Warrior Knights

Warrior Knights is a board game originally published by Games Workshop and later published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2006. Players take the role of a Baron attempting to claim the throne of an unnamed (but ostensibly European) kingdom. Gameplay revolves around raising an army and obtaining enough money to maintain that army.
An expansion, Crown and Glory, was released in 2007, adding scientific advancement and other optional rules to the game.
Contents
Warrior Knights is played on a square board approximately 24" to a side. The majority of the board is used to represent the Kingdom, and is divided into hexagonal areas. Additional insets are used for overseas cities, all of which are real places, notably including Jerusalem and Constantinople. Additional areas on the board are used to keep track of stacks of cards or counters.
Typical of Fantasy Flight's products, the game includes numerous tokens printed on heavy cardstock used as counters. Types of counters include gold crowns, faith, votes, influence, casualties, and breaches.
Several decks of cards are also included. Each player receives an Action deck, which is used to select what activities that player will perform each round. Other decks of cards include events, agendas, and mercenaries. Of special note is the Fate deck, which is used to resolve any random outcome within the game.
The locations of cities are marked by a plastic city piece, and each player has four plastic Noble figures, which are used to represent that player's armies and the Noble who leads them.
Gameplay
Each round of gameplay consists of at least three phases: Planning, Action, and Upkeep. In addition, the following special phases may be triggered during the Action phase, and may or may not happen in any given round: Taxation, Wages, Assembly, and the Mercenary Draft.
Planning
Each player selects up to six action cards from his action deck. These are divided into which two the player wishes to execute first, which two second, and which two last. All players' "first" choices are shuffled together, all "second" choices shuffled together, and all "last" choices shuffled together. Two cards from the Neutral Action deck are shuffled into each stack.
Action
Cards from the "first" action stack are revealed and resolved one at a time. A player's action card may allow the player to collect crowns, votes, or faith, Move or attack with an army, or claim a turn in the mercenary draft. Neutral actions typically affect all players and may result in an Event card being drawn or provide opportunities to replace casualties, repair or improve city defenses, or invest in an overseas expedition.
After each card is executed, it is allocated to one of the card stacks on the lower right-hand corner of the board. When one of these stacks contains enough cards, one of the special phases is triggered.
Upkeep
During the Upkeep phase, any player who has control of more than half the cities in the Kingdom wins. If no player controls that many cities, each player receives one Influence counter for each city they control. These counters are taken from a pile set aside at the beginning of the game. When this pile is exhausted, the game ends and the player with the most influence is the winner.
Taxation
When a Taxation phase is triggered, all players gain a number Crowns determined by which cities they control.
Wages
When a Wages phase is triggered, all players must pay the troops they control. Unpaid mercenaries desert the player's army and are shuffled back into the mercenary deck.
Assembly
Three Agenda cards are drawn. These may adjust the rules of the game or give one player additional options. Players spend their Vote tokens to determine whether or not an agenda enters play, or to determine which player receives the card.
Mercenary Draft
The only way a player can increase the size of his army is by hiring mercenaries. A number of cards equal to one more than the number of players is drawn from the Mercenary deck. Players claim turns in the Mercenary Draft during the Action phase. When all the turns are claimed, the Mercenary draft occurs. Players who have claimed a turn have the option of hiring one of the available mercenary cards by paying the fee listed on the card.

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See Also

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