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Border Reivers by Jackson Pope
Back in the early days of wedded bliss Phil and wife were often to be found in the caravan in the northern parts of the Lake District. Being bored at one point – having exhausted the joys of the Keswick Pencil Museum and having no wish to hack up yet another mountain – the intrepid couple embarked on ‘The Border reivers car trail’ (a tatty map that had been lying around the caravan for many an eon). And what a pleasant jaunt it turned out to be. Hermitage Castle was perhaps the high point, but many another ‘sites’ were well and truly visited. Phil, inspired, set about creating a game on the Border reivers – reiving, stealing of cattle (actually, stealing cattle is reiving), blackmail, hot trod, and all the works – and a pleasant little game it was. It never quite made it to the big time, but it was always tucked away for the future.
Fast forward many years to Birmingham Expo where Phil gets chatting to the splendidly named Jackson Pope (of Reiver Games) who has just finished a run of a hundred copies of . . . Border reivers. Suffice it to say, Phil comes up with a typical Ragnar deal involving swaps of various games, and comes away with the promise of a copy of both Border reivers and It’s Alive. Fast forward again, it is Tuesday night, Jack is bringing with him the two games, Steve ‘Beast of Bradford‘ Slade has been lured out of his den whilst Roger is unavailable – a “hot date” with an “attractive woman”.
First up is Border reivers. There are only one hundred copies of this in existence (Phil’s is 99/100) which already makes it feel quite special. Apparently it takes three hours to make each game which is a lot of time to swap with a Ragnar. The components are first class – splendidly chunky triangles with which to build the map, good artwork, nice wooden pieces and some decent cards. As with seemingly all games of medieval warfare, the three players begin the game at the three corners of a triangular map. The game follows the standard sequence of recruit-move-combat-acquire revenue, but it does have some novel wrinkles:
- · Each triangle has a movement point cost to enter, but an army can also spend a turn there, flip the tile and make it easier to enter (a sort of 16th century version of the work of the allotments officer).
- · Combat is a very neat system – very bloody to both sides, where the advantages come from towers and castles (on the defense) and overwhelming numbers (on attack). It feels spot on when simulating the savage butchery of border warfare.
- · Cards and reinforcements are gambled for at the start of the turn – the more money you spend, the more chance of acquiring card or army.
- · Cards can be picked from the deck, and very atmospheric they are too. Particularly fitting is the Reiving card, where one of your armies descends on an opponents town or city, and if the opponent does not run them out before the end of his turn, the revenue of the place is yours.
The game bowls along very nicely. Phil goes for massed city building early on, Jack for fortifications, Slade (as befits the man) a curiously extensive programme of road building. Jack has a hack at Phil’s domain, Phil drives him back, Slade sneaks into Phil’s mine and heads for the finishing line, Phil drives him back, Jack plays various cards into different cities and Phil sneaks home in first place. A neat little game that plays in not much above the hour. Time well spent.
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