Unhappy King Charles!
A game for 2 players designed by <PERSON> B ook of R ULES
Intended to be
A T RUE and E XACT
Relation of
His Majesties
W ARRE upon
the C OMMONS
This work perfected by
<PERSON>, London”
— From the front page of the Unhappy King Charles! rule book.
Introduction
I usually review newer games, but every once in a while I feel compelled to pull out one of my favourites from the shelf and give it a fresh look. This one is still in print and in stock at GMT, and I feel that it's somewhat of an under appreciated gem in the card driven game genre.
The English Civil War is a topic that hasn't seen a huge number of games, and that's a shame because it came during an interesting transitional period in warfare. You can play some of the specific battles from this conflict in the first of the Musket & Pike series, .
Unhappy King Charles! is a strategic level card driven game that takes you through the English Civil War, either as the Royalists or those pesky upstart Parliamentarians. You'll need to be crafty, clever, and perhaps most importantly, quick as your armies seem to not want to stay around.
Components
Unhappy King Charles comes with a paper map of England (and Wales and Scotland) with areas connected by point to point movement. There is a separate rulebook and playbook, a deck of 110 cards divided into early, mid, and late war, player aid cards for both sides, and two sheets of counters.
I have added two packs of bingo chips in blue and orange to my copy to place on towns rather than the included markers because my knowledge of British place names is limited to the major cities most people will be familiar with. The bingo markers let me read the city names more easily.
Photo credit: <PERSON>If I had the opportunity I'd get the map printed on canvas. It's one of the lovelier ones among the wargames in my collection. The cards, although completely fine, are on the thin side - not quite as thick as the ones that came with the first run of Combat Commander: Mediterranean for instance. However, they have a nice linen finish to them and have held up well for me over the years.
Rules and Game Play
As mentioned in the introduction, this is a card driven game, but unlike the most common model where you have to choose between operations and events, this deck is split between events and operations cards. Some of the events are playable by either side, but some can only be played by the owning player's faction, and if you end up with some of these in your hand you can only use them for a limited set of things. The deck is never reshuffled so if an event you really wanted doesn't get into your hand, then tant pis. 92
Or as the designer puts it himself, the event still happened, it just didn't have the same impact in the game as it did historically.
Speaking of history, this game is unusual in that it includes some so-called alternate history cards containing events that didn't actually happen but were entirely possible. For instance, there's a card featuring <PERSON> and his army that can enter the game on the Royalist side. I really feel this adds a nice nuance to the game as it inserts a little bit of "what if?" without really affecting the narrative flow of the game.
The game lasts until either the end of winter 1645 (the 11th and final turn of the game), or an automatic victory occurs. For the Parliament player, this means forcing King <PERSON><PHONE_NUMBER> (the 11th and final turn of the game), or an automatic victory occurs. For the Parliament player, this means forcing King Charles to surrender. For the King, it means seizing London and also controlling three areas on the map.
The map is split into five regions. The south, the Midlands, Wales, the north, and east. Each area has a number of towns, and these towns will need to be controlled as part of each player's political base. There are also some areas on the map that are designated as industrial areas, such as the Northumbrian Coal Field and the Forest of Dean. Having control of at least one area like this is necessary or else you will not be able to recruit any troops, and that can quickly send your side into a death spiral as troops are both hard to come by and harder to keep in the field.
The game is split into three phases - the early, mid, and late war. Each phase has a mandatory event card that kicks off that era. The early war will see posturing and build up by both sides on the first turn until someone plays Raising the Royal Standard marking the start of armed conflict. 597