Kingdom Battle

Using character and action cards, players ages 5+ practice their addition and multiplication skills to assemble armies and fight their way to victory.

Set Up

Shuffle the character and action cards separately, then place the two decks in the center of the table with room for a discard pile.

Deal each player a starting hand of five character cards and two action cards.

Determine the game play level of difficulty (easy, medium, hard), considering ages of players and math skills when doing so. Further game options include choosing between epic battle and starter battle, speed modes, and extra challenges for winning the game.

Playing the Game

On your turn, you always battle the player to your left. (The only exception is playing a Death Match action card.)

The attacker and the defender form their armies by choosing any number of cards from their hand to send to battle. The cards must meet one of the following criteria: play any one card, play a set with the same color, play a set with the same number, or play a set with a number sequence. Wild cards may also be used within each set. Action cards may also be added to trigger effects.

When ready, place the set on the table face-down.

Once both players have selected their cards, flip your cards to reveal your set.

First, apply the effects of the action cards.

The attacker adds their attack points for the level of difficulty selected at set up (noted by the sword icon and color) and the defender adds their defense points for the level of difficulty selected at set up (noted by the heart icon and color.)

The player with the highest number of points wins the battle and captures all cards played. Place these in a collection pile to count at the end of the game. Tied? The defender wins!

After the battle, both players draw two cards from the character and/or action decks. The maximum hand limit is seven cards.

Game End

The game end is triggered when all character cards are played. Players continue with battles using the cards remaining in their hands. When all players have played their cards and are out of the game, it ends.

Count the cards won throughout the game. The player with the most cards is the winner.

Our Thoughts

If the mechanisms of this game sound familiar, Kingdom Battle is essentially the classic card game War, but with some added math and action cards. A variety of math skills are necessary in many modern board games, allowing young players to hone their skills through “sneaky math.” This game, however, is purely educational and was developed by an education company. Unfortunately, that is exactly what it feels like.

Kingdom Battle should feel more exciting than basic War, but it doesn’t. We found ourselves rarely using the action cards during our turns, mostly because they either didn’t feel needed, or felt cumbersome or simply not fun to play.

It’s important to note that the action cards are very text-heavy, which could cause problems for younger players. (We also noticed a significant typo with the spelling of one of the card titles.) There are player aid cards, but these are also extremely text-heavy and written in paragraph form, rather than helpful bullet points.

The rule book is generally easy to follow but contains a great deal of extra information about the classes of characters and their magic type. None of this information is needed for game play, so reading the rules made the game feel like it was going to be a bit more than what it was.

We love playing games with our third grader that help her develop new skills but prefer games that do it in a shiny and fun package we all enjoy.

While I could see this game on the shelves of a classroom as a free time activity, for most board gaming families this game is a miss.

But, if you want to try it out, find Kingdom Battle on Amazon.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Kingdom Battle for this review from Mind Inventions.

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