Henchman Hunches

A couple of weeks back everyone was kind enough to let me inflict my embryonic best-selling game Henchman upon them. At some stage I'd like to do it again (not this week!) and have designed a slightly more pleasing board and purchased some lovely meeples to that end, so aesthetically it should be a more enjoyable experience (though in the short term the Henchmen will still look remarkably like my business cards).

I've been mulling it over and come up with some changes:

There are now just four types of Follower, clearly labelled with their type and value:

B (Bishop) - 6

K (Knight) - 5

C (courtier) - 4

S (sentinel) - 3

The followers no longer have a 'specialist area' where they score more (too fiddly I think) and I've scrapped the advisors. Each player starts with one Bishop, one Knight, two Courtiers and two Sentinels, and it'll be possible to generate extra followers during gameplay (the same Followers you start with will be available 'for purchase' - i.e. another Bishop, Knight, and two each of the less valuable pieces).

There are now SIX areas to put your followers in. The Keep, Chapel, Chambers, Cloister and Court all get you influence (ie victory) points, and there are points for finishing 1st/2nd/3rd in these places. Additionally the Court (no matter where you place) gives you the option of trading in money to raise additional followers. Paying for extra followers costs you twice their value PLUS the number of the current round - - so a Bishop costs 12+1 gold to recruit in round one, a Sentinel costs 6+6 in round six, etc.

So how do you generate money?

You raise money by placing followers in the sixth area, the Treasury, and the money they raise is equivalent to their value; so a Bishop in the treasury would get you 6 gold, a Knight would get you 5 gold and so on.

Apart from the Cloister, there are limits to how many followers can go in each area - Keep (10), Court (8), Chambers (6), Treasury and Chapel (4 each).

Placement remains almost as it was when we played; in player order, as many or as few followers as you want (into one area at a time) and you can return to areas you've already placed followers in to add more. EXCEPTIONS: You may only lay ONE FOLLOWER AT A TIME into the Treasury.

I hope this ups the ante in terms of encouraging people to get more followers - I know we played an abridged version last time but it felt like getting more followers didn't help much - with this new system I think if you don't get more followers you might find your early lead would be exactly that, and nothing more.

Oh, and there's a useable dungeon now. I'm returning to my original idea of Henchman cards sending opposition pieces to the dungeon for one round. (Again, this will encourage more followers). So when you play a Henchman card you send your opposing player's LOWEST-SCORING follower in that area to the dungeon.

Henchman cards are still played in turn order, but now they are played ONE AT A TIME - and you can pass. As before, you can play multiple Henchman cards to the same area, and use 2 Henchman cards for one area as a joker to be played into another. When all four players pass the Henchman round is over - so if you pass hoping to see what others do and they all pass too, you CANNOT lay Henchman cards. Mwah ha ha! - etc.

Finally - you can only pick up Henchman cards by playing a Follower into the Cloister. That's where they hang out, see? There'll still be a display of 4 cards face-up at the start of each round, and you can take from there OR the top card on the deck. And there won't be Henchman cards for the Treasury, so your Followers are safe in there!

Finally the King is still around, and he is worth +4 in court and +2 in any area - except the dungeon, where he cannot be placed, and the Treasury, where he will give the HIGHEST SCORING player an extra 3 Gold. If there is a tie for highest scoring player they get an extra 1 gold each. The starting player places the King but DOES NOT lay any followers - he must wait for his next turn.

I think that's it. This is what I'm mooting for the scoring areas (1st/2nd/3rd)

Cloister (unlimited placement): 6/3/1

Keep (max 10 Followers): 8/4/2

Chambers (max 6 Followers): 9/5/3

Court (max 8 Followers) 10/6/4

Chapel (max 4 Followers): 12/7/5

Ties for position share the points (rounded down).

Treasury: (max X Followers): Does not score.

(X: number of players.)

What I'm hoping is there'll be some levels of intrigue to it, and some different ways of winning that aren't just going after the Chapel every time. But only by playing will we truly know...