you will probably find something far more immediate and clear-cut here.

Between livestock raids, battles from the period may also arise, so the clans can trade a few slaps. At its heart, the game feels like the most straight-faced dicefest I have played since the days of DBM. Even so, the drafting each round does meaningful work: it does not remove cards or uncertainty, but it eliminates the feeling that randomness is simply dragging you around by the nose.

We had a good time with four, though I suspect it will be even better with six, precisely because the livestock thefts will become proper chaos then. I would play it again, as would most of my group. I will not put my hand in the fire for the most hardcore GMT players, but for a group wanting some historical atmosphere, plenty of teasing, and cattle changing hands, Reivers has its fun.