Divide and Conker at Tabletop Gaming Live

We played Divide & Conker at Tabletop Gaming Live today. It’s a lovely little four player game that hangs on the English tradition of getting a conker, putting a shoelace through it and then bashing it against other conkers In a bid to be last one unbroken.

Just like in real-life, you can use all kinds of strategies to improve your chances. You can bake your conker, use a stronger lace and whatnot. Once you’ve picked your contender you take it down to the park to do battle. Then, in the course of series of dice-powered rounds you discover what you are really made of. In my case it wasn’t much. Oh well.

A lot of the fun comes from the beautifully illustrated cards, the wacky weapons and the different conker personalities on show, but the underlying gameplay is nicely structured too. If you fancy a game where you can really take it out on your opponents and where a lucky streak can suddenly turn the tables, then you will love it.

Oh, and the gaming show was wonderful. It was at Doncaster Racecourse, which turned out to be a splendid venue. Just the right balance of interesting stalls and space to play with your newly acquired games. I hope they run it again next year. If they do, we’ll be there with our conkers at the ready…