Cover Your Assets

There isn’t a story set up for Grandpa Beck’s Cover Your Assets but if I was to make one up that fits the theme perfectly I would say it is like when a family all start fighting over who gets Nan’s jewels after she has sadly passed on.

This is essentially a set collection game with a ‘take that’ mechanism that can be played in just 20 minutes for two to six players. The question is does this game get stored in the safe like a precious jewel or taken to the charity shop like that record no one has even heard of? Read on to find out.

Get Your Hands Off My A$$ets

The game is primarily designed for four to six players but there are good variations for two or three players. For this part of the review I will focus on the standard game and then I will discuss what is different with the lower player counts later on. I have played the game at all player counts and I do prefer it at the maximum of six.

In Cover Your A$$ets you want to collect pairs of assets and use them to cover over other pairs of assets as quickly as possible. This is because any assets at the top of your pile are likely to be attacked by the other players and could be stolen.

You shuffle all of the assets to form a draw pile. Then each player is dealt five cards. A card is turned over to form a discard pile and the game is ready to begin.

On your turn you must carry out one of three possible actions. The first of which is forming a set by pairing two cards from your hand, pairing a card from your hand and the top card of the discard pile, or pairing cards by using one of the wild cards (silver or gold). Once you have selected your paired assets you place them in front of you face up so that all players can see what cards you used (wilds are always placed below the actual assets). Any future assets you pair up will be placed on top of the previous set at a 90 degree angle so that each set of assets is stacked independently.

The second possible action is to discard a card from your hand to the discard pile. The final possible action is to challenge (attempt to steal) a set of assets from another player. You can only ever attempt to steal the top set of assets from another player and only after you have placed at least one set yourself. You can also never steal the first set of assets a player has placed.

When you attempt to steal an asset from another player you place an asset matching the set you want to steal (or a wild) in front of the player you are challenging. The player can defend themselves by playing another card from their hand either matching the asset or a wild. You can then counter that by playing another card yourself. This continues until one player gives up or cannot play any more cards. The winner takes all of the cards and places them on top of their asset pile (at a 90 degrees angle over the previous assets).

This newly won or defended pile of assets will be highly sort after and you may find yourself having to defend your assets several times before your next go, so careful planning of when to use your best cards is important.

At the end of your turn you draw back up to five cards and the next player takes an action.

The game continues like this until the draw pile is empty and then each player must continue pairing, discarding and challenging each other until all cards have been played.

At the end of the round you add the value of all of your cards to get a total. This part of the game can be quite boring and will take a little time if you have won a lot of challenges.

The game has several suggestions for different game lengths such as playing rounds until one player gets over $1,000,000 or playing just one round and seeing who has the high score. I certainly prefer to play just one round and to see who has won.

Two Or Three Player A$$ets

The game can be played by only two players with just a few changes to the set up and rules. You need to remove all eight cabins (assets), two silver and one gold card. Then you create three draft piles of ten cards each and flip over the top card of each pile. Finally each player gets a hand of six cards. The rest of the set up is the same with a draw pile and discard pile.

When playing with only two players you have a new action you can use which is draft a set. With this action you can form a set by combining a card from your hand with one or more matching cards from the three draft piles. However when you attempt this your opponent can challenge the set and try to steal it away from you. This plays out the same as the normal rules with the winner taking the prize. Once this has been resolved flip the next cards from the used draft piles.

When playing with three players you use all of the cards and each player only has a hand of five cards. The other change is the draft piles which are placed in-between each player. You may only draft from one pile at a time and it must be from either piles next to you. Only the player sitting next to the pile you draft from can challenge you.

Does My A$$et Look Big In This

This is a very simple take that game which will either be a hit with your gaming group or fall flat. I have found Cover Your Assets to be fun for a short while but not one that I will be rushing back to play over and over again. The scoring of cards at the end of each round is boring (especially at the lower player counts as each player has so much more to count) and I wish there was a more elegant way of doing it. I appreciate the fact that the game includes advanced rules and the changes for two or three players.

For the price point you can’t go wrong for an evening’s entertainment but I would say if you are in the market for a small card game in the filler category you should go for Grandpa Beck’s Gnoming A Round as it has a lot more re-playability and a much sillier theme.