Cube Quest!

Not sure how much this'll get played on a GNN night but I thought it was worth flagging up as so many of us have kids now - who will love it - and the rest of us are fairly childish, so we'll love it too. I picked up Cube Quest from Board Game Guru for £20, and in the 24 hours since it came out of the box it's been played eleven times* already!

The game takes place over two play mats. Each player has a set of cubes - one king, 12 'Grunts' and 4 'Strikers'. Both start with their king in the castle (illustrated on the mat) and surround him with their other cubes, which are tasked with both defending him and trying to wipe the opponent's king out - by knocking him off the play area.

On your turn you simply have one flick of one cube - if you knock any of your opponents or your own cubes off the board, they're out of the game. If your cube comes to rest on your opponents' mat - their territory - then you need to do a 'release roll' for it: roll the cube in question and if it lands face-up (as the Strikers mostly do) it can stay. If it lands 'shadow-side' up (as the Grunts usually do) then it's been captured and is out of the game.

©Withnails liver

That's it. Your one other option is to pick up your King (who can't be captured as he doesn't have a shadow side) and place him anywhere in your castle, which is instead of a flicking move.

It's dead simple then (though there is an advanced game where some other cube options are available to you) but you can play in different ways - hedging your bets, picking off your opponents as they approach, or going hell-for-leather flicking forwards, causing as much carnage as possible. You can be vastly outnumbered but win with a well-aimed flick. You can set up the cubes at the start in whatever formation you wish - spread thinly, or stacked up in walls, or just simply dumped on the mat in a big pile. A game takes 5-10 minutes. I recommend it!

*Joe beat me 3-2 yesterday, then Stanley and I played last night and Stan won 2-1. Little Joe and Stan played this morning and Stan won again 2-1.