1066: Tears to Many Mothers by Hall or Nothing Productions + GenCon

I have had this for quite a while and finally got a willing opponent. 1066: Tears to Many Mothers by Hall or Nothing Productions is a 1-2 player game designed by Tristan Hall. You have your choice of playing the invading Normans or the defending Saxons. There is no inherent advantage to playing the invader or the defender as each side is building toward the Battle of Hastings.

This is a hand management style game. Each player is seeking to build a 3x3 grid of units and characters with each column comprising one of the 3 “wedges.” Within your hand will be characters, units, events and upgrades. The goal of the game is to win 2 of the 3 wedges at the final Battle of Hastings or eliminate your opponent’s leader.

To add cards to your wedge, you have to spend points. You can have characters already in play that give you points or you can discard cards from your hand to get points. If you have a card that costs 3 points to play and you have one character already in play that gives you 1 point, then you would have to discard 2 cards from your hand to get the required 3 points.

There is a nice give and take with this game. Getting cards to the field of battle is not always easy and once there, it is not guaranteed to be there for the final Battle which determines the winner. Choosing which cards to deploy and when is your main strategy. Secondary to that is determining which wedge to put them in because most units cannot move from their location once placed.

In the final battle of Hastings, there are two rounds for each wedge. One is for Zeal and the other is for Combat. You total up the value of each for all cards in the wedge and compare to your opponent’s. Whoever is higher, puts a “wound” on it. The first person to put 10 wounds on, wins it. If you win 2 of 3, you win the game. In the case of a tie, you both get to put a wound on it.

I never even made it halfway through the deck of cards I had for the Normans so I think there are lots of strategies to explore. I tried to balance my wedges, getting equal numbers in all. But in retrospect, it was a losing strategy. And by the time I realized it, I had to alter my plans and try and take out the Harald, the Saxon king. It came down to a final card play which my opponent was able to direct away from the King and to another character.

There is much more to explore with this game, so if this quick review intrigues you enough, go search out more information… or better yet, go pick up the game. It provides a great historical feel to an easy to pick up card game. And I didn’t even touch on the gorgeous art!

Okay, we’re going to extend this post just a touch. We will be at GenCon 2019 and I am going to try and post every day with my thoughts and observations from the games I see and those I play in. If you cannot attend, stop back here and have a look. Like always, we’ll be keeping our reviews to just about 500 words.