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Khan
Author: Christward Conrad
Publisher: White Goblin Games / Huch & Friends
Year: 2010


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The moody cover illustration leaves nothing to be guessed at: we are going to have a bash with the neighbors! Because they have things we also want, and we would (not) be mongols if we wouldn’t demand these from them. Our weapons: yurts. Eh, what? But these are just tents! We in fact conquer areas by living there? Oh well, it happens before our eyes nowadays, so this isn’t that weird after all.

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The mapboard show the various biotopes where the different rulers are currently domiciled in; these must go because we want to move in! Each turn a player first draws a card to see which ruler of which colour is displaced, and help him a bit further on his escape route; the card shows a compass rose to determine the direction. Where the ruler initially stood, a black neutral tent is placed that is taken from the quarters of the affected ruler. After this a player may perform two actions; mostly he will place a tent in his colour by playing the card for it. An ensuing action could be to claim several adjoining tents with an area tile.

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Several land and bridge tiles of various shapes and size are in a supply next to the board; the tiles score relative to their size. Tents of other players may be overbuilt, but when a player has a majority of tents in het claimed area, only this player scores; in the event more players share a relative majority, all score. Neutral tents do not count when determining a majority, and this comes in quite handy as it takes a player less placement of his own tents to claim a large area. A tent in the players colour is placed on top of the area to signify its ownership.
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Players can play special cards each has been dealt at the start of the game. These very from doing a third action, useful to quickly claim an area before the other player does, to prohibite overbuilding neutral or a player’s tents for one round.

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After playing cards a player refills his hand to four; because of this possible card luck a player may make just a single action where he may place a tent anywhere on the board and discard any or all of his cards and refill. Because this is the only action he can make, he cannot claim an area by making a second action

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When there is only one tent remaining in the quarters of a ruler, after a last displace action he is taken from the board and exchanged for the last tent. When five rulers have been displaced this way, the game ends after a last claim phase and each player’s score is calculated. There is a bonus for the first three largest connected areas scoring an additional ten, six or three points.

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Khan has a rich and colourful execution, but when playing it soon reveals itself as a dry and abstract placement game with little depth. We place chits and claim areas; it feels a bit like playing 'Go' on a pimped board of 'Tactics II'. By the way, we saw the placing of chits and subsequent claiming and placing tiles on top of these already a few years ago in ‘Die Säulen von Venedig’/‘The Pillars of Venice’.

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Khan will be liked by players who like abstract placement games and like to puzzle a bit; it certainly is not a bad game, only: there is nothing new under the sun, and because of this it feels a bit outdated. Players who rely on the bellicose appearance on the box and expect to reside in a barracks will be deceived as they unexpectedly linger in a righteous rattan interior: a basket of walnuts on the left, the newspaper stand on the right, while players who like the more abstract games unsuspectingly walk by. It is a pity that with ‘Khan’ the author of the still with pleasure played ‘Pfeffersäcke’ unfortunately was not able to match this master piece.
© 2010 Richard van Vugt

Khan, Christward Conrad, White Goblin Games, 2010 - 2 to 4 players, 10 years and up, 60 minutes


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