Best 3 Games with…Robin Hood!

I remember as a young boy being fascinated by Robin Hood. I have memories of watching old movies on the subject and one of my favorites was The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Erol Flynn. I also have enjoyed several other modern classic movies on the subject such as Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) and more recently Russel Crowe’s Robin Hood (2010). Such a great subject with a mix of interesting historical and fantastical elements. These elements make for a really entertaining game as well and we have played a few of these themed games and I want to share my list of the Best 3 Games with…Robin Hood!

3. Sheriff of Nottingham from Arcane Wonders

The first game on this list doesn’t really directly include Robin Hood in the game so this is a bit of a cheat. But, my group loves Sheriff of Nottingham. It includes all the elements we like to see in games including bluffing, deal making and chicanery. No matter how many times we play the game, we always are willing to get it back to the table. I have purchased several small expansions or promo cards since it was released in 2014 including Gambler’s Risk, and love them all as they simply deepen the overall experience by adding new tricks. Sheriff of Nottingham is a bluffing game that can be won by being completely (well at least mostly) honest! Honesty is definitely not the best policy in this game. You take the roles of humble merchants who are trying their hardest to ship goods into the city that Prince John is visiting, all the while trying to fool the Sheriff into not checking (or checking) into the contents of their bags as there might be other more valuable contraband goods contained therein.

Each player also gets several tries at being the Sheriff and trying to find contraband in players bags but be careful as if you open a bag to inspect its contents and it contains what was declared the Sheriff will have to pay the merchant for questioning his integrity. I have owned this game since it came out in 2014 and we have played it nearly 20 times. Each time has been a blast and is very satisfying. I have only won once as I am an honest person and have trouble with bluffing, most of the time. One of the best parts of the game is the concept of bluffing and trying to get away with whatever it is that you are doing. But you don’t have to really lie a lot as I have seen many players win by being pretty straight. But that just isn’t as fun as going for it!

There is an expansion that adds in several more Robin Hood focused elements called Merry Men. These additions are 5 separate modules that can be added to play as well as an option in include a sixth player. The modules include Deputies, which allows for players to search bags at the same time in place of the Sheriff, Merry Men, which adds in character cards that if successfully smuggled will activate with various special abilities, Black Market, which adds in a set of illegal goods cards that can be smuggled in, Laws, which allows the Sheriff to draw law cards that will remain in play for the entire round changing the rules and asking for Special Orders to be filled, which requires that players get through certain combinations of goods that usually involve an illegal good or contraband for extra points. This expansion really ratchets up the chaos, options and the fun level. Sherriff of Nottingham is a great game that is a lot of fun yet has good mechanics and gameplay and takes skill and patience to win. A game that I think belongs in every collection focused on the bandit Robin Hood.

2. Robin Hood and the Merry Men from Final Frontier Games

Our father in law John is a huge fan of anything Robin Hood. He has purchased several games over the years and we have played them at family gatherings and events and most of them have been pretty decent. But, one that he backed on Kickstarter in 2018 was simply fantastic called Robin Hood and the Merry Men from Final Frontier Games.

Robin Hood and the Merry Men is a semi cooperative game set in the Robin Hood folklore that we all know and love. It’s a thematic euro style game that perfectly blends worker placement, hand management, set collection and dice rolling into a grand and enjoyable game. Players take on the role of one of the most famous outlaws in the Merry Men such as Robin Hood, Little John, Will Scarlet and Jane Fortune, and their shared and cooperative goal is the protection of Nottingham from the tyranny of the dastardly ruler Prince John and the notorious Sheriff of Nottingham throughout a full 5 rounds of continual onslaught. If the players succeed in holding off the forces of the Sherriff together then a winner will be declared as the player who was able to amass the most Victory Points through the completion of various objectives and defeating the Sheriff’s henchmen in combat.

The game is made up of 5 rounds and each round consists of two separate phases called the Merry Men Phase and Hero Phase. In the Merry Men Phase, players will work cooperatively to build and set various traps and ambushes to thin out the enemies on the board. In order to stay one step ahead, players have to send their Merry Men pieces to acquire resources and weapons, and lay traps to catch the Sheriff’s army of guards. Assigning Merry Men is done through playing Merry Men Cards that offer variable actions. Also, the players will have to focus on the various carriages of the Prince who are transporting gold taxed from the surrounding villages and you must build barricades on the roads to prevent the heavily guarded carriages from entering the castle.

