Age of War Dice Game

Product Information

At the beginning of a game of Age of War, the fourteen castle cards belonging to the six clans are laid out in the center of the play area. Each turn, you must attempt to conquer a castle by laying siege to it with your forces.

There may be rare situations in which a player does not want to fill a battle line. For this reason, a player can always choose to lose one die instead of filling a battle line. Age of War is a fast-paced dice game for two to six players, designed by Reiner Knizia and set among the warring states of feudal Japan. In the game, you and your fellow players take on the roles of rival daimyos attempting to unite the Japanese clans by mustering your troops and conquering castles. The player begins his turn by rolling all seven dice. Then he decides to either start conquering a castle or to reroll his dice. To reroll his dice, he must lose a die by setting it aside for the rest of the turn. I originally was interested in this game mainly because I wanted a simple game that has a samurai or feudal Japan theme to it.

Battle lines with a number and a \ symbol are infantry battle lines. An infantry battle line is filled with one or more dice showing any \ symbols (\,\\, and \\\). To fill an infantry battle line, the total number of \ symbols must be greater than or equal to the number shown on that battle line. The story behind this game is that each player represents a Fuedel Lord that seeks to overcome other clans and their respective castles. This is accomplished through players rolling 7 dice that have been designed with graphics to represent Infantry, Cavalry, Archers, and a Daimyo (sp?). Through rolling the dice (and susequent rerolls) players amass the military units required to conquer a chosen castle based on the military requirements listed on the card. A sinmple but effective mechanic in this game has players reducing the number of dice they roll based on achieveing the miliatry requirements for each castle. You are either able to conquer a single castle in a single turn or you aren’t, its that simple.

Even Zombie Dice has more depth. I love Zombie Dice and can play it again and again but this game is a game where I feel that it asks for too much for a dice rolling game. It is just really really tough to roll for certain items such as 10 swords. I think we got it once out of 50 rolls but we rolled it when we didn’t need it. Castle cards belong to various clans, as indicated by the color and clan icon shown on the card. When a player has conquered all the castles that belong to a clan, he has conquered that clan; he flips those cards facedown and arranges them in a pile with the card showing points on top of the pile. When the final unconquered castle is taken from the play area, the game ends, and players tally their points by adding the point values of conquered clans and individual conquered castles. The player with the most points succeeds in uniting Japan under his banner and wins the game! Age of War is a fast moving, Japanese themed game of castle conquest using a dice pool to assemble your conquering army. Designed by the legendary Reiner Knizia, for 2–6 players, Age of War is a clean, fun game which won’t take much time to finish. Rules

Conquering a Clan

If the symbols on one or more rolled dice match all the symbols of a battle line, the player may fill the battle line. To do so, he places those matching dice on the card, covering up that battle line. Dice used to fill a battle line are not rolled by the player for the remainder of his turn. Each dice face has a symbol for cavalry, archery, daimyo, or 1–3 infantry denoted by swords. Each castle has one or more battle lines of these symbols, all of which must be completed for the castle to be conquered. A single roll of the dice pool must provide all the symbols required for a single battle line for it to be completed. If a battle line cannot be completed the dice pool can be re-rolled having set one die aside. A turn ends when the castle has been conquered or the dice pool has been exhausted.

To start conquering a castle, the player selects a faceup castle card and fills any one of its battle lines. To fill a battle line, the player must place dice on the battle line that match all the symbols of the line. Then the player rolls his remaining dice. After each roll, the player must either fill another battle line on the selected castle or lose a die and reroll his remaining dice. If you fill each battle line on the besieged castle card, you conquer it and add it to your play area. If you fail to complete all of a castle’s battle lines on your turn, however, your assault has been defeated, and you must wait until your next turn to besiege a castle. When a player conquers the last castle from the center of the table, the game immediately ends. Each player adds up all the points in front of him, which includes each faceup castle card and the topmost card of any conquered clan piles he has. Each card is worth a number of victory points. You can conquer cards owned by other players, but you need to conquer an additional daimyo line in the process. If a player owns all the castles of one clan, however, those castles are secure and cannot be stolen. What's more, these castles are now worth more points because you've united the clan under one ruler (you) and strengthened your hold over Japan.As is in the case of any other Fantasy Flight game that I own, I have found that the components are of the highest quality. In this case, thats not saying a whole lot given that the components boil down to 7 dice and (I believe) 14 cards. The dice themselves are some of the nicest dice I have ever used. Whatever polymer they used almost has a bone texture and appearance. The embossings are clear and the coloration of the markings is uniform and distinct. The dice have rounded corners and roll beautifully. Each battle line on a castle card must be matched exactly, with the exception of infantry. When you fill a battle line that requires infantry, you may match or exceed the number of infantry needed to complete the battle line. At the end of the game, each player scores the points shown on each faceup castle card in front of him.