Victory & Honor is a complex trick-taking game by Talon Douds, published by Jolly Roger Games.
Players: 4
Playing Time: 60-90 minutes
Difficulty: 5 (of 10)
The Components
Victory & Honor comes with:
- 52 cards
- 16 wooden cubes
- 4 battle line boards
- 1 rulebook
Cards: The cards are all printed on medium cardstock with a slight gloss. They have rounded corners too.
40 of the cards, 10 each in four suits (red, green, gray, and yellow), are regiment cards. Each shows a unique photograph from the Civil War and also contains a scroll at the top left showing the card's rank. 7 of the cards in each suit are labelled 1-7 with icons nearby marking special cards. The top three cards in each suit are all generals, marked with either one, two, or three stars. Overall the cards are thematic, though a bit dull due to the black & white photographs. A Civil War buff would probably appreciate them more than I. However, it is really nice that a different photograph is used on every card.
The remaining twelve cards are honors, used only in an advanced version of the game. Each shows a specific honor (flag, bugle, or drum) against an appropriately colored background for the suit.
Wooden Cubes: Simple wooden cubes, four for each of the four suits (red, green, black, and yellow).
Battle Line Boards: The core of Victory and Honor is the ability to play three tricks at the same time. The battle boards are light cardboard boards which provide spaces to lay out three "flanks" (left, center, and flank). Each battleboard features as its background a Civil War photograph.
Like the cards, each of these photographs is individual and unique. Unlike the cards, they've been sepia toned, which gives them a nice bit of color. The boards each show a location during the Civil War, and I find three of the four quite evocative.
Rulebook: A 16-page black & white rulebook, with rules in both English and German. There are a couple of examples, though I had a couple of problems reading the rules because some rules ended up in the examples (mainly about what to do when no more cards can be played). Eventually I worked everything out.
Overall, the components are of good quality, especially given the relatively low price of the game, and are quite usable. I didn't feel the game had the innate beauty that I look for in my top-rated games, but I still give it a high "4" out of "5" for Style.
The Gameplay
The object of Victory & Honor is to maximize your points by capturing matching sets of soldiers and generals.
Setup: Victory & Honor is a four-person partnership trick-taking game, which means that the first step is selecting partners. Afterward each player gets a "battle line board", to layout his tricks and a set of wooden cubes, to mark the colors of individual tricks.
The game will be played in four rounds of play. At the start of each round of play a player makes sure his battle line board is clear of cubes. He'll be dealt ten cards. Play then begins with a random player (first round) or a player from the losing team (later rounds).
Playing a Hand: As already noted, the starting player has three places to play a card: to either flank or to the center. He starts out by playing one card to one of these three positions. Playing a card does two things: it determines the suit for that position; and it determines who goes next.
Determining Suits. Whenever the first card is played to a new position, every player marks that position with their appropriately colored cube. Afterward, each player who decides to play to that position must follow suit, if they can (though a player may play to any unplayed position if he wants, subject to restrictions noted below). There can only be one trick of each color each hand, which means that three of the four colors will be represented as tricks each time.
Order of Play. If a player plays to a flank, the player to that flank goes next. If a player plays to his center, his partner goes next.
Restrictions on Play. A player can't play a card that would make the next player be someone who's already filled all three of their card positions.
Trumps & Special Cards: There are two further complexities to play: trumps & special cards.
Trumps. As noted above, three of the four colors are represented by tricks each hand. The fourth suit is automatically trump.
Whenever a player cannot follow the lead suit for an individual trick, he instead plays a "sacrifice", which is a face-down card. If this card is trump (which the player will know if trump has already been established by all three tricks being begun, but otherwise will not know), then he has a good chance of winning the trick; else, it's effectively a discard.
Special Cards. Three of the cards are special: scouts (1); artillery (4); and cavalry (7). The scouts allow a player to tell the next player what direction he must play in (as long as it's legal). The artillery and cavalry affect trick resolution (see below). These special effects only occur if the card is played face-up (e.g., not sacrificed).
Ending a Hand: When a player can no longer legally play a card (because every open space on his board leads to a player who is full up), the regular play of the hand ends. Then, starting with that player, each player then consecutively plays all the cards required to fill out his board. (This is usually just 1 or 2 cards total between all the players.)
