Oriflamme: Ablaze!

Oriflamme: Ablaze! – like it’s older sibling, Oriflamme – is a dastardly game of points-gathering, points-stealing and sinful character deprivation.

Players are each given an (identical) deck of cards, but before play starts everyone shuffles and loses three cards randomly: you might be without your Queen, whereas other players lose their Cut-throat and Trap cards. Play takes place over six rounds, and in each round you’ll play one card – meaning you’ll have just one card unplayed when the game ends. The rounds proceed with everyone playing a single card face-down into a row, adding at either end of the row, before the card row is resolved: going from right to left. Each card owner can choose whether to reveal their card or not: if you don’t, it accrues a point that can be collected when you do reveal it in a subsequent round. If you do reveal it, the card activates: and the activations are really what Oriflamme is all about.

Each card does a specific thing when activating, and it might be as simple as collecting points (the Queen) or as cut-throat as, well, the Cut-Throat, who eliminates not only a card adjacent to it in the row, but any other revealed cards of the same type! Which means there is a risk to not revealing and hoping to gather points later, as unrevealed cards can be targeted the same way revealed ones can be. We won’t list every card here, but be assured they are generally not harmless! From the Felon who costs opponents points to Trap which blows up in the face of an attacking player when revealed, the tone and experience of Oriflamme is mildly chaotic, very combative, and reasonably bananas: really, a game for players who love the idea of a food-fight but without the cleaning up afterwards.

There is a stacking rule which means you can protect a card by placing another atop it. However, this does mean the protected card can’t activate, so it’s an option to be used tactically, when you anticipate opponent attacks! After the 6th round is finished, the player with the most points wins.