Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King

No Peeking!

Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King is a tile laying game with light Euro elements to it.  Players select one of the major Clans from the Isle of Skye; Clan Mac Leod, Clan Mac Donald, Clan Mac Neacail(Nichol), Clan Mac Kinnon, and Clan Mac Innes.

Each player is given a privacy screen, Axe Token, 5 Pound Stirling, and a Castle Tile.   In the Isle of Skye scoring is done at the end of each round.  On the scoreboard there are four slots A through D.  In each round one or more section is combined in the scoring.  eg. round 1 A, round 2 B, Round 3 A and C etc.  There are 16 goal tiles in the game providing a huge amount of re-playability.

After the scoreboard is prepared and starting with the first player, they each draw three game tiles from a cloth bag and place them in front of their privacy screen.  What happens next is players will evaluate their three tiles and select one to discard by putting the Axe Token in line with the tile, but behind the privacy screen so no other player can see which one.  For the last two tiles you will then set a price for each tile based on the money you have in your bank.  This works two ways, after the reveal of the privacy screen in the next step.  Players in order have a chance to purchase a tile from another player.  You then get to keep the money you used to set the price plus the payment from the other player.  Otherwise if no one buys your tile you then get to keep the tile but the price you set goes to the bank.

Ok, back to the reveal.  Once the screens are lifted all game tiles that had an axe behind it immediately go back into the cloth bag and purchasing begins.  Once everyone has completed their purchases the building phase begins and you lay your new tiles into your kingdom matching terrain types.  eg. lake to lake, field to field.  Roads do not need to connect but they have another purpose.  There are whisky barrels on some of the tiles connected to the road.  your income grows each time a whiskey Barrel connects back to your castle via the road.  

So back to the purchasing mechanics to the game.  Part of the strategy is pricing the pieces you want to block other players from getting or if you can spare it give it the axe right away and block them entirely.

The other neat mechanic in the game is that the last player in ascending order is given catch up gold beginning in the 3rd round.    It helps to keep the game close and newer players in the action to till the end.

The game is a lot of fun and a good intro into Euro style games.