Ladies of Troyes

Troyes is a mean game. The central premise is dice placement - rolling dice and using the results to assign actions. The big snag is that other players can buy your dice and you cannot refuse their offer. That lovely six you had all those plans for? Gone because I wanted it, not because I needed it, but because it will annoy you! Actually, that doesn’t often happen as buying dice costs money and money can be in short supply so if I buy a die you can bet I need it. Also, by taking one of your dice I’m leaving mine available for you to buy…

Add to that interesting use for your dice, a surprisingly quick play time where you actually get to do loads of cool stuff and Troyes was a real winner. Step forward the Ladies of Troyes, a modular expansion for the base game.

There are five modules of varying size and complexity to add into the base game. The first adds new Character cards. Character cards are the end game scoring of Troyes. Each player gets one card at the start of the game, which they keep hidden but this card scores for everyone! Module Two contains more activity cards, nine of these appear in every game and provide various options for your dice.

Module Three presents evil event cards that must be combated by at least one player. The fourth module is great, although it is simply a purple die for each player. This die cannot be used by any other player even if they want to, and can be used as a wild for placement purposes. This is great to use for initial games as it makes Troyes a tad more friendly!

Lastly, Module Five adds some different types of activity cards that are added to the board on the ramparts of the existing board design. This provides a new way of getting bonus actions should you be shut out on the board.

All in all, this is a great expansion. It mainly focuses on making the game a little more friendly to newcomers without simplifying things. If you love Troyes this is a no brainer.

Player Count: 2-4
Time: 90 Minutes
Age: 13+