Check out Symmetric Chess, our featured variant for March, 2024.

Feudal

Introduction

Feudal... The Game of Siege and Conquest is a chess-like game from The Avalon Hill Game Company. It has been around for quite some time (the copyright on the rules is 1976). Since it is a proprietary game which is copyrighted and trademarked, I will not give detailed rules. This article is meant to be a review and general description of the game.

Description

The game may be played by two players or two teams. For teams, each team may have up to three players. Also, a variation is given for four players.

At the start, a divider is placed between the two halves of the board. Each player then positions their pieces. Once play starts the divider is removed.

The playing board is 24x24 with various, irregularly placed terrain squares (mountains and rough terrain). Certain pieces may not move through such terrain. It should also be noted that the board is split into four separate quadrants which can be arranged in various positions. This allows for a wide variation in terrain patterns.

There are six basic piece types: king, mounted men, sergants, pikemen, squire, and archer. Mounted men generally have a greater movement range than the other pieces, however the other pieces have less of a terrain restriction. Archers obviously can capture at a distance.

There is another piece called the castle. This piece is stationary. The goal of the game is to enter and capture your opponent's castle.

This is a quick moving game, as each turn the player is allowed to move all their pieces, not just one! So, turns tend to be rather long, but the game itself fast moving.

Comments

The production quality of this game is fair. It is a bookshelf game, and so can be neatly displayed in your bookcase. The components are molded plastic, but still nicely detailed, and decent quality. The rules are clear and concisely written.

Having played the game but once, I cannot fairly comment on the playability, but I certainly did enjoy playing it (I'm sure the fact that I won had nothing to do with it).

Link(s)

See also:
Written by David Howe. Thanks to Alfred Pfeiffer for the link to the Spiele-Archiv.
WWW page created: October 13, 1997. Last modified: February 9, 2000.