Regroup! Chicken Army

Cluck, cluck, cluck! Assemble your chicken army and prepare for battle. The war seems endless, but using melee and magic you can overcome the other chicken armies and rule the land.

Regroup! Chicken Army is a tactical card placement game for 2-4 chicken leaders ages 8+. The game plays in approximately 20 minutes.

Set Up

Each player takes a chicken leader card and matching health card of their choosing along with a starting army grid card. All players place the starting card with the same side facing up.

Position the leader card over the health card so the large arrow points to 30 health. By moving your leader card throughout the game, you can monitor your health.

Shuffle the army cards and reveal the top three cards to create a lineup at the center of the table. Set the draw deck at the end of the row. The card closest to the deck costs two coins, the middle card costs one, and the furthest from the deck is free.

Game Play

The game is played in three rounds: arrangement, battle, and cleanup.

Arrangement

Expand your army by choosing one card in the lineup. To select a card that costs one or two coins, you must have that number of coins visible in your army grid. You may also opt for a random draw from the top of the deck.

Replenish the lineup immediately by sliding the cards toward the free card space and adding a new card to the two-coin space of the lineup. Three cards should always be available in the lineup for each player’s selection.

Add the selected card to your army grid by covering at least one square currently in your grid. Cards may be rotated, but never slid underneath cards or moved after placement.

Once each player has selected and placed a card, it is time for battle.

Battle

Now, each player takes turns counting the number of chickens that are adjacent to one another of the same type/background color.

The chicken with the starting player card announces their attack values for melee (number of red background chickens, holding swords) and magic (blue background holding wands) and the other players announce their defense values for melee (number of orange background chickens, holding shields) and magic (purple background chickens, casting barriers.)

With each battle, each player will deduct the number of health points they receive from unblocked damage.

Clean Up

If a chicken army’s health goes below zero, they are eliminated from the game.

Players then recover one health point for each visible potion visible in the army grid. The starting player card is passed to the next person to begin the next round of card selection and battle.

End Game

The game can end in three ways:

• Only one player has health at the start of the round – they win.
• All players have health below zero at the start of the round – the chicken army with the health closest to zero wins.
• If there aren’t enough cards to refill the lineup at the start of the round, the player with the most health wins.

Our Thoughts on the Game

After a couple plays of Regroup! Chicken Army, it quickly became a family favorite, and one our 8-year-old asks to play again and again. It’s simple to learn but nicely strategic, plays quickly, and offers an easy setup. For us, this translates into the perfect after dinner, weeknight, family game.

The tactical nature of this card placement game keeps things interesting, as you cannot rely on one specific strategy from game to game. Each family member has won in a variety of ways – from both forms of attacks and strong defense against each. While the thrill of a large fighting army makes for fun games (our daughter loved proudly announcing the damage she was about to unleash upon her parents, who watched in horror as her army continued to grow with each passing turn), sometimes it’s all about lots of defense and watching the other players eliminate themselves first. As the game continues, rotating and locking in cards in strong locations becomes a bit more challenging and important, especially while simultaneously attempting to fight and defend yourself against the growing army grids of other players.

Since you only need two coins for the option to select the most expensive army card, there is a strategy to attaining some gold and then no longer worrying about it (unless you need to cover coins for better army growth!) However, the cards with coins and potions can be especially helpful – we have had games where recovering health from potions factored in to a victory. Sometimes the random draw from the deck is fruitful, providing the chickens precisely needed to strengthen an army.

Good card placement is where the main strategy lies, and it was very rewarding to watch our daughter think through which cards to select and add to her army throughout our plays. We don’t have many games that provide the skills and mechanisms that Regroup! Chicken Army offers, so as a parent, I like having this type of game in our collection.

We are generally not fans of elimination games, but it hasn’t bothered us with Regroup! Chicken Army, perhaps because we are having too much fun and another game is usually only a few minutes away.

A couple variants add some light changes to the game. Instead of starting with the same army grid card, you can decide on the asymmetric start; choose your card or randomly assign them. There is also a variant called “Grasping at Feathers” where, when flipping your health card as it dwindles, you can activate the bonus icon on the leader card for extra chicken help.

We love Regroup! Chicken Army and play it often. If your family enjoys easy-to-learn, tactical, card placement games, this could make a great addition to the game shelf.

Find it on Amazon or direct from Draco Studios.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Regroup! Chicken Army from Draco Studios for this review.

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