The Duke

The Duke (2013) is an old-world strategy battle like chess but played with character tiles whose abilities both vary and change as they move. You play by choosing a tile to move ultimately aiming to capture your opponent's Duke character, but also whittling down their defences. The twist is that each time you move a piece you flip a tile to reveal alternating abilities.

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Play starts with each player placing their Duke in the middle of the grid with two Footman characters guarding him. Each turn you can either move a Character tile as indicated on the side you can see, or draw a new Character tile from the bag. As you progress a battle evolves with the fifteen different character types.

Moving a tile means you also flip it over to show its reverse. One side is a more defensive posture and the other more offensive. What's clever is that each tile shows you your options on the face-up side with little symbols on a grid. The circle indicates movement, the hollow circle is a jump like a knight, the arrow is a slide like a bishop, and the star is a special ranged attack.

As you become more expert at the game there is a range of special additions. You can place Terrain tiles on the board to have to work around. You can play with additional rules, including a game-controlled Dark Rider character which pits five Pikeman against a lone Knight.

The result is a game similar to chess, but with more complex movement patterns. Although there's a lot to learn and a lot of flexibility, you always know what you can do because the tiles show you. This approachability, combined with the fantasy role-play feel of the game makes it great for children turned off by how Chess can appear staid -- and it may well lead to them trying Chess properly.

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Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked The Duke 23 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 2 days ago.