Designed by: Stephen McLaughlin
The Duke is inspired by the classic Chess and shares some elements with it – the square, gridded board (6×6 here rather than chess’s 8×8) and a series of pieces that move around it in different ways, attempting to win by capturing the Duke.
However beyond these initial similarities The Duke becomes more intriguing. Rather than start with all their pieces on the board, players only start with three (the Duke, and two Footmen) and on their turn they can either move one of their pieces OR add another piece by drawing it from a cloth bag.
Movement varies enormously from piece to piece – some plod like pawns, but some can slide, some can jump, some can even destroy or take control of other pieces from a distance. Landing on your opponent’s piece also destroys it. But after every movement the active piece flips over, and has a new set of movements. Which sounds like a lot of rules but as all the movement options are clearly marked on each piece, it’s fairly intuitive.
Adding another piece from your bag obviously strengthens your army – but it also means you’re potentially handing over the initiative in battle. The other option you might have is using a piece’s special ability – it depends how many pieces you choose to play with, and it’s probably best to start with the simpler pieces first and move on after a few games.
Also coming with the box are some terrain tiles that give you a mountain for instance to fight around, and some variant games using the base game tiles.
Its a battle, so there will be good deal of take that.
It is a game that requires some deliberation over your move so would suit players who like a thoughtful battle - though you could feasibly play a timed variant.
All your options are clearly displayed on the pieces so it's a very accessible game, despite the variations in play. But it's also deep.
After your starting hand any new tile is drawn randomly, so The Duke will always be different.
2-2
Players
10+
Years
30-60
Mins
Sam says
The Duke is a game I respect rather than relish; but that's a purely personal thing. I don't have any objective critiques to make of it; it does what it does very well, and lovers of chess and other abstract games such as Go will find a lot to appreciate. I'd say the drawback for lovers of open information is that you don't know what you're going to draw from your bag, and this can lead the game to feel slightly dependent on chance.