The Grizzled: Friends making difficult decisions
My one gaming group had a farewell game day for one of my close friends, who is leaving town with his wife and baby to be near family. It was a bittersweet day knowing that in over a week, they won’t all be in Phoenix anymore. The last game we played that night was The Grizzled, fitting for a game about friendship and making hard decisions. The game even asks: Can friendship be stronger than War?
The Grizzled is a tough co-operative 2-5 player card game that plays about 30 minutes. Don’t let the little box fool you; this game is tense and brutal! Set during World War I, players go on missions in order to empty the Trial cards from their hand and make the Peace card visible. At the start of the game, there are 25 cards on the Peace Card and 34 cards on the Monument Card, which represents the Morale Reserve.
On each mission, the mission leader deals out cards from the Trials pile, which sits on top of the Peace card. During each player’s turn, he or she can play a card, use their good luck charm, make a speech, or withdraw and play a support tile.
When playing a card, players can either lay down a Trials card in No Man’s Land (the center of the table) or a Hard Knocks card (which goes in front of them). A Trials card may have one or more types of threats. There are six types of threats in the game — night, rain, snow, shell, mask or whistle. To prevent the mission from failing, there can be no more than 3 identical threats played.
A player can also use his good luck charm. Each player at the beginning of the game gets a Grizzled card, which has a threat printed on it, along with a four-leaf clover. If you choose to use your good luck charm, you flip over your Grizzled card and remove a card from No Man’s Land that contains the matching threat. If you decide to make a speech, you choose a threat, and everybody who is still in the mission removes a card from their hand that has that threat.
The mission continues until somebody is unable or unwilling to play more cards. At that point, the player must withdraw from the mission and lend support. The player secretly chooses a support tile and places it face-down on their Grizzled card. The support tiles are turned over simultaneously after everybody has withdrawn. The person with the most support gets to remove 2 Hard Knocks cards from in front of them, or recover their good luck charm. If there is a tie, no one gets support. Players get the support tile they received.
Should a mission fail, meaning three identical threats ended up in No Man’s Land, only support tiles that have been played are taken into account, and the player who received the most support can only get rid of a single Hard Knocks card. Also, Trials that had been played during this failed mission are reshuffled back into the Trials pile. If after resolving support tiles and a player still has 4 or more Hard Knocks cards in front of them, the game immediately ends and everybody loses.
The last phase is calculating the Morale Drop. For every card that players have in their hand, transfer that many from the Morale Reserve to the Trials Pile, with a minimum 3 cards. If the Morale Reserve pile is emptied, the game is lost. If there are still cards left on either pile, the mission leader marker passes to the left, a speech token is handed to the previous mission leader for a successful mission, and play resumes. For the Rookie game, players can ignore Traps from Trials cards. Traps are a symbol on the bottom of a Trials card, which then requires a card to be played immediately from the Trials pile. If the new card is a Hard Knocks, it goes in front of the active player.
In the spirit of friendship and board gaming, I’m hosting a giveaway of a brand-new sealed copy of The Grizzled. This is not affiliated with Cool Mini Or Not; I just enjoy the game so much that I wanted to share it with one lucky follower. Head on over to Instagram to participate. The contest is open to all and ends March 18, 2016. Good luck!