Determing Victory of Tricks: Now the results of each trick are determined:
Artillery Resolved. Any artillery on a left flank destroys the card on the right flank of the adjacent opponent, and any artillery on a right flank destroys a card on the left flank of the adjacent opponent. The victors immediately capture these cards.
Sacrifices Resolved. Next all sacrifices are displayed. Any trumps revealed automatically take their trick (with the trick going to the highest trump if there are multiples). The trick is removed and all cards given to the winner.
Cavalry Resolved. Any cavalry which were played last to their trick now perform a "flanking" maneuver--they automatically take their trick. All cards are given to the winner.
Remaining Tricks Resolved. Finally, any tricks not resolved by trump or cavalry are resolved normally: the player with the highest card in the led suit wins and takes all the cards.
Now, the new hand begins with the player who won the center of the previous hand (unless the round is at an end).
Ending a Round & Scoring: A round consists of three hands (and thus nine tricks). Each player gets to keep his tenth, unplayed card as if he has won it.
Now each individual player scores his hand. Each individual suit is worth the number of soldier cards (1-7) won in that suit times the number of generals (*-***) won in that suit. Thus a player winning no generals in a suit gets no points, while a player winning three generals gets three points per soldier card he won.
After the individual players have figured out their scores, now partners add their scores together and a new round of play begins.
(If it's not immediately obvious, this mechanism means that players will often try to throw tricks at each other, so that individual members of a partnership can collect together specific suits to earn more points.)
Ending the Game: The game ends after four rounds of play, at which time the partnership with the most points win.
Advanced Game: There's an advanced version of the game which introduces 12 "honors", which are low-value scoring cards for the various suits. You get points for collecting sets of honors. I don't particularly recommend it because the game is already complex enough.
Relationships to Other Games
Victory & Honor is an advanced partnership trick-taking game. The general genre, of course, goes back to classics such as Bridge, Spades, and many more.
Victory & Honor distinguishes itself from simpler trick-taking games in three main ways: three tricks are played simultaneously (which probably makes V&H unique among trick-taking games); a set of cards (generals and soldiers) is needed to score; and certain cards have special powers.
Two games somewhat similar to Victory & Honor, because they meet the latter two criteria, are: Twilight (1997), which requires you to multiply together souls and sanctuaries in final scoring, and which has one special card; and Four Dragons (2004), also published by Jolly Roger, which requires you to collect sets of earth and rain, and which has several cards with special powers.
Of these various advanced trick-taking games, I think V&H is the most complex by far. The changing (per hand) trump requires a lot of very careful planning, as do the special cards (particularly the artillery and the infantry), and you also have to remember a lot of different things: what suits your partner and your opponents are void in; what suits you partner seems to be long in; what suits your partner and opponents hae taken; who has taken generals; etc. Some of this card counting also requires additional levels of strategy (e.g., getting soldier cards to your partner when he already has generals in that color, keeping generals away from a specific opponent, leading suits & forcing trumps that go to your partner's strengths, etc.)
The Game Design
Victory & Honor is a very cleverly design card game that gives a lot of room for thoughtful strategy & tactics that you could not find in a standard trick-taking game. I have no doubt that a player who regularly played this game would be able to make very meaningful choices at almost every point of the game.
However, Victory & Honor is also very complex. You have to keep track of multiple levels of strategy (not just the three tricks, but also how the three tricks can be won in four different ways: high card, trump card, cavalary, due to artillery assassination). And, beyond that, to play well you have to do a lot of card counting, knowing fairly well what every other player has taken and also where exactly all the voids and long suits are. This all makes V&H a very brain intensive game.
Victory & Honor exceeded my personal definition of fun (where previous Jolly Roger release, Four Dragons, did not) because it felt too much like work.
However, if you're looking for a highly cognitive card game, and you don't mind some card counting, I think you'll find Victory & Honor clever, innovative, and original. I've given it a "4" out of "5" for Substance.
Conclusion
Victory & Honor is one of the most complex trick-taking games I've ever played, which multiple levels of strategy & interaction. The cognition factor may be too high for many players, but if you're not afraid of a difficult game that you'll have to put some real energy into, Victory & Honor is definitely worth trying out.
Review Summary