During the Hero phase, players will send their individual Hero to fight the Sheriff’s guards, ambush and rob the royal carriages of their treasures, enter archery tournaments to score Victory Points and rescue prisoners from the castle’s dungeons. These two phases work together but if too many carriages make it through your traps and barricades the game will come to an end and all players will lose together. This one is a true semi-cooperative game as players who focus too much on their individual goals will find that their lack of attention to the true threats will end the game.

One of my favorite parts of the game was the custom dice and how you had to try to build your dice pool to be able to address the different colors of carriages. Just a really lite and fun game that we played about 5 or 6 times over the past couple of year. This is definitely a game that I would play with our group or family at anytime.

1. A Gest of Robin Hood from GMT Games

As you know, I love the COIN Series and anything associated with it. This new Irregular Conflicts Series is considered COIN adjacent and shares some of the same elements. The 2nd volume called A Gest of Robin Hood is a 2-player game that is set in the world of literature but based on actual events of the time as it covers the bandit known as Robin Hood as he patrolled the Sherwood Forest around Nottingham and attempted to relieve the evil Prince John of the money that he stole from the peasants and give it back to them.

The game is very much asymmetric as each of the sides has different goals and objectives but also have different actions, called Plots & Deeds, that can be used to great effect to change the landscape of Nottinghamshire and plant the seeds of insurrection or pacify the locals and keep them paying those juicy taxes. We have played the game a few times now and have really enjoyed what is it that we are seeing and experiencing. The game is a great entry point into the world of asymmetric gaming and also teaches some of the basic principles of the COIN Series mainly focusing on the Sequence of Play, card assisted framework and diverging player sides with vastly different focus. The game is very approachable but also has a lot of meat to it and is really an interesting experience.

A Gest of Robin Hood is won based on the concept of how much the people of Nottinghamshire embrace the opposing concepts of Justice or Order. The spaces of 5 onward are different colored than the first 4 spaces on each track as these values from 5 to 7 allow for an automatic victory to be earned if either player reaches them during the game. This Justice/Order Track can be manipulated by the play of various Event Cards or through actions such as a Carriage arriving at Nottingham, a Camp being removed by the Sheriff or Robin Hood inspiring the locals to resist.

Players must always keep an eye on the status of the Justice/Order Track. It can snowball very easily and can get out of reach quickly. The player should make decisions about what Plots or Deeds they take each round, or whether to take the effects of an Event Card, based on the status of the Royal Favour Cylinder. If the game can be won or lost by taking a specific action or playing a revealed Event Card, the player would be wise to do so. But keeping this track under control and in your favor is one of the keys to the game and is the 2nd most important aspect to focus on with only the Initiative Track being the most important as it can lead to controlling or manipulating the Justice/Order Track.

This game is so very good and really has all of the elements of the Robin Hood mythos included in it and creates such a fun and interesting back and forth between the players with each having their own set of actions and goals. The game is also pretty simple really but there is a systematic process to properly carrying out the actions as well as a ton of strategy that needs to be learned over many plays to hone your skills and approach to win the game. But A Gest of Robin Hood is a fine example of a game on Robin Hood and will take quite a bit to be unseated in my mind as the best game on the subject.

I have written a series of Action Point posts on the ins and outs of the game and you can read those at the following links:

Action Point 1 – Overview of the Game Board

Action Point 2 – 2-player Initiative/Sequence of Play Overview

Action Point 3 – Menu of Plots & Deeds for the Sheriff

Action Point 4 – Menu of Plots & Deeds for Robin Hood and his Merry Men

We also shot a video playthrough and you can watch that at the following link:

And here are our thoughts in a video review and you can watch that at the following link:

If you are interested in A Gest of Robin Hood 2nd Printing, you can pre-order a copy for $50.00 at the following link: https://www.gmtgames.com/p-1120-a-gest-of-robin-hood-2nd-printing.aspx

Those were my favorite games on the subject and I have played a few others including Robin Hood from Worthington Publishing. I just really love the adventure focus of these games and love being able to attempt daring raids, feats of skill with the bow and fighting the bad guys. Always a blast!

What are your favorite games that focus on Robin Hood?

-Grant