Guildhall Review

   Guildhall is such an awesomely fun game, I really enjoy it! I've played it with just 2 people and also 4. It worked well both ways.

   When you open the box, you will see this. It has a nice little compartment for your Victory Point cards, your Profession cards, and your Victory Point tokens. This makes set up really easy. No sorting through your cards before you play.

   There are six different professions: the Weaver helps move cards quickly between your hand and your Guildhall, Assassin that kills off your opponents cards, Trader makes it so you can trade cards with your opponents Guildhall, Farmer gets you Victory Tokens, Dancer helps you draw cards and get an extra action and the Historian lets you take cards from the discard pile. They come in five different colors. Red, blue, green, yellow and purple.

 

   There are Victory Point cards that range from two to nine. The number of  pictures of the Chapters on the top of the card is how many it costs to buy the Victory Point card. The two costs one chapter where as the nine costs two. We will talk about chapters later. Some of the Victory Point cards have actions on them. You can use these only once when you purchase the card.

 

   These are your Victory Point tokens

 

   To start, shuffle all of your profession cards and deal nine to each player. Shuffle the Victory Point cards and lay out five where everyone can reach them. Place both decks of cards on the side where everyone can reach. Leave room for a discard pile next to your profession cards. Set the Victory Point tokens out in a pile.

   When you start, you are going to look at your cards. Decide who is going to go first. You can discard cards if you'd like and draw back up to the nine cards. Choose three cards to put in front of you. This is your starting Guildhall. When you play your cards, you can not play cards that match what you already have in your Guildhall. You can play the same profession, but it must be a different color. This is the start up round.

   After you go around and everyone has their three cards in their Guildhall, you begin the game. Each turn consists of two actions. You can: Play one card and do the actions. You may discard any number of cards (including zero) and draw back up to six cards in your hand. You can buy a Victory Point card from the center row. You can do any of the actions twice, counting each time as an action. To purchase the Victory Point card, place your chapter(s) into the discard pile.

    Each profession has their own special actions. Some you can do when you play them and some only work once you already have some in your Guildhall. The numbers on the bottom of the card tells you how many cards you have to have in your Guildhall to use that action. The more of the same profession, the better the action. If it has a 0 you can use it when you play the card, if it has a 2 you must have two in your Guildhall to use that action. You don't have to use the action that corresponds with the number of cards. You can always do a lower one, but never over. When you do an action that gives an opponent a card, it must be a card they can place in their Guildhall, you can not duplicate a card they already have placed. This also means that you can only have one row of each profession. You can also only play one card per profession per turn. Example: you can not play two dancers even if they are different colors.

   Once you get all five colors of your profession, this is called a Chapter.

   You stack up your chapter and lay it face down next to you. You will use these to purchase the Victory Point cards. You may only have up to three Chapters saved. Once you get a chapter and turn it over, you can now start another row of that profession.

 

   The rule book is very clear and easy to understand. They included a chart of what the pictures mean on the cards. Some of the actions make it so you can draw more cards. There is no limit as to how many cards you can have in your hand but if you use the draw cards action, you can only draw back up to six cards.

 

   At the end of your turn, you add up your total number of Victory Points. If you get 20, the game is over and you win!

   This is a fairly easy game to learn and play. It's a lot of fun and one we enjoy playing often. There is a bit of strategy, a bit of luck and a whole lot of trying to knock people down while helping yourself. If you enjoy card games, I think this one is a must